Global warming is worse than we thought, but it’s not too late for us to act.
You’d have to have been living under a very big rock not to know that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just released its latest report on global warming (PDF), its causes and consequences.
The UK’s Guardian is carrying a good summary under the headline Worse than we thought.
Average temperatures could increase by as much as 6.4C by the end of the century if emissions continue to rise, with a rise of 4C most likely, according to the final report of an expert panel set up by the UN to study the problem. The forecast is higher than previous estimates, because scientists have discovered that Earth’s land and oceans are becoming less able to absorb carbon dioxide.
The report, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is written by hundreds of scientists across the world and has been approved by every government. It leaves little room for doubt that human activity is to blame. Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said: “February 2 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether people are to blame for climate change.”
The report itself said human activity was “very likely” to be responsible for most of the observed warming in recent decades, which means the scientists are 90% sure.
The consequences of this modest rise in global mean temperature will be devastating. Global food production, already at 30 year lows, will drop a further 10% leading to mass famine and consequent political instability. Sea levels will rise by over half a metre, impacting coastal population centres and low countries. In the UK alone 1.8 million people are in greater risk of flooding. Half the Arctic ice will melt and 80% of Europe’s glaciers will vanish. Pests such as disease carrying mosquitos will fan out, carrying malaria to around 80 million more people and exposing over a third of the world’s population to dengue fever. Meanwhile up to half of the world’s land based species face extinction. And if that’s not bad enough many parched parts of the world face the loss of half of their fresh water, while in other parts of the world we can expect storms to increase in strength by 15 to 20%.
Can it actually get any worse? Well probably if we just sit back and do nothing, or just assume there is nothing we can do. Or worse, actively stand in the way of positive action. Take the example of Exxon, who recently announced that it made over AU$50 billion profit last year, largely from profiteering on oil wars and poisoning our planet, and has been trying to bribe scientists with offers of US$10,000 cash for papers critical of the IPCC report.
Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the “overwhelming scientific evidence” on global warming. “It’s a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims,” said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
But all the shills in the world are not going to dent the credibility of the IPCC report, nor are they going to keep the oceans at bay, the glaciers from vanishing, or people taking action themselves.
And it’s not too late for action, but we have to act effectively and we have to act fast.
If you run a business I urge to you commission a carbon emissions audit to measure your footprint and identify the changes you can make to reduce your emissions naturally. And what you can’t reduce, purchase properly certified carbon credits to offset those emissions. Then every year repeat that process. Carbon Planet has built a strong business over the last seven years doing exactly that. We measure your emissions and make recommendations that will naturally reduce your footprint. Finally we source carbon credits for you to suit your needs and enable you to offset what you can’t reduce.
If you don’t run a business you can still do your part. Everyone living in an industrial society contributes to climate change just by living their lives. The TV you watch, the toothpaste you use, those hot showers you enjoy, all cause the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. In the UK that amounts to around 12 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. In the USA it’s closer to 24 tonnes, and in Australia, the worst offender by far, it’s a huge 28 tonnes per year. Carbon Planet offers a very simple way for individuals to offset their average contribution to global warming. You can simply subscribe to a stream of properly certified carbon credits to offset your average greenhouse gas emissions. You can also offset specific things like flights, your car, or simply buy small volumes of credits for whatever reason you like. Many people buy them as gifts. We are the ultimate cause of global warming, and while it is convenient to blame large corporations, it’s we the consumers who let them rape the planet for our pleasure. It’s we who have the moral obligation to clean up our mess. We can’t afford to wait for governments and big business to save us.
But not all offset schemes are credible. Not all offsetters have the skills to measure emissions accurately. And not all offsetters are honest.
What distinguishes Carbon Planet from other, less credible, offsetters is that we have, on staff, a team of people with Ph.D.s, mostly chemical engineers, but a few other disciplines as well such as botany and computer science, and we know how to analyse your business to determine exactly what your carbon footprint is.
And when you buy carbon credits from us you we actually transfer legal ownership of those credits to you. Unlike those dodgy schemes whereby companies ask you for money and give only vague promises to do anything, and in some cases do nothing at all apart from pocket your money. I’ve blogged on this before. These rip-off merchants are the moral equivalent of Exxon in my opinion.
If you are considering going “carbon neutral”, a term I despise for its utter lack of meaning, ask your offsetter the following:
- Do you measure my carbon footprint, and conform to appropriate international emissions auditing standards,
- Do you recommend emissions reduction strategies, and
- Do you transfer legal ownership of any carbon credits, or are you just selling me vague promises?
If the answer to any of those questions is ‘no’ then you are probably not getting what you are paying for. And that’s bad for you, and worse for the planet. - DS
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