The planet will not sustain us if we do not take a serious look at global warming
On April 4, Peter Kalmus was among a number of scientists who changed themselves to a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles in protest of the bank’s funding of the drilling of fossil fuels. In Madrid, protesters threw red paint over the Spanish National Congress. Scientists also protested at the Ministry of Environment in Quito, Ecuador and at the Climate Ministry in Copenhagen. In total, more than 1,000 scientist rebellion activists in 25 countries including Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Colombia, Malawi, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom took part in non-violent actions with many risking arrests.
Dr. Derek A. Zelmer contributed his expertise on this subject by providing some basic vocabulary and digestible explanations:
Climate change tells us that the Earth has been this warm, and even warmer, in the past. The problem with the current warming is not the temperature itself so much as the rate at which the temperature is changing. If we were to drive from here to the beach, we would descend about 500 feet in elevation. Our ability to do so doesn’t suggest that we would be equally fine jumping off of a 500-foot tower. Rates matter.
The rate of temperature change that we see does correlate with the increasing concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere. It is quite correct for people to point out that correlation does not equal causality, but we do understand the mechanism by which increased CO2 concentrations cause warming (and have for some time) and can directly measure the effects.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which means that it is transparent to ultraviolet radiation (UV) emitted by the sun but absorbs the infrared radiation (IR) emitted by the Earth as the result of being warmed by the sun. The slowing down of the IR passing through the atmosphere on its way to outer space causes the atmosphere to retain more heat. Essentially, greenhouse gasses insulate the Earth by not allowing heat energy to leave but don’t protect the earth from incoming solar radiation.
As I mentioned, this effect is something that we can measure. We see the full IR spectrum if we measure what the Earth is emitting at ground level and can measure IR emissions from the atmosphere using satellites. There is a hole in the atmospheric emission spectrum that corresponds to the absorption spectrum of CO2. There also are holes that correspond to the absorption of IR by water. Water vapor is actually a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, which is a problem. Warmer global temperatures will result in an increase in water vapor, creating a vicious cycle.
So where does the sun fit in? The Earth has been quite cold during periods when CO2 concentrations were higher than they are now, [but] solar irradiation also was low. Solar irradiation is cyclic on small and large scales and it is the interaction between the sun and CO2 that determines temperature. Since 1970, solar irradiation has been on the downward part of the cycle. The fact that we are getting less and less solar energy but are steadily warming means that the only explanation is better insulation.
Dr. Zelmer is often asked “whether the increasing CO2 concentrations are the result of human activity” and he stresses that “the answer is a definitive yes. We put more CO2 into the atmosphere than would be needed to raise the concentration at the rate that it is increasing. In fact, one of the big surprises is that there must be CO2 sinks that we are unaware of because based on our activity, the concentrations should be even higher.”
There is now an imminent threat if action is not taken that 15 million more people will be at risk of wildfire each year, heatwaves will cause 90,000 more deaths a year and flooding will affect more than 2 million more people every year. There is an expiration date on the planet and every year we ignore how much closer we push the human race to meeting that fate.
There needs to be a global government response because it is not reasonable to expect every individual to be able to make the costly changes needed to their routine lives to be able to make an environmental difference. If you can afford it, reduce, reuse and recycle, volunteer for community clean-ups, shop wisely, use light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs, invest in solar energy and purchase a used, fuel-efficient or electric car. Demand change; it is now or never.
