Climate Change: Dun Dun Dunnnn!

(Sound of thundering herds running screaming from the room.)

Now, stop that. It’s true that climate change is scary and controversial (though generally only if your politics leans far to the right and/or you love sticking your head in the sand). It’s also true that it’s already here. Whether we like it or not—and whether human action is the prime causation or just a contributor—global climate change is happening now. How we act and react to it will determine how successful a species we end up being.

What is Climate Change?

Wikipedia’s definition is fairly succinct: “In recent usage, especially in the context of environmental policy, climate change usually refers to changes in modern climate (see global warming).” Indeed, “global warming” is a popular term for climate change, although climatologists seem uncertain whether the long term effects of climate change will result in global warming or global cooling.

Climate change is something that happens naturally as our planet spins around in space; it’s a combination of changes in solar output, distribution of continental masses, and atmospheric makeup, among other things. Thing is, normally climate change operates on a scale of hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. That’s not the case today, as the atmospheric concentration of CO₂ has been shooting up more or less ever since the Industrial Revolution.

Several gases that make up our atmosphere are used to monitor climate change and are called “greenhouse gases.” Carbon dioxide (CO₂), water vapor (H₂O), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), and ozone (O₃) are the primary gases climatologists follow; Carbon dioxide is the one that gets the greatest press because it is easy to understand and has a strong effect—the atmosphere of Venus our “sister planet,” is made up largely of CO₂ and as we all know, Venus is so hot that human life couldn’t survive for even a few seconds unprotected—lead melts rapidly on the surface, and it rains caustic sulphuric acid.

Carbon dioxide is also important because it’s a byproduct of burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuels—oil, natural gas, and coal—are the bulk of modern society’s sources of energy. We burn them to power our cars, generate electricity, fly our planes, pilot our trains, and more; in fact, you might be astonished to know just how pervasive fossil oil is in our modern world!

Part of the controversial aspect of climate change is that greenhouse gases are also produced by other events, such as vulcanism and cow flatulence. The preponderance of data accumulated since climate change became a topic of study show that human activity is the number one cause of the drastic increase in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

What is Climate Change Doing to the World?

The effects of climate change are subtle and pervasive, but are likely to get much less subtle over time. As greenhouse gases trap more heat in the atmosphere, we’ll see things like Arctic and Antarctic ice diminishing faster and faster. All that water has to go somewhere, so ocean levels will rise. How much? Scientists aren’t certain, but a meter or more over the next century seems likely. That may not seem like much, but as much as 40% of the world’s population lives within 100 km of a coast—and that land will be the first to go. It’s not just that the land will disappear under the sea, either—as the ocean level rises, salt water will get into the water table and could poison the land for plants that aren’t used to saline environments.

As CO₂ levels rise in the atmosphere and the planet warms, ocean dwellers—on which we increasingly rely for sources of protein—are being hurt. It’s not just the warmth, though; ocean acidity is rising and that makes it harder for coral to form, for one thing. In one sense, you could say that climate change is turning the ocean into a giant bottle of soda as it absorbs more and more carbon dioxide and generates more and more carbonic acid (the same stuff that makes your teeth feel funny if you drink too much Coca-Cola in one sitting). Some of the fundamental organisms in the ocean could have their numbers decimated, or worse, from this activity. Just as on land, there is a pyramid of predation and yanking the bottom-most layer out from underneath will have serious effects on those higher up—and eventually, us.

The above just scrapes the surface. We could see an increase in the number and severity of atmospheric storms. We could see increased desertification, a global reduction in plant diversity—which leads to an even greater reduction in animal diversity than our current efforts (deliberate or otherwise) to push many animal species to extinction. We could also see a mini-ice age, paradoxically; scientists aren’t absolutely sure what will happen, but whatever is coming down the pike is not going to be a walk in the park.

What Can I Do About Climate Change?

Lots! Start out by becoming more educated on the subject—don’t just listen to the news, but become a sleuth and read up on the subject. The Web is chock full of resources, some of which I’ve listed below. Just remember that the Web isn’t the same as a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and there are a lot of sites that are very cleverly designed to put forth a particular political view that are dressed up as science.

Reducing your impact on the planet is one of the most important things you can do, and I’ve committed to posting at least one article a week with tips on how you can do just that. Don’t wait for my posts, though; simply using and throwing away less is a great way to start reducing your impact on the planet and helping extend our ability to live here.

Resources on the Web

This is not a comprehensive list, but you can start learning more about climate change and things we can do to ameliorate its effects by visiting the Web sites below.

• U.S. EPA: Health and Environmental Effects of Climate Change
• U.S. Energy Information Administration: Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change, and Energy
• U.S. Energy Information Administration: Energy Kids – Oil
• The No Impact Project
• BBC Climate Change Project