We are experiencing more and more signs that the planet is warming. Of course, one cannot point to any one event and blame it on global warming. Nevertheless, there have been numerous events that point to global warming including the dramatic droughts and heat waves in the U.S. over the last few years. Hurricane Sandy is just the latest of such extreme weather events.
We don’t have any more time to deny the existence of global warming. Instead let us try to solve it before it gets out of hand. Europe has been tackling this problem for some time now, and the United States has just started to combat it within the last few years as well. I would normally commend our ability to strive for less pollution slowly without dampening economic growth. It wasn’t until the past few years that I started reading more, and also just looking around me, that I realized that we cannot afford to tackle this problem slow and steady anymore.
If we do not act soon, there might not be a future to look forward to! But why, you ask? Why did I change from everyone doing their fair share but no need to panic, to we must have a green surge now attitude? It has been discovered that there are about 1.7 trillion tons of carbon frozen in permafrost around the world. This permafrost has just started to melt, meaning that we are going to have more pollution in the atmosphere. Also, some of the carbon released from the permafrost will be released as Methane, which is 25 times more effective at trapping heat as carbon. This is just more bad news for the future of our planet.
The United Nations Environment Program estimated that world temperatures are going to rise between 3°C – 5°C (5.4°F – 9°F) by the end of the century. That estimate does not include the melting permafrost. So these numbers are likely to be wrong and unfortunately the increase in temperature might even be more dire then what these results say. Let us forget about the permafrost for a moment and think about that for a minute. This means that by the time we are middle-aged, average temperatures around the world will be around 2°F and 4°F hotter than pre-industrialized times. The last couple of summers have been pretty hot, but imagine how it will be in the future. Farmers have already been struggling with the warmer temperatures, but we are just at the beginning. Temperatures are currently 0.8°C higher than pre-industrialized times.
The simple fact of the matter is that the world is getting warmer, and it is getting warmer fast. The whole warming problem can become a domino effect. The more pollution in the air traps more heat. A hotter world causes ice to melt. Ice can reflect some sunlight and make the world cooler. So less ice will mean more water, which absorbs more heat. Eventually, it gets hot enough to melt permafrost. This then will release a lot of carbon dioxide and methane and make the world even warmer.
Now the international community, including the United States, all agree that we should do everything in our power to not allow world temperatures to increase more than 2°C. There is some progress being made For example, the United States carbon emissions output went down 2% in 2012 to 5.9 billion tons. But Germany was the only other country out of the top ten most carbon producing countries to cut its global emissions. India’s carbon emissions went up 7% to 2.5 billion tons and China’s carbon emissions went up a whopping 10% to 10 billion tons! Overall, carbon emissions around the world rose 3%.
I am impressed to see the United States taking this seriously, but we need to do more. The 2°C rise in temperature was put out there as a safe, somewhat realistic goal that would keep countries, and society in check. But if countries keep polluting like this, then we are not going to keep temperatures from going above 2°C. Temperatures are going to rise above that limit, and it is more than a hotter planet that we are experiencing. Higher temperatures means higher waters, more frequent and stronger hurricanes hitting lands farther and farther north, more severe droughts causing food shortages like we have never seen, the collapse of countries close to the equator, and migration to the poles will become widespread by the tens of millions of people if we allow temperatures to progress pass the 2°C barrier.
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