Climbing Climate

“Continued flooding, Hurricane Sandy, more severe storms, droughts, the polar bears [are] expected to be the first large mammal to go extinct from climate change, and that’s just a start,” Environmental science teacher James Lockard said. “So the fact that we still can’t seem to get it through our heads that we really are faced with an inconvenient truth that carbon dioxide does warm up the planet, it’s just frustrating as a science teacher.”

These are some of the issues and frustrations relating to climate change that Lockard expressed. The World Meteorological Organization figures show the global temperature is 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (before 1850). After 1850 humans started the industrial revolution, using machines that increase the planet’s heat. The temperature this year will set a new high for the third consecutive year.

The Earth was only three degrees Celsius warmer than an ice age during the pre-industrial levels, making the difference of a few degrees impactful. The United Nations reported that 2016 is likely to be the hottest year to date on Nov. 14.

The heat increase is something that’s affected East students lives. This year the cross country team’s Pumpkin Run was cut short due to the heat. Senior golfer Jessica Parker explained that this year’s heat caused girls to almost pass out in the fall for the first time in her golfing career. Parker believes that the issues golfers are dealing with is because of recent climate change.

The WMO explained that the temperatures have risen due to the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases are gaseous compounds that are able to absorb radiation, which traps heat. Without the greenhouse gas effect, the earth would freeze solid. Even though the greenhouse gas effect is essential for the Earth to function, it can also hurt the Earth when humans add too many gases to the environment, causing overheating.

The heat increase is part of climate change and is discussed in East science classrooms because it affects the human population. Lockard explained that excess CO₂, a greenhouse gas, is a leading cause in the long term warming effect. Because the planet’s limit of carbon dioxide has been exceeded in recent years, and will remain over the limit, there’s more importance to what will happen to the earth because of the overheating CO₂ causes.

“We are bumping up that greenhouse effect at such a rapid rate that the planet’s climate system can’t handle it, and it is most dramatic at the poles and that’s were all the ice is,” Lockard said. “You melt the ice, you raise sea level and it’s just like adding ice cubes to your drink, eventually it’s going to spill over.”

Senior Katie Crossette explained that climate change has caused discussion amongst her friends. For Crossette, the warm fall and winter weather has heightened her fear of what will happen to the earth.

Crossette has always been interested in environmental issues, but she became increasingly interested in global warming when she realized that there would be drastic changes made to the environment within her lifetime after watching an informative documentary, “Cowspiracy.”

Crossette and her friends see atrocities like Hurricane Sandy, whose intensity is heightened from heat increase, with no tangible progress towards fixing climate change. After researching, she found out that with heat increase there’s more possibility of death from air pollution and for infectious diseases to increase like dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral disease that causes fever, headache, and possible, dangerous drops in blood pressure.

For those who are worried about their carbon footprint in the environment, Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering at Rice University, Daniel Cohan, laid out advice to make a difference on a personal level. Regarding diet, shifting away from beef and towards a vegetarian diet will help reduce one’s carbon footprint since the beef and agricultural industry pollute the environment.

“In terms of what you drive if you can get the most fuel efficient car or if there are ways to drive less,” Cohan said. “How you power your home, buying wind and solar electricity would make a difference.”

Greenhouse gases are expected to continue to rise every year, following the trend of the past three years, according to Cohan. The long term trend is going to increase because humans keep adding CO₂ and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Cohan explained that the warming will have negative effects on the earth. While the warm air will increase flooding, the increased evaporation will cause droughts in the Midwest, creating issues with crop-growth.

Cohan explained that the media makes it tougher to mobilize people, and act on environmental issues because it has to give two sides to issues. Some of this uncertainty has caused the delay in dealing with environmental issues. While heat increase has occurred for over a century, the first global meeting to discuss how to tackle climate change happened this year: the Paris Agreement.

The agreement’s goal is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees C. The agreement also wants to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.

Cohan has identified problems with the agreement. The earth has already warmed up more than one degree C, so to keep warming below 1.5 C is virtually impossible. The United States has agreed to a 26 percent emission reduction by 2025. Cohan said that while the U.S. is on a good path, many science policy makers are saying that we need to cut emissions in half globally by 2050. Since populations of countries like China and India are growing so quickly, that means the U.S. and other developing countries would have to cut their emissions by 80 percent.

Cohan explained that the plan is ambitious. The White House released a blueprint of how they will emit less carbon: switch from natural gas and coal over to solar wind and geothermal sources.

Even though the U.S. has made these plans to uphold the Paris Agreement, Cohan explained that the president elect Donald Trump doesn’t want the U.S. to stick to their commitments. On Trump’s Twitter, he claims that climate change is a hoax, and The Guardian reported that Trump would “rip up” the 2015 Paris deal, and halt any U.S. taxpayer funds for the U.N.’s global warming programs. If the U.S. doesn’t participate, Cohan said, it’s uncertain if the goals of the Paris Agreement will be fulfilled.

Cohan is concerned with the United States ability to make the changes the White House has laid out, due to a lack of awareness among many people. Cohan explained that most scientists are on the same page: human emitted greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are heating the world up, causing environmental issues. But because the media gives two sides to climate change, Cohan said, it leads people to think the issue is ambiguous.

“The level of scientific literacy in the country is pretty low,” Cohan said. “Public awareness and public opinion is needed to drive the right actions and it will be crucial to get better awareness.”