Baldcypress Trees rising up through the water at sunrise
Cost of Climate Change

The Quadra Project: Taking our temperature

In February 2022, our planet was 1.19°C warmer than the pre-industrial temperature of 13.7°C calculated from the collected global records in the 1880s. The Industrial Revolution technically began about 100 years earlier, but no extensive measurements exist to verify the combined surface temperature of both land and water during those years. Between 1920 and 1940, the global temperature rose 0.1°C per decade, 0.2°C during the 1980s, and 0.61°C per decade since 2000. This ascending trajectory corresponds to a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from about 280 parts per million to about 420 ppm, and ends the 10,000 years of relative climate stability that has allowed human civilization to flourish.

At the end of 2021, the United Nations gathered in Glasgow at COP26 in another effort to arrest this disturbing rise in global temperatures. The prime objective was to get the nearly 200 countries of the world to reach a unanimous agreement that would reduce their carbon dioxide emissions sufficiently to keep the temperature rise below an “aspirational” 1.5°C, and 2.0°C at the very most.

The calculated benefit from all pledges at COP26 was not able to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C, but only to 2.4°C—assuming that these pledges would even be met. But fossil fuels, the cause of about 60% of global warming, were specifically mentioned for the first time—the burning of coal would be “phased down” but not “phased out”. Under pressure from delegates for a greater reduction in greenhouse gases, corporations—they were in attendance as lobbyists—promised to help cut emissions, which would have brought the calculated temperature increase to 1.9°C.

To reach the optimistic goal of 1.5°C, global emissions of greenhouse gases will have to be reduced at least 40% by 2030—that’s only 8 years from now. Above 1.5°C, we risk activating feedback loops that would cause us to lose control of temperature regulation. Emissions did dip slightly in 2020 because of the global shutdown caused by Covid-19, but are on the rise again, even from pre-2020 levels.

All our attention should be focused on cutting emissions to halt the escalating frequency and intensity of floods, fires, droughts and storms, while trying to mitigate the multiple human traumas of suffering, impoverishment and dislocation. Then, on February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine. Aside from the humanitarian disaster and the direct pollution caused by bombs and missiles, the carbon costs of burning and then rebuilding ruined homes, villages, towns and entire cities will be immense.

But the sanctions on Russian oil and gas have created a global energy insecurity that has prompted fossil-fuel corporations and countries to return to drilling, fracking and digging. An investigative report by The Guardian Weekly (20 May, 2022) has identified at least 195 projects that are in progress or planned, each of which would produce 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in its lifetime. This would mean that the COP26 target of 1.5°C would be unattainable, the 2.0°C goal would probably be breached, and global temperatures could rise above 2.4°C to 2.7°C and even 3.0°C. As for the promised pledges from countries and corporations, an exasperated Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, said this: “Simply put, they are lying, and the results will be catastrophic. Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness.”

On our little island in the wholeness of this mess, we are not immune to the consequences. Gas prices have soared—perhaps with the beneficial incentive to drive less. But shipping on a globalized planet together with fertilizers for industrial agriculture, as well as domestic heating and cooling, are still too dependent on fossil fuels. This inflates the cost of food and other essentials, making even worse the production and supply chain problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The shift in our collective attention from environmental concerns to economic, sociological and political ones is precisely the kind of distraction that accelerates the civilizational unravelling that is threatened by the climate crisis.

We can’t change the maniacal urges of Vladimir Putin, or the collective folly of corporations, countries or even humanity. But as an island, we have the unique psychology to do what is not possible elsewhere. By thinking and acting like a contained community, by restraining our consumption and simplifying our lifestyles, and by guarding and protecting our natural resources, we can find sustainable possibilities that are unavailable to the larger world. Small is our advantage. We should use this advantage to prepare and adapt to the impending stresses and hardships.

Ray Grigg for Sierra Quadra  

Top photo credit: Baldcypress Trees rising up through the water at sunrise in North Carolina. – Photo by John J. Mosesso,USGS via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)

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