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Revision as of 17:37, 13 November 2019 by Sisussman (talk | contribs) (add section: How do we do it?)
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Temperature anomaly map: how much Earth has warmed due to human activities
EMERGENCY!
Our planet is overheating.

We need to act urgently, effectively and globally to tackle the causes and consequences of global heating and other threats to our survival.

This site provides a guide to what the problems are, and what solutions we know to be effective. It is based as far as possible on reliable sources: peer-reviewed scientific publications, higher-level peer-review bodies such as the IPCC, and good-quality journalism and blogs. It also expresses a certain degree of editorial opinion, occasional sarcasm, and possibly humour. Because we're all human.

Health Warning:

It can feel overwhelming to think of the problems we face. We may despair and sink into apathy, or be propelled into frantic action and burn ourselves out. Neither helps. We need to look after ourselves and look after each other in order to look after our environment. Especially for those of us with mental health issues. Let us talk to our friends, our families, neighbours, and to people in our communities (In Real Life or online). Let's check how others are doing, and listen to each other.

It's also good to eat healthily, to get exercise, to make music, poetry, art, and love; to do things that bring joy into our lives, and into each other's. Let's have fun! Self-care is not selfish!!

Do the activism that moves you. For some of us it may be getting ourselves arrested at a Non-Violent Direct Action. For others it may be getting informed about the science and sharing it with others. Some can give financial support. Some can provide tea and biscuits. Some may have skills or resources to offer — technical, organisational, legal, artistic, social. Some may just offer encouragement. Let's all do what we can!

Learn from history. Humanity has already made incredible progress in tackling humanitarian and environmental problems. In the space of less than an average human lifetime billions of people have been raised out of poverty, famine which would have starved millions has been averted, and political and environmental crises which could have wiped out billions of us have been defused. We don't hear about these things because good news doesn't make headlines. Knowing what we have already achieved gives us an idea of what we are capable of doing to tackle the present crisis. We already have powerful resources for dealing with the problems we face; we need to organise ourselves socially and politically to use them.

Don't Panic! With all due respect to the awesome Ms Thunberg, any firefighter will tell you that if your house is on fire, panic can be fatal. We need to act swiftly, intelligently, and effectively, but with clear heads.

What's the problem?

Climate change. Also biodiversity loss, acidification of our oceans, and other planetary boundaries.

Climate change (aka Anthropogenic Global Warming – AGW) is caused mainly by increasing Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, although Methane (the main component of Natural Gas) and other "greenhouse" gases also play roles. The extra Greenhouse Gases responsible for dangerous climate change are the result of human activities; mainly burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), burning biomass (e.g. wood), and from agricultural activities such as clearing forests for growing food, and ploughing and degrading soils, which releases carbon from micro-organisms underground.

What's the solution?

To tackle climate change we need to reduce CO2 emissions to practically zero, as quickly as possible, and to remove some of the excess CO2 we've already released into the atmosphere.

To do this we need to replace fossil fuels with sustainable energy sources for producing electricity, for running cars, buses, trucks, trains, shipping and aeroplanes, for heating and cooking, and for use in industry, especially producing steel, cement, and fertiliser.

It helps if we can reduce our usage of energy; by using the energy we need more efficiently e.g. in in better designed vehicles, or using less of it for example by insulating buildings better, travelling less, using less energy-intensive materials in construction, etc.

In order to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere we can grow more plants, especially trees, which lock up carbon in their bodies, and improve soils which take up carbon into micro-organisms. It is also theoretically possible to harvest and burn plant material, capturing CO2 released in combustion and sequestering it in various ways, such as pumping it into underground caverns from which natural gas was extracted. Then more plant material can be grown on the same land to take up more CO2. There are also mechanical/chemical processes being designed which could pull CO2 directly out of the atmosphere.

To tackle biodiversity loss we need to effectively tackle climate change, and also to reduce and reverse our use of the world's land and oceans, and let nature revert as much as possible of these to their wild states.

We need to use all the tools and resources we have available, and to follow the best evidence in how to use them, without letting prejudice or ideology obstruct our efforts.

How do we do it?

There are some things we can do individually:

  • have fewer (or no) children,
  • eat foods which have a smaller carbon footprint — mainly plant-based rather than animal-derived foods,
  • travel less, especially by air and especially long distance air travel, and reduce daily commuting by car.

Other things we need to do collectively — at town, state, national or international level:

  • impose an increasing cost on carbon-emissions, either through direct carbon taxes or effective cap-and-trade, to encourage a shift to lower carbon technologies,
  • replace fossil fuel power stations with renewables, nuclear, and those using carbon capture and storage (CCS), especially bio-energy with CCS (BECCS),
  • replace fossil fuel for transport with carbon-neutral alternatives: electricity, or sustainably-generated hydrogen, ammonia or other synthetic fuels,
  • invest in developing new types of nuclear, wind, solar, wave, tide and geothermal etc generators, energy storage and conversion technologies, carbon capture and storage technologies, etc,
  • invest in research and development of improved agricultural technologies and practices for reducing carbon-intensive inputs to, and releases of greenhouse gases from agriculture,
  • improve energy efficiency standards in building construction, and invest in replacing, or improving the performance of existing buildings,
  • improve town planning to reduce the need for vehicular travel and to encourage lower-energy forms of transport such as walking and cycling.




At present it comprises these pages (names in italics are redirects to other pages):

Most pages are currently just collections of links on a subject. Collaborators interested in developing this resource would be welcome: please email HelpImprove@scienceforsustainability.org


The blog