From “A Gift for Conversation. Let’s discuss Climate Change: Why it matters. What to do about it.” A Book by Dr Louis Keal
Previous Frontispiece
Chapter 1: All you need to know
Five key points about Climate Change cover all the essentials.
- Climate Change is happening now
- We caused it
- We’re sure we caused it
- It’s bad
- There’s still time to act to avoid a terrible future
So let’s start with hope. Let’s start with a vision for what the world could be like if we act on Climate Change.
What future do we want to see?
The future is still, of course, up to us and our choices. We’ll see what will happen to us if we choose to continue to keep delaying or avoiding serious action on Climate Change. But what if we don’t delay? What if we do what is necessary?
A future where we’ve acted on Climate Change is a future where the air is clean and fresh1. Our towns and cities are full of trees, and buildings are carpeted in climbing plants providing free, living air conditioning. We eat locally grown food, and jobs involve little commuting. Travel is via free mass public transit systems, powered (like everything else) by a sprawling web of solar panels and wind turbines, providing more energy than we need. Some things are scarce, such as personal vehicles and luxury foods – but our communities are stronger than ever. We’re happier than ever too2.
With countryside spaces devoted to allowing nature to recover, wild creatures are as abundant as our ancestors would have experienced, and lost habitats have been restored. Woodlands are far more common, and are precious places for recreation and reconnection with each other and the world we live in. Decreased animal agriculture has allowed the soils to recover and farmland has been freed up to provide our diets with variety and nutrition. We’re the healthiest we’ve ever been, physically and mentally.
Our deepest needs as humans are met more completely than ever before. This is not a pipe-dream: this is the bonus we can expect if we choose to save our own lives.
What exactly do we mean by Climate Change?
Climate and weather are often confused for each other. “If global warming is happening, why is it so cold today?” Weather is what we see day-to-day, changing rapidly. But climate is the long-term pattern: the typical temperature in each season and how much it can vary, typical amount of rainfall, typical wind speed.
Our weather is powered by vast systems that cover the entire surface of the globe. In Britain, our climate is largely determined by air currents from the North Atlantic. The weather we see day to day determines our decisions on what to wear and to do – but climate determines where we can grow food and where we can get water. Climate determines if a location is suitable for a town or city. It determines which animals, birds, insects, plants, and trees can survive and prosper.
However, the interconnected global systems that determine local climates are incredibly delicate. Seemingly tiny changes in global conditions can shift the entire system into a new state – one that neither we nor the natural world are prepared for.
A difference in 1°C in ocean temperature for example, a change we might barely feel, for these systems means massive disruption. Habitable climates, taken for granted by humans and the rest of nature, experience wild temperature and weather changes completely disproportionate to that 1°C change1.
Discussion Points
- Have you witnessed extreme weather events recently?
- Have you seen any trend in how often weather records are broken?
Do we know Climate Change is happening?
Yes. We can look at the scientific measurements of what’s happening and the thousands of independent ways they show Climate Change is here, now1.
Or, you have probably seen for yourself the extreme weather events increasingly gripping almost every country on Earth in the last few years.
But for more tangible evidence we can ‘follow the money’ – in this case, into the exciting world of insurance. Predicting the future is how the insurance industry makes its money. If they’re wrong about how likely it is for your home or business to be destroyed by a flood, a hurricane, or a wildfire, it hurts their bottom line2. The insurance industry predicts Climate Change will make these risks far, far worse3, and has already left many properties uninsurable.
How does Climate Change actually happen?
The main mechanism of Climate Change is the heating of our planet through The Greenhouse Effect. The diagram below explains the key idea: energy comes from the sun in the form of light and heat – infrared energy. Put more energy into something and it warms up. Most of the light & heat from the sun bounces back into space. But greenhouse gases in our atmosphere trap heat that would otherwise be able to escape.
Having the right amount of greenhouse gases gave Earth the pleasant temperatures needed to support life. Changes in this delicate balance have determined Earth’s temperature for hundreds of millions of years1.
But since the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, humanity has been producing our own greenhouse gas pollution: carbon dioxide (CO2), from burning Fossil Fuels extracted from underground, like coal, gas, petrol, aviation fuel etc. Methane, the gas burned in gas boilers and stoves, has a far more powerful greenhouse heating effect than CO2 if it reaches the atmosphere unburned2. Our gas pipes leak massive amounts. Coal mines also release it3. Methane is also produced in vast quantities4 from the guts and manure of the 2.7 billion cows and sheep in the world5.
Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas, so often greenhouse gases are referred to simply as ‘carbon’, though there may be different gases present.
Do we know Climate Change is caused by us?
Yes. The scientific evidence has proved this in a thousand different ways1.
But let’s ‘follow the money’ again and hear from those who would have the most to lose today from Climate Change being man-made: Fossil Fuel companies, who extract and sell these fuels, whose executives currently rely on our inaction on Climate Change as the source of their wealth2.
After decades of spending hundreds of millions of dollars3 on funding climate denial and disinformation campaigns4, many of which are still ongoing behind closed doors5, every single Fossil Fuel company has now publicly (but quietly) agreed that:
- Climate change is real and happening now.
- Climate change is man-made and Fossil Fuel companies are massively contributing to it.
- Climate change is seriously dangerous.
To check this yourself, you can google “climate change” and the name of any Fossil Fuel company and check out their websites. Below is a handy list of some big ones.
| Shell | Total | Phillips 66 |
| ExxonMobil | Consol Energy | Coal India |
| BP | Marathon Petroleum | Saudi Aramco |
| Peabody Energy | Metinvest | Gazprom |
| Chevron | Lukoil | China Shenhua |
| ConocoPhillips | Valero | Pemex |
But despite this admission, Fossil Fuel companies are still deeply resistant to decarbonisation, or changing their business practices to reflect the facts6.
Who can we trust about the climate?
Although Fossil Fuel companies have now changed their tune, as a result of the hundreds of millions spent on muddying the issue, it’s now hard to know who to trust on the facts of Climate Change.
There are roughly 100,000 people who understand better than anyone else the inter-linked and immensely complex systems of air flow, ocean currents, ecological systems and weather patterns that make up our climate. Many of these people have devoted decades of their lives and entire careers to understanding every aspect of these systems. Often they work on the ground taking measurements and observing changes. Often they process data from satellites orbiting the Earth. Many produce computer models of the way these systems behave and interact, and dedicate their careers to
making these models accurate and testing their fit to weather and climate events as they unfold.
Unlike politicians, policy makers, and armchair experts, these people are specifically trained to always ask the question “how could I be wrong about this?” and to go out and test their answers. This is called the Scientific Method – these people are climate scientists.
On some subjects, there is conflicting evidence, and many scientists disagree. What is consciousness? What caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? What is the most healthy human diet? These are all difficult questions with shaky or absent consensus. But there are some ideas that, although once controversial, are now so well-proven as to no longer be questioned. Does the Earth revolve around the Sun? Yes. Can smoking cause cancer? Yes. Can illnesses be caused by microscopic bacteria? Yes.
The fact that the climate is changing, the fact that it is a threat, and the fact that humans are causing this, were all pushed long ago by immeasurable weight of evidence into proven, undoubtable fact. In late 2019, a study examined all of the 11,000 scientific papers on the subject of climate that were published so far that year, to see their stance on these facts1. The evidence in every single one supported them. In 11,000 different ways of examining the world, the same uncomfortable truths were discovered: Climate Change is happening, and we’re the cause. No evidence existed to support any other view.
Discussion Points
- Why do you think people might try their best to ignore scientific evidence?
- Should climate scientists have more say in the way the world responds to Climate Change?
Do we know Climate Change is bad? How bad?
The story of Climate Change is a story of extremes. As a consequence of ‘small’ changes in our atmosphere such as increases in global temperature, ‘extreme’ events become drastically more extreme1.
What we’re seeing repeatedly is records being broken that we don’t want to be broken. The -est since . The hottest month. The coldest month. The wettest month. The driest month. The deepest flood. The worst crop yield. The deadliest heatwave. The fastest wildfire. The largest famine. The fastest mass extinction of life. Unless society chooses to act now, these records will be broken again and again, until the yearly extremes we all experience are deadly2,2,2.
Our food security is threatened like never before – crops require reliable conditions to grow, and a stable
climate. Our health is increasingly under attack3 from the combined pressures of heat stroke, dehydration, malnutrition, new pandemics, air pollution, the contamination of drinking water in floods, and the deadly threat of increased hurricanes and wildfires.
Our choices on climate also will determine our national security – entire countries becoming uninhabitable4 is sure to lead to conflict over remaining resources.
The combined effects of loss of food security, health, national security and hope for the future is clear. Unless drastic action is taken urgently to reduce emissions, scientists expect that today’s young people will witness the collapse of modern civilisation5,5,5. It is almost impossible to overstate what is at stake. This is the biggest threat humanity has ever faced6.
How does a little heating cause so much disruption?
The Earth is pretty big. The amount of energy needed to heat up the entire Earth’s surface by 1°C is unimaginably huge – but so is the amount of energy coming from the Sun. Thanks to our emissions, the greenhouse effect is trapping extra energy equivalent to 880,000 Hiroshima Atomic Bombs going off every single day1,1 – and rising. This energy goes into melting ice and snow, warming air, fuelling high winds, evaporating water, and above all: heating our oceans.
The heating is not uniform across the globe – much of the extra heat ends up at the poles. These are heating up twice as fast as the equator. The temperature difference between the hot equator and cold poles, plus the Earth’s rotation, drive the vast, long-term air flows and ocean currents that encircle our world2.
These air and water currents are the main factor determining the long-term weather systems that give each country its climate. This temperature difference is reducing. The safe living conditions it supports are being undermined by this enormous influx of energy. Increased wildfires and other effects of Climate Change also increase emissions, multiplying any heating.
If you lived in Texas, USA in February 2021, you would have suffered bizarre deadly cold down to -19°C3. Whereas in July 2021, residents of western Canada roasted in a heatwave that killed 500 people and smashed the hottest temperature ever recorded by 5°C4. Both events were explained through disruption to the Jet Stream (an air current circling the Arctic) from warming of the Arctic by Climate Change5.
Discussion Points
1. Are you surprised that Climate Change can cause both extreme heat and extreme cold?
Is Climate Change fixable?
What would it take?
In 1939, Britain mobilised for war. Every adult dedicated their work to what would make the best contribution to the war effort. Disruption and sacrifices were accepted because the danger was so great. But the threat of Climate Change completely dwarfs the threat of World War II to Britain. Our communities must once again come together and re- ignite that same ‘war footing’ mindset. Our mission is to massively and urgently reduce our carbon emissions.
Regretfully, there is much that it is already too late to pass on to future generations. Large areas of the planet will become uninhabitable1. Food and drinking water may be scarce2,2. But every 0.1°C of warming that we can prevent safeguards more of our way of life for today’s young people to experience, and pass to their children.
Discussion Points
- If Britain were again heading for all-out war, this time on a far larger scale than WWII, how far would you go to protect those you love?
- What natural wonder would you most want your children, and their children, to see?
Over to Sir David Attenborough
Veteran wildlife documentary maker, television pioneer and British national treasure, Sir David Attenborough, has started speaking in blunt terms about the threats of Climate Change. I’ll let him close out this chapter with his words to the United Nations:
“No matter what we do now, some of these threats will assuredly become reality within a few short years. Others could, in the lifetime of today’s young people, destroy entire cities and societies, even altering the stability of the entire world.The heating of our planet has already reached the point that the impacts on the poorest and most vulnerable people are profound.
“We are today perilously close to tipping points that, once passed, will send global temperatures spiralling catastrophically higher. If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security: food production, access to fresh water, habitable ambient temperatures, and ocean food chains. And if the natural world can no longer support the most basic of our needs, then much of the rest of civilisation will quickly break down. Please make no mistake–Climate Change is the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced.”
“People today all over the world now realise this is no longer an issue which will affect the future generations; it is people alive today, and in particular young people, who will live with the consequences of our actions.”
But, there is hope: “If we act fast enough… we may achieve far more than tackling Climate Change – we may finally create a stable, healthy world.”
Sir David Attenborough, February 20211.
Still have questions?
If you’re left with unanswered questions, or want more detail, here are some resources to learn more about the topics in this chapter.
Book: Small Gases, Big Effect – bit.ly/37iy9UY By David Nelles and Christian Serrer. This accessibly- written, infographic-style little book explains the what, why and how of Climate Change in a visual way.
Netflix: Breaking Boundaries: The Science Of Our Planet – www.netflix.com/gb/title/81336476 Sir David Attenborough breaks down what’s happening to our wildlife and to our world, and his view on what to do about it. [1h14m]
Book: Climate Justice – bit.ly/ClimJustMR By Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland. This book explores the horrendous injustice of emissions from wealthy countries destroying developing ones.
YouTube: Heading for extinction and what to do about it – bit.ly/2TTsMII Climate Researcher Dr Emily Cox introduces the Climate and Ecological Emergencies we’re in, and what to do about it. [15m]
Climate Action Stokesley and Villages 