October 15th is Blog Action Day and this year’s topic is climate change. I study climate change as part of my Interdisciplinary (Environmental) Engineering Ph.D. program at UAB. I have no doubt that global warming is real. Here's why:
Imagine the weight of an SUV (2.5 tons) in coal. Now imagine burning 1,350,000 "coal SUVs" every day. That is the amount of coal we turn into CO2 (and even worse pollutants) every day. That doesn't even count all the oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels that we burn every day. How can releasing millions of years worth of stored solar energy over a couple of centuries not have side effects?
What kinds of side effects? For starters, around 20% to 30% of plant and animal species are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if global average temperatures exceed 1.5 degree C to 2.5 degree C over late 20th century levels. So why worry about species loss? Each species lost is a loss of genetic information akin to burning the Library of Alexandria. Each species lost not only takes with it a possible cure for cancer and other medical miracles, but also a loss of ecosystem services whose collective value far outweighs the combined value of all human economies. Without the many "free" ecosystem services provided by nature, humans have no clean air, no clean water, and no unspoiled land/capital upon which to live, let alone produce economic goods and services.
Even if the most knowledgeable scientific minds in the world haven't convinced you that global warming is real, there is no doubt about what is happening now in terms of global warming's equally-evil twin, ocean acidifcation. According to the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (UNESCO-IOC),
The ocean absorbs approximately one-fourth of the CO2 added to the atmosphere from human activities each year, greatly reducing the impact of this greenhouse gas on climate. When CO2 dissolves in seawater, carbonic acid is formed. This phenomenon, called ocean acidification, is decreasing the ability of many marine organisms to build their shells and skeletal structure. Field studies suggest that impacts of acidification on some major marine calcifiers may already be detectable, and naturally high-CO2 marine environments exhibit major shifts in marine ecosystems following trends expected from laboratory experiments. Yet the full impact of ocean acidification and how these impacts may propagate through marine ecosystems and affect fisheries remains largely unknown.One example of global warming/ocean acidification that is happening now and not in some theoretical future is the massive and widespread bleaching and loss of coral reefs, the most diverse marine ecosystem. Things are bad now, but according to professor Hoegh-Guldberg of The University of Queensland, under increasing ocean acidification "Coral reefs are likely to dwindle into insignificance; they'll be reduced to rubble, threatening the fate of those tens of millions of people whose livelihoods depend upon them."
Global warming costs human lives directly, as well. World Health Organization researchers believe that global warming is already responsible for some 150,000 deaths each year around the world, and fear that the number may well double by 2030 even if we start getting serious about emissions reductions today. Additionally, nearly 634 million people—one tenth of the global population—live in at-risk coastal areas just a few meters above existing sea levels where they are endangered by the worldwide melting of land-based glaciers.
Global warming costs us in real dollars, too. One of the best guesses at the potential economic costs of climate change came from the Stern Review, commissioned by the UK government. Lord Stern found that climate change could end up costing between 5% and 20% of global GDP per year. But Stern said it would only cost about 2% of global GDP to avoid.
The average CO2 released per human today is 7 tons. The average needed by 2100 to (hopefully) avoid the worst effects of global warming? 1 ton. But it's not just our addiction to fossil fuels that we need to kick. Tropical deforestation accounts for 20 percent of the world’s global warming emissions—more than the total emissions from every car, truck, plane, ship, and train on earth.
We must change our ways, and soon; for we are not simply adjusting the thermostat of Spaceship Earth, we are foolishly dismantling our ship's life-support system.
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