Climate in Crisis
I thought that the worst of the climate crisis would not happen until after I was dead. And I thought that climate models would get better at predicting it. I was wrong on both counts.
I've worried about the environment for over 20 years - I began my BSc in Environmental Studies in 2003. Since that time, climate models have become much more sophisticated, and some theories have come and gone, or changed in importance. I remember when global dimming was said to have affected the monsoons decades ago, and now pollution controls on shipping are said to have reduced dimming and thus to have contributed to this year's weather weirdness.
More is known of the extent to which volcanoes add to dimming now. The typical amount of pollution from all active volcanoes is incorporated in models, and it takes a major eruption to make a difference.
Science is not fixed. The scientist who embraces a theory and then refuses to consider any data that might contradict it is no longer a scientist, however eminent or well paid. Science is the process of questioning, but in a positive way, not the naysaying of climate deniers.
During my lifetime opinions have varied about the extent to which the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current, which warm NW America and Europe, are slowing down, and the consequences. This has made it hard to know whether Britain and other parts warmed by the stream will become warmer along with other parts of the world, or will freeze with a climate more in keeping with their latitude. Work has been done on improving measurements and models.
We have a problem
An article in BioScience by William J. Ripple and Christopher Wolf et al. this week began, "life on planet Earth is under siege. We are now in an uncharted territory". We've been reading about examples of climate change for some time - major storms, droughts and freezes - but this is a whole new ball game.
But there has been an epidemic of Dunning-Kruger effect (to be generous) in recent years, with pundits and politicians spouting dangerous nonsense about the climate, and/or thinking that they can ignore the problem and it won't bite them in the butt (or the butts of their kids, if they have any and care about them). This is fueled by people who do know the truth, but choose to suppress it so they can continue to profit. Shell, for example. This is treason of the highest order against the planet and all who live on it.
Examples of arguments that simply display the ignorance of the arguers are: "there can't be global warming, it's snowing' (Sen. James Inhofe's Snowball) and 'it's due to solar cycles' (do deniers have no idea how many solar cycles scientists include in their models?). They think they know more than people who have spent their whole careers studying climate science or a science that feeds into it.
They say that the scientists are all agreeing on climate science (if they admit as much) because that is where the money is. They ignore the fact that big oil and the like are paying climate deniers far more in order to protect their industry's profits.
Nay-sayers have been saying that the scientists exaggerate. But the major reports like those of the IPCC are written by committees, and committees tend to be conservative. And major conferences like COP28 don't exaggerate either. COP28 is being held in an oil country and being run by oil employees, so don't expect it to overemphasise the problem. Some scientists are so worried that their science is not being heeded that they have taken to protesting to try and get the word out and the world to act before it is too late.
The media knew about greenhouse gases in 1912, but some ignored it, denied it or played it down until very recently, because they are owned by the rich who don't care what happens so long as they get more profits.
Why I've changed my mind
Acapulco was recently devastated by hurricane Otis. There have always been hurricanes, of course, and sometimes they go astray and hit somewhere that does not usually get them. And global warming means there will be more and stronger storms. But Otis caught forecasters off guard. It blew away hurricane & global models, just like the hockey stick graph showed that recent global warming blew away all precedent in its rate of change. University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said it was just plain nuts.
This summer the world has been on average hotter than usual by a significant amount. Zeke Hausfather of the Berkeley Earth climate data project called September's excess heat "absolutely gobsmackingly bananas". Apart from unabated human greenhouse gas emissions, contributing factors suggested include the switch from La Niña to El Niño event, the 11-year solar cycle, the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai eruption, the mandated cuts in sulphur emissions from shipping and industry, and even the interrelationship between the North Atlantic sea surface temperature, African dust, Sahel rainfall, and Atlantic hurricanes.
Since globally the months June to September warm less than December to March, the 1.5°C increase this September would be typical of an above 1.5°C increase year, according to NCAS/University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins. I wonder what shade will be added to his warming stripes for 2023.
So, it appears that with this year's abnormal temperatures and hurricane suggest that we have hit a tipping point and the climate modelers are going to have to adjust. We won't know what to expect unless and until the climate settles down into a pattern again.
So sorry
To the younger generations, I am very sorry that despite all our efforts, we have made so little progress. Unfortunately, our systems are set up to reward the psychopaths among us - people who do not care what harm they do in their scramble to the top, or what lies they will tell to stay at the top. And there are far too many people who will enable them in return for scraps (the ROI on politicians can be amazing).
Our economic system rewards those who take all the profits for themselves and make sure that it is others who pay - in bad working conditions, loss of freedoms, pollution, poor health and/or a destroyed planet. Electing right wing authoritarians only makes it worse, however tempting it is to get behind a so-called 'strong man' - who is usually a timid bully inside, lashing out to protect his image. We need to elect people who understand the problems and who will act accordingly.
I'm sorry for my generation too, we seem to have spent much of our lives hitting our heads against a brick wall, and are seeing the climate deteriorate before our very eyes.
At some point enough people will have been affected by climate change that humanity will reach a tipping point and drive out the deniers and delayers. The sooner the better.