Climate change a stealthy thief

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OP21. The 21st session of the Conference of the Parties saw over 190 nations send leaders and delegates to Paris to address climate change.

Given the return of Star Wars this week, part of me wants to say something like: “It is our only hope.”

Only to have Obi Wan reply: “No. There is another.”

Certainly the rhetoric around the conference makes it sound like this is the final push… the last great hope for saving mankind and the planet… our moment of judgement on the stage of history.

Of course, COP21 is important but the way some news channels told it, we were doomed if an agreement wasn’t reached. In point of fact, I would suggest we are doomed even though an agreement was reached!

We have committed ourselves to a path that will ultimately see the world’s average temperature rise 2.7 degrees by the end of the 21st century compared to pre-industrial times.

That is two degrees more than we have seen so far and climate change is already having an impact.

Thirteen of the 14 warmest years on record have been recorded since 2000.

This year is on pace to set a whole new record.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, as measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory, have set a new high.

Our yearly average is now over 400 ppm compared to 280 ppm prior to the 1850s. The concentrations of other greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, continue to rise as well.

Arctic sea ice is shrinking with an area roughly 10 times the size of the U.K. already lost compared to the aver- age levels in the early 1980s.

We didn’t have the technology to accurately measure the arctic ice pack prior to the early 1980s, but if we did it would certainly show that both the maximum and minimum coverages are decreasing. This is certainly consistent with the oral traditions of the Inuit and other northern indigenous peoples.

And despite the best intentions of the delegates, the Paris pledges will see the temperature continue to rise throughout the next 100 years. Indeed, it will likely keep rising well past the year 2100 as there is a tremendous amount of thermal inertia involved. What can be done? Part of the problem is the “frog in the pot.”

The idea is that if you put a frog in a pot of hot water, it will immediately jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of cold water and slowly heat it, the frog will stay in the water until it is cooked. This story, by the way, is not true. Frogs are much smarter than that and they jump out of the water when it starts to get too warm. I wonder sometimes if we will.

The issue is that it is not a catastrophe or disaster. We know how to respond to those. An airplane crash, miners stuck in a cave-in, a lost child – we know what to do and we can do it quickly.

But climate change? It is a silent and stealthy thief. It is slowly changing the planet in ways that are not perceptible on a day-to-day basis. You will never

— Marv West see a headline saying: “City of Venice disappears below the waves today” or “Entire state of California dries up and blows away, leaving residents to wonder what happened.” No. It will be a little bit at a time. A few years of drought in California followed by a wet year or two and then a decade of drought with maybe a wet year, but it will happen slow enough that people won’t change their behaviour.

This is the difficulty with discussing climate change. It is slow. It is opaque. It is insidious. And it will eventually change our interaction with the planet. But in the meantime, everything looks just fine. So, what can be done? The answer isn’t about limiting carbon dioxide emissions, but about changing our relationship with energy.

The top 10 greenhouse gas emitters – China 24 per cent, U.S.A. 12 per cent, European Union nine per cent, India six per cent, Brazil six per cent, Russia five per cent, Japan three pre cent, Canada two per cent, Democratic Republic of the Congo 1.5 per cent, and Indonesia 1.5 per cent – account for 70 per cent of the world’s emissions.

Note that we have a population of only 35.2 million people but we produce two per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions, compared to China with a population of more than 1.35 billion and 24 per cent. On a per capita basis, we are right up there with the “big boys”, if not leading the world.

That just means we need to lead the world in changing our energy mix. We need to rethink our energy strategies if we are to be a meaningful partner in solving the climate change issue.

Moving towards sustainable energy systems would be a good first step.