TIME IS RUNNING OUT
TIME IS RUNNING OUT
NORMALLY our planet's atmosphere helps us out.
To understand the SCIENCE behind climate change, we must first recognize the unique nature of the earth’s atmosphere and its relation to the energy of the sun. Our atmosphere regulates the heat on the earth’s surface by 1) shielding the earth from extreme heat from the sun and 2) trapping the heat emitted from the earth’s surface, which keeps us warm.
What is the greenhouse effect?
When sunlight reaches the earth, some of the energy is reflected back into space. Some of it is absorbed and re-radiated as heat. Most of the heat is absorbed by greenhouse gases and is reflected in all directions, warming the earth.
(credit: NASA Global Climate Change)
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In more detail…
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When greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide build in the atmosphere, they act like a blanket around the earth. When sunlight (short-wave radiation) hits this blanket, it passes straight through and continues until it reaches the surface of the planet.
The earth then absorbs this sunlight and emits a different type of light, infrared radiation, back out to space. As it leaves the atmosphere, the infrared radiation also hits the greenhouse gas blanket. Most of it goes straight through, but some of it is absorbed and goes back down to earth. This traps the infrared radiation and causes the surface to heat – a process we call the 'greenhouse effect.'
It is crucial to understand that the greenhouse effect is critical to life on earth. Without a blanket of greenhouse gases trapping in heat, the temperature would be bitterly cold, and humans would be unable to survive. However, by our adding extra greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, humans have created an enhanced greenhouse effect.
The greenhouse gas blanket is now thicker and is absorbing more infrared radiation than before. In other words, the greenhouse effect is stronger and instead of keeping the earth at a stable temperature, it is causing the planet to heat up.
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(credit: MET. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government License v1.0)
THE PROBLEM is (and 97% of scientists agree) the atmosphere is more energized due to the use of fossil fuels.
WHAT are the scientists telling us?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 1,300 independent scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded: "It’s human activities that are warming our planet."
(credit: NASA Global Climate Change)
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HOW are humans changing the climate?
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Burning fossil fuels produces energy, but also releases greenhouse gases. Fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal contain carbon dioxide that has been “locked away” in the ground for thousands of years. When we take these out of the land and burn them, we release the stored carbon dioxide into the air. Over time, large quantities of these gases have built up in the atmosphere.
The level of carbon dioxide today is higher than at any time in the past 800,000 years. This has caused global temperatures to rise, resulting in long-term changes to the climate. "Climate change" is the long-term shift in average weather patterns across the world.
(credit: MET. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government License v1.0)
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25% ELECTRICITY
CO2 is the main by-product from burning coal, natural gas, and oil when we produce electricity.
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21% INDUSTRIAL EMISSIONS
Large scale industry uses a lot of energy. 2/3 comes from burning fossil fuels on site for energy. 1/3 comes from natural gas and oil leaks and the use of fossil fuels as a chemical reaction to produce cement, iron and other substances.
14% TRANSPORT
Most of the emissions from the “combustion process” in internal combustion engines are from using gasoline and diesel on road, rail, air, and sea.
6% BUILDINGS
The burning of fossil fuels for cooking and heating.
24% AGRICULTURE & LAND USE
The vast majority comes from deforestation. When a tree is cut down, it is either left to rot, or it is burned, meaning that the carbon it once stored is put back into the atmosphere. Modern agricultural practices are also responsible for large quantities of greenhouse gas emissions (nitrogen dioxide and methane).
10% FOSSILE FUEL EXTRACTION, REFINING, PROCESSING & TRANSPORTATION
(credit: Farija, M. G. A Layman’s Guide to Climate Change, 2018)
WHERE are the greenhouse emissions coming from?
WHY are greenhouse gases "heat absorbing" and making the climate more energized?
Why is it that oxygen and nitrogen don’t absorb heat while carbon dioxide and methane do? Heat is the vibration or jiggling of particles and atoms. Molecules of oxygen and nitrogen (the two most abundant gases in our atmosphere) are made up of two atoms. It is because they bond so tightly that they are unable to jiggle and thus unable to absorb heat. Molecules with three or more atoms are more loosely connected and so can shake and absorb heat. Carbon dioxide has three atoms – one carbon, and two oxygens. Methane has 5 atoms – one carbon, and 4 hydrogens.
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Greenhouse gases absorb energy in the form of heat. This has created a global energy imbalance. This means that the amount of energy inside of the world’s climate is increasing and will continue to increase until the amount of energy coming into the Earth and the amount of energy leaving it are equal. The world’s climate is now more energized than it once was and will continue to get more energized in the future.
(credit: Farija, M. G. A Layman’s Guide to Climate Change, 2018)
With the climate HEATING UP & the atmosphere more energized, look what's happening already!
Our last 5 years on the planet have been the HOTTEST in recorded history.
And, the last 10 years have been the most DISASTER-FILLED!
OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
1/3 of the carbon that we emit ends up in the ocean and forms carbonic acid. This is gradually becoming devastating to our coral reefs and giant kelp beds — two of the most productive ecosystems on the planet; systems that feed over a billion people.
EXTREME WEATHER & CLIMATE DISASTERS IN THE U.S.
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Within the last 10 years the number of billion dollar disasters (drought, flooding, severe storms, hurricanes, and wildfire) has doubled from the decade before:
1980-1989 : 29 billion dollar disasters
2010-2019 : 119 billion dollar disasters (44 of which were in the last 3 years!)
(credit: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information)
In Australia, 2019 - 2020 was the most devastating fire season in history, overtaking 27 million acres of land — with over a billion animals lost! Residents actually witnessed dead birds falling from the sky.
FIRE STORMS
Unlike the past, California’s fire season is now the whole year long. As temperatures rise, dry soil creates increasingly flammable vegetation, adding to a fire storm’s intensity and its uncontrolled spread. In the past 5 decades, California fires have increased 800% in size. 2018 and 2020 were the worst fire storm seasons on record!
THE SOLUTION IS YOU!
The IPCC* scientists are now reporting that we have JUST 10 YEARS to reverse climate change!
“The planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius as early as 2030, precipitating the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people.”
*The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations that is dedicated to providing the world with objective, scientific information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of the risk of human-induced climate change.
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“While climate change impacts have already begun to manifest, the more extreme implications are still not yet upon us and will only come to pass if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the rate we are currently emitting them today.
… the technologies needed to shift us towards a carbon-free future already exist and must be deployed with great haste if we are to mitigate our impacts on the globe’s average temperature.
The scale and magnitude of climate change’s impacts on humanity will be directly proportional to the scale and magnitude of our actions within the coming years. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and moving towards more sustainable practices is, without a doubt, humanity’s most important mission …
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Climate change is no mere environmental problem. It is a wicked environmental, economic, political, and social problem that can only be tackled through the rapid deployment of carbon-neutral alternatives at a breakneck pace. The burden of creating the sort of pressure required to force the hand of policymakers cannot remain only upon the heads of environmental activists. Anyone who understands the severity of the issue has a moral responsibility to draw attention towards it. This burden now falls to you."
(credit: Farija, M. G. A Layman’s Guide to Climate Change, 2018)
