‘We have no time left to waste – climate change is a global crisis’
Dr Cherrie Short argues that the wildfires devastating California are a wake-up call – climate change must be addressed sooner rather than later...
ALTHOUGH I have already written an article some months ago on the issue of climate change, the recent devastating fires in California have dramatically and tragically brought the effects to my own state and community where I live in the United States.
In Northern California, the “Campfire,” fire burned 153,000 acres, destroyed 18,800 structures, and killed 88 people with over 200 people still missing.
In Southern California, the Woolsey Fire burned almost 90,000 acres, destroying over 1500 building and homes and damaging 341.
The intensity and scale of these fires are unprecedented in modern California history, and the Campfire fire is the deadliest fire in California history.
While the Trump Administration has blamed poor forest management for these fires, the true cause is climate change.
Over the past several years, California’s climate has grown dryer and warmer.
More than one million trees have died in the California mountains from drought, and the foliage on large areas of the coastal mountains has withered and died.
The Woolsey fire, which occurred just north of Los Angeles in Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains, was not a forest fire but a brush, grasslands, and urban fire.
Perhaps five years ago people could still comfortably think of climate change as a phenomenon of the future but nothing to especially worry about in the present.
Today, with stronger and intense tsunamis and hurricanes, drenching rain and massive flooding, and devastating fires dislocating communities rich and poor alike, climate change is a clear and present danger and accelerating at an ever increasing pace.
The UK as a whole endured its hottest summer on record in 2018.
Across the pond, after several record-breaking wildfires in California last year, Gov Jerry Brown said the severe fires were the “new normal” for the state and said that years of drought and rising temperatures from climate change contributed to the worsening fire season.
Further west, five tiny Pacific islands have disappeared due to rising seas and erosion, a discovery thought to be the first scientific confirmation of the impact of climate change on coastlines in the Pacific, according to Australian researchers.
The submerged islands were part of the Solomon Islands, an archipelago that over the last two decades has seen extreme rises in sea levels.
A special report released earlier this autumn by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, composed of scientists and convened by the United Nations, described extreme climate conditions by 2040 – a timeframe that will affect most of us alive today.
The panel members predicted worsening social and economic conditions, including food shortages, increasing numbers and intensity of wildfires, along with a massive dieoff of our coral reefs.
While the group of scientists painted a dire picture, they also outlined policies, behaviours, and economic incentives that might possibly produce the rapid changes required to avoid the 2.7 degrees of warming leading to these conditions.
They conceded, however, that the political feasibility of achieving these goals across countries on a global scale is unlikely.
US President Donald Trump told reporters in response to the UN report he does not believe that climate change is a hoax, but that “it’ll change back again”.
When the CNN reporter questioned his stance, referencing the “unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” caused by climate change according to the scientists who wrote the report, President Trump replied: “I think something’s happening. Something is changing and it will change back again. I do not think it is a hoax, I think there is probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s man-made.”
These are not exactly reassuring words for those of us taking climate change for the urgent global crisis that it is, especially as President Trump has ignored his government’s own National Climate Assessment report, issued last October, which also laid out the devastating effects of climate change on the economy, health, and the environment.
My consolation lies in the progress on climate change in other nations, including my home country.
In a recent annual assessment, the Committee for Climate Change stated that UK emissions were 43% below 1990 levels in 2017.
That wonderful step can only help to ensure we meet our goal of reducing our carbon footprint by at least 80% by 2050.
Looking at the whole of Europe, the EU has just endorsed the 2030 climate and energy framework, which outlines a number of key targets and policy measures for the 2020-30 period.
The signing of the Paris agreement by almost all of the countries in the world offers some hope that we can work together to protect our global climate.
Government has an important role to play but only in conjunction with the private and nonprofit sectors, which together can bring about change.
The public sector should invest in basic research to produce clean technologies that reduce the price of renewable energy relative to fossil fuels and in research that transforms waste into usable, clean energy.
Governments should also work across the globe to pass taxes on carbon to account for the billions of dollars of damage it causes to society and the economy and thus encourage a speedier transition to clean energy such as wind and solar.
While we have made a lot of progress in renewable energy in recent years, both in California and the K, we still have a very long way to go.
Climate change is real, it is happening now, and it is going to impact virtually every aspect of our lives, from where we live to what we eat to the kind of work we do.
The wildfires and other natural disasters warn us we have no time to wait: the expected future of climate change is occurring now.
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