Exposing Climate Change

Climate change is the most pressing problem humanity faces in the upcoming decades. The future of our planet is now uncertain. If we don’t really address climate change head on, many of the world’s problems will become even harder to take on. To start, producing food for billions of people will become more difficult as fresh water sources dry up.

Solving climate change needs to be humanity’s main focus for the next century. If we continue going at our current rate, climate change has the very real potential to cause terrible devastation across the entire planet’s biosphere and could ruin local ecosystems for centuries to come, if left unchecked.

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Why is Climate Change Happening?

Simply stated, climate change is occurring because earth’s overall atmospheric temperature is going up – commonly known as global warming. The warming temperatures are wreaking havoc with all manner of weather events, different climates, natural systems, and organisms.

The real question is why is the temperature increasing?

Scientists have unequivocally determined that the temperature is increasing as a direct result of human activities inputting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases act as an insulator to keep and trap more of the sun’s heat in our atmosphere. Hence, the uptick in overall global temperature.

The gases that our civilization is emitting as byproducts are acting like a warm blanket to trap excess heat in our atmosphere. Similar to how a gardener’s greenhouse keeps plants warm and growing in the depths of winter. This is how the ‘greenhouse effect’ got its name.

In order to come up with solutions, humanity needs to confront the root cause of climate change, which in this case, are the greenhouse gases. We need to understand how we’re producing these gasses to see if we find alternatives and new, sustainable methods to keep our society functioning.

If we continue down this road, we could reach a point of no return. But between our current levels and this point of no return, there is a wide spectrum of consequences. We are actually seeing some of the “low end” results of climate change already.

A Range of Consequences

Broadly speaking, on the low end of the spectrum, we’ll see warming temperatures cause more frequent droughts, more severe hurricanes, increases in forest fires, and more extreme weather conditions in areas that currently already experience these weather patterns. Places that were historically pleasant will become less so, like California. While places that were cold might become warmer – like Canada.

In the middle of the climate change spectrum, ecosystems will be unrecognizable from even a few years before. We’ll see the ice in the Arctic and Antarctic start melting. Eventually, the glaciers and ice at the north and south poles could completely cease to exist. This will, in turn, cause rising sea levels and the flooding of coastal cities. While the equatorial and even temperate latitudes will see mass desertification. We could eventually see a band of dirt and sand around the world from the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5 degrees South) to the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees North) where plant and animal life will not be able to live. These areas will be inhospitable because water would be scarce and the temperatures will be frequently above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

If this trend continues, to the extreme far end of the climate change spectrum, a runaway greenhouse effect could occur. We could see conditions close to what we currently observe on the planet Venus, if this unknown tipping point is reached. On Venus, it rains liquid sulphuric acid in an atmosphere almost entirely composed of CO₂. Temperatures frequently exceed 800 degrees Fahrenheit. So hot, in fact, lead would be liquid. If this scenario came to pass, Earth’s oceans would completely evaporate and the planet would be very… disagreeable to life, to say the least.

Humanity is basically running a worldwide lab experiment where our atmosphere is the proverbial petri dish. If we are to see A Grand Future come to fruition, we’ll need to change our ways dramatically. We will have to work together to understand how to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere and our activities.

Greenhouse Gas Breakdown

Each year, humans add 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. A number of this magnitude is inconceivable to us. It’s the equivalent of adding 51 billion small cars EVERY YEAR into the atmosphere. When looking at all of Earth’s history, geologically speaking, increases in CO₂ levels have accompanied many of the past mass extinction events.

As we can see, there is a direct causation between the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and temperature. PPM stands for parts per million and represents the amount molecules present in a sample of one million. Currently, there is around 410 PPM of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Every year as emissions go up our atmospheric CO₂ goes up at least 2 PPM. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but year over year this increase is approaching a near vertical line. By 2070, we could see over 500 PPM of CO₂ if we do nothing to limit our emissions.

Additionally, it is important to see what gases are causing climate change and where all these greenhouse gases are coming from before we can be expected to come up with solutions. The chart below shows the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions by type in the atmosphere.

I think the biggest offender is pretty evident… Carbon dioxide makes up 79% of the greenhouse gases we’re emitting planetwide. However, it’s worth noting that this chart can be misleading. Even though carbon dioxide is the major player by quantity, the other gases can pack more of a punch.

Let’s meet the culprits:

CO₂ – Carbon Dioxide is the greenhouse gas everyone is familiar with and the most abundant greenhouse gas by far. It is the byproduct of basically all modern human activities ranging from transportation emissions, chemical and energy plants, industrial activities like cement, deforestation, and basically burning anything that contains carbon. Essentially, carbon dioxide is mostly released by burning fossil fuel. Before humanity, CO₂ was safely inactive and stored away in inert forms (mostly within the Earth’s crust as oil, coal, and natural gas). But today, these fossil fuels are extracted and burned to power our civilization.

CH₄ – Methane is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas. Methane has the potential to be up to 86 times more potent than CO₂ over the next 20 years. It is primarily a byproduct of manure, livestock/agricultural activity, and natural gas systems. Methane is also a secondary byproduct of landfills, oil and coal burning, stationary and mobile combustion, wastewater treatment, and certain industrial processes, as well.

N₂O – Nitrous Oxide is the third most copious greenhouse gas. Some people might recognize this as laughing gas. However, it is hardly a laughing matter. Nitrous oxide is 264 times more potent than CO₂. Nitrous oxide is produced mostly from nitrogen fertilizers in various soil practices and from manure in agriculture.

Fluorinated Gases – Are admittedly the smallest quantity of greenhouse gases produced. They encompass a whole gambit of different chemicals (usually containing Fluorine). But these gases can be thousands of times more powerful than CO₂. Fluorinated gases are found primarily in cooling systems and refrigerants.

While all these gases play an important role in climate change, it’s important to keep things simplified to compare “apples to apples”, so to speak. Collectively, they can be combined together on the same scale. Scientists weigh the different potencies of the gases to compare them to carbon dioxide to make a metric called (unsurprisingly) carbon dioxide equivalents.

Carbon dioxide equivalency, carbon equivalent (for short), or CO₂ equivalent, can be abbreviated as CO₂-eq. This measure is very useful when looking at the emissions from the various greenhouse gases, different activities, and figuring out their global-warming potential (GWP). By converting amounts of other gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide we can see their effect and figure out the global warming potential. Thus, to make things easier, we’ll be referring to all the above gases in carbon dioxide equivalents, or just plain “carbon”, unless noted otherwise.

Overall, these make up the main greenhouse gases causing global warming which, in turn, incites climate change. Through our various activities, humans are releasing these harmful gases into our atmosphere. It is imperative that we cut these gases out of our activities to make sure we pass on a clean, decarbonized planet to future generations. This is “The Why“ that will drive our big picture decisions and keep us motivated in our battle against climate change over the next century.

Where is all this Gas coming from?

If we are expected to tackle the problem of global warming, we have to know what areas to focus our efforts, so we can get the biggest bang for our buck. Generally speaking, here are the six loose groupings of human carbon activities that produce harmful greenhouse gases.

What’s really the most ridiculous part of this pie chart to me is the fact that we can’t account for (or point to definitive activities) that make up literally 12% of our emissions. It’s really scary that 6 billion tons of carbon get out-gassed into the atmosphere and we can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from? SIX BILLION tons of harmful byproducts of who knows from what, are just casually classified as “miscellaneous” and earmarked as “unallocated / fugitive emissions or other”. What the hell?!?

We primarily power and heat our residential and commercial buildings by burning fossil fuels in most countries. This accounts for 18% of global greenhouse emissions. Modern society off-gases 9 billion tons of carbon to keep us comfortable and provide all the conveniences we know and love. And yet, 750 million people still do not have access to electricity. Relying on non-renewable resources, like fossil fuels, to power and heat our homes and businesses is plain stupid. On top of all the environmental impact, we’re eventually going to run out one day…

Same goes for how humanity gets around. In transporting our goods and people around, we add 7 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere ANNUALLY. We sometimes just sit in traffic burning gasoline in our cars and trucks. Or, wait on the runway in totally inefficient planes. Ships sometimes wait for months at sea because there’s no berth to get into port. I hope they turn off the engine and drop anchor!

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The biggest ‘bucket’ at 29% of total emission include industrial and manufacturing activities. Processes like cement making, iron, steel, and other various chemicals dump billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Just powering industry and manufacturing processes accounts for almost half of the 29% in this category. Iron and steel production make up a whopping 7% of the 29%.

Cement, a big contributor to greenhouse gas emission, is the “glue” component when making concrete. In other words, cement is ‘the flour’ used when baking the concrete cake. Only half of the end product is usable as concrete. While the other half is simply burned off as byproducts in the process (conveniently getting dumped into the atmosphere).

When it comes to land use, specifically land use for agriculture and forests, we have a perfect storm of destruction. People need land to grow food, so they destroy millions of acres of the forests – Earth’s natural carbon purification and storage system.

Our forests are one of the best natural means of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Forests and oceans are examples of carbon sinks, or nature’s way of absorbing and storing excess carbon in the atmosphere. They are being razed and destroyed at an unprecedented rate. In the last 60 years, humanity has eliminated over 30% of the world’s forested areas.

Much of the planet’s forests are being razed for livestock and farmland. We clear even more land to grow food to feed that same livestock – seems kind of counterproductive to me. The combination of forest removal and the agricultural needs of 8 billion people make for the second largest greenhouse category at 24% of our annual emissions (12 billion tons). Humanity’s inefficient and destructive land use is, to me, the biggest crime and travesty we are inflicting on the planet.

Hell, even our wastewater and landfills are just sitting there off-gassing greenhouse emissions to the tune of 1.5 billion tons of carbon a year. Yup, the crap that our civilization discards is killing us. Great…

And this is just a brief ‘toe-dip’ into the sectors that are contributing greenhouse gases creating climate change. The thing of it is, we don’t even know at what critical threshold of temperature / greenhouse gas saturation climate change could really spiral out of control.

We need to furiously attack all the above sectors to reduce our global carbon footprint. There is a lot of work to do. We are essentially playing Russian roulette with our only biosphere. All these areas and more will have to be overhauled if we care about the future health of our planet. We will have to build new systems and transform society into a sustainable, Reimagined World.

Long Term Impact

We are just now only seeing the start of climate change take place. Already, climate change is causing massive animal population declines all over the world. Another global extinction event could be on the horizon. This is already evident in our world’s oceans – 50% of the world’s coral reefs have been destroyed in the last 60 years.

Furthermore, in some parts of the world, we’ll see massive droughts. While elsewhere, there will be more frequent hurricanes. Land animals will not be able to find enough food. Ocean life will die-off due to ocean acidification from over-absorbing carbon. All the living organisms in the world are interconnected and dependent on one another; if one ecosystem fails, we all fail.

These changes will cause far reaching effects, which will propagate throughout the world – impacting food chains and ecosystems. Once fertile land will turn to desert. Humans rely on the land and water for growing crops and raising animals for sustenance will be affected dramatically. Feeding the multitudes will not be possible any more.

We will need to drastically change into a sustainable civilization as soon as possible if we want to curb the worst effects of global warming. The choice is ours alone to make.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their Report:

“It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F). Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.”

The time to act is now. Our way of life is at stake. Our planet is at stake. Everything we value and love about the world, which currently take for granted could change in just a few decades.

All other problems will virtually be meaningless if we experience the most extreme effects of climate change. We need to make changes now to create a society that does not depend on fossil fuels.

The good news is that there are solutions. We need to create a movement for sweeping change across the entire globe. The war on climate change is not just for a few of us. It encompasses all of us.

We are of one world where everything effects everything else. We are at a critical junction in human history. What we do now will echo eons into the future. We are being called upon to implement a BOLD plan to save our planet. We need to act now.

Taken together, humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels and our civilization’s activities have caused greenhouse gas emission levels in our atmosphere to spiral out of control. The dumping of harmful gases into the atmosphere is reaching record heights. And in turn, causing the temperatures to rise well beyond normal ranges.

If we’re going to avoid a climate disaster and stand to make any impact at all, we have to reduce the astronomical 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere every year to ZERO as soon as possible. This will need to be our generations’ monumental crusade throughout the next century.

Find out how humanity will need to transform our civilization in a Reimagined World!