Understanding Climate Change: Bite 1.5.1 – It’s Serious.

Bite 4 of this series explained observations that unequivocally confirm that climate change is being caused by us humans.

So, Climate Change is Real and caused by Us, but does it really matter? How serious are the effects? Since temperatures vary enormously across the globe (-80oC to +50oC), and change a lot from night to day, 1.2oC increase doesn’t seem much.

The reality is that in the past 8,000 years or so, the earth’s climate has been relatively stable - at a fine equilibrium, with constant sea levels and only regional temperature variations. Human population has grown from a few million to over 8 billion – and have colonized almost every corner of the globe. But since the start of the industrial revolution we have upset that equilibrium, by changing the energy balance of our climate.

Mike Lynas describes the effects of increasing degrees of warming in his 2008 book (1).

And in his 2020 sequel “Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency” he explains how we are already seeing many effects that he had predicted to see at higher temperatures. The Earth’s climate is far more sensitive to a warming world than expected.

We are already seeing (2):

- Glaciers melting - affecting water supply to millions

- Acidification of the oceans - over 50% of our corals have died (3)

- More extreme weather events:- hurricanes, floods, hot days, droughts…

- Ecosystem migration/extinction - we are entering the 6th mass extinction (4)

- Sea level rise – see next Bite for detail.

- Climate migrants.

Business-as-unusual is predicted to cause a least 3C temperature rise by the end of this century, at a global cost be estimated at $178tn by 2070 (5).

So, it’s serious and is getting worse.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Six_Degrees:_Our_Future_on_a...

2. https://www.noaa.gov/.../climate/climate-change-impacts

3. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/.../the-planet-has-lost.../

4. https://www.science.org/.../are-we-middle-sixth-mass...

5. https://www.deloitte.com/.../deloitte-research-reveals...