The danger posed
to the world by unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases is truly the
greatest story never told. Douglas Fischer: Daily Climate.
Although 2011 was a year of meteorological records,
media reporting on environmental issues followed the downward trend of the past
few years. Global warming and climate change have been steadily sliding off the
radar screen of the popular media in North America.
Andrew Weaver, one of Canada’s best known scientists,
examined climate reporting in 5 daily newspapers. He noted a sharp decline in
the number of articles and editorials published since 2007. Tom Spears of The Ottawa Citizen discovered that
references to Kyoto have dropped off since 2008 when the treaty came into
effect. Not even the recent Durban conference in December on the future of the
Kyoto Protocol generated much coverage.
In the US, media coverage – both print and broadcast –
of climate issues has dropped even more precipitously: down by 42 percent since
2009. Joe Romm, a senior energy official in the Clinton administration, and now
editor of Climate Progress, suggests
that the decline in environmental reporting is driven, not by reporters, but by
editors, which in turn raises other troubling questions about the selection and
impartiality of climate news stories.
More disturbing are claims emerging from the recent
conference of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver
that Canadian government scientists are being muzzled. Even The Globe and Mail lent its support to
the scientists in an editorial, arguing that political and bureaucratic
interference has no place in the world of science. The drop in media coverage
of climate change that has taken place since 2007 appears to have been
accentuated by the restrictive policies imposed by the government.
Fortunately, scientific journals continue to publish
articles that are both evidence-based and peer-reviewed, but unfortunately,
they seldom find their way into the popular press. As a consequence, the public,
denied important current information, remain shielded from the implications climate
change.
However much the media and government policies induce
public indifference and apathy, statistics recording the perils of climate
change keep rolling out:
- Both the International Energy Agency and the Global Carbon Project have confirmed that 2010 set a record for global greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions: a total of 10 billion tonnes. This represents a 50 percent increase in overall emissions in the past 20 years.
- Besides total tonnage, ghg are also measured in parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere. In 1880 the figure stood at 285 ppm and had been constant for 10,000 years. It now stands at 392 ppm – probably the highest level in 15 million years – and increasing steadily.
- Ghgs, whether measured in tonnes or ppm, are escalating rapidly and driving up planetary temperatures. 2011 was the 35th consecutive year since 1976 that the annual global temperature was above average.
- 2001-2010 was the warmest decade ever recorded according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
- 2010 holds top spot for the warmest year on record while 2011 has its own special niche. La Nina currents force cooler water to the surface of the Pacific which in turn moderates global temperatures. 2011 was the hottest La Nina year ever documented.
- The Berkeley Earth Project, the most comprehensive independent review of temperature records, has confirmed the findings of the major climate organizations that average global temperatures have risen by nearly 1 degree since 1950. Rapidly increasing ghg emissions combined with existing accumulations in the atmosphere put us on track to exceed the critical 2 degree threshold well in advance of 2050.
- Global warming is increasing the levels of water vapour in the atmosphere and producing more rainfall. 2010 and 2011 were the wettest years recorded over land.
- 2011 was the hottest year ever in the Arctic. Not surprisingly, the ice is thinning and disappearing faster than anticipated, far faster than the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expected.
- Ottawa has just experienced its warmest winter ever.
- Deforestation is pushing the Amazon basin past a tipping point. For eons the forests have acted as a carbon sink as trees absorbed carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and released oxygen. Cutting, burning and ploughing is now returning huge quantities of carbon to the atmosphere.
- The oceans are on life support. Water temperatures are warming, acidity levels are increasing and sea levels are slowly rising. More ominous is the sharp decline in the phytoplankton, not only an important part of the ocean food chain but critical in the creation of life-sustaining oxygen.
- The Amazon basin and the oceans are the lungs of planetary life. Nature does not do double lung transplants.
- According to the insurance industry, 2011 was the costliest year world-wide in history: $380 billion in losses, mostly climate related. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2011 set a record for the most billion dollar weather-related disasters ever in a single year in the US.
The Secretary-General of the WMO, Michel Jarraud,
summed up the situation in the organization’s annual statement for 2011:
“Climate change is happening now and is not some distant future threat. The
world is warming because of human activities and this is resulting in
far-reaching and potentially irreversible impacts on our Earth, atmosphere and
oceans.”
The pattern is clear: the temperature trajectory is
ever upward and so is the fallout. These statistics are not doom and gloom
prophecies or gratuitous alarmism. Global warming is scientific fact. We can no
longer deny climate reality. “Mother Nature is just warming up,” as a recent
NBC newscast described the freakish winter tornadoes in the US mid west.
The question facing us now is how we respond to the
challenges posed by rapidly changing conditions. We have basically three
choices: inaction, mitigation and adaptation.
Mark Hertsgaard has written on environmental issues
for the past two decades. His recent book Hot:
Living through the next fifty years on earth addresses the problems that
his daughter Chiarra (born in 2005) will face in her lifetime. Hertsgaard
argues that the twin imperatives of the climate battle are reversing global
warming before the tipping points kick in (mitigation) and preparing for the
longer term impacts (adaptation).
Environmentalists have been reluctant to endorse
adaptation, believing that acceptance of the inevitability of climate change
and then actively preparing for the changes is an admission of failure.
Furthermore, they contend that adaptation will divert efforts from the more
urgent task of mitigating the threats to climate stability.
Inaction in the face of conclusive evidence is not an option.
Presented, then, with the dual responses of mitigation and adaptation, the
responsibility of our generation is to mitigate climate change by curtailing
our excessive consumption. Our failure will bequeath to future generations the
greater burden of having to adapt to the changes that we have failed to
mitigate. They will justifiably denounce us for our moral delinquency.
