CALS 501- Assignment 4, Unit 2
“It is absolutely possible to prepare for the disasters already, terrifyingly, upon us while also doing our damnedest to quit baking more in. We can acknowledge the storm of emotions that comes with watching our world unravel, process those emotions, and pick ourselves up to protect what we can.” (Heglar, 2019)
Mary Annaise Heglar shares a compelling and real look into the climate crisis and provokes the thought that even before we “do” anything we need to assess why we are doing it. The climate is changing due to anthropogenic causes such as burning fossil fuels, agricultural practices and industrial processes. These sectors, along with others, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere which have a long shelf life, and trap heat closer to earth resulting in higher temperatures. The continued destruction of nature in favour of capitalist ventures has resulted in the degradation of natural systems, which would traditionally help balance out greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide levels are higher than what they have ever been historically recorded (Masson-Delmotte et al., 2013). And Canada, particularly Northern Canada, is warming at a much faster rate than the global average (Bush et al., 2019).
I can’t help but feel that we are playing a chemistry experiment on the planet, and we are now nearing the last responsible moment to make critical decisions to remedy some of these actions.
There are solutions, and science to alleviate the forthcoming impacts of climate change, but they extend across industry, politics and borders. Earth systems are very complex, and scientists are often very precise. Therefore, although climate change is occurring without doubt, communicating the inherent complexity of the system in relatable terms is challenging. This has led to political, economic and social framing of the issue as perhaps less than unequivocal.
Learning about representative concentration pathways and shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) provided me with more context and clarity into the range of possible outcomes based on greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation and mitigation actions.The SSP’s iterative community designed process uses narratives to create projections, and relay those projections back to create climate communication. Population growth, GDP, urbanization, energy sources, land use and emissions increases with subsequent radiative forcing all contribute to climate projections (Riahi et al., 2017). The ability to combine multiple elements and create marker scenarios can expose policy makers and others to the range of plausible climate outcomes.
Scenarios may be an important tool to help translate the difference of a degree, or half a degree from the representative concentration pathway scenarios, and identify vulnerabilities resulting from level of fossil fuel intensity related to socioeconomic situations. While half a degree in the weather changing might not sound like a big deal, but if that half a degree in climate increases the likelihood of wildfires, drought or hurricanes may elicit more attention, action and adaptation.
It has been easy to get lost in the complexity, especially in this course with all of the projections, scenarios, modelling and technical jargon- the planet feels like a giant science experiment we are racing to get ahead of. Along with the intrinsic discomfort and daunting nature of the task, Heglar talks about “doomers” with a pessimistic outlook who add another layer of complexity to the challenge- people in the scope who aren’t even seemingly on your side (Heglar, 2019). As well as the population who want to help, but may be misguided.
References
Bush, E., Gillett, N., Bonsal, B., Cohen, S., Derksen, C., Flato, G., Greenan, B., Shepherd, Zhang, X. (2019). Canada’s Changing Climate Report: Executive Summary. Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Heglar, M., A. (2019, September 12). Home is always worth it. Medium. https://medium.com/@maryheglar/home-is-always-worth-it-d2821634dcd9
Masson-Delmotte, V., M. Schulz, A. Abe-Ouchi, J. Beer, A. Ganopolski, J.F. González Rouco, E. Jansen, K. Lambeck, J. Luterbacher, T. Naish, T. Osborn, B. Otto-Bliesner, T. Quinn, R. Ramesh, M. Rojas, X. Shao and A. Timmermann, (2013). Information from Paleoclimate Archives. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J.
Riahi, K., van Vuuren, D. P., Kriegler, E., Edmonds, J., O’neill, B. C., Fujimori, S., Bauer, N., Calvin, K., … Tavoni, M. (2017). The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview. Global environmental change, 42, 153-168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.05.009