In the final chapter of Mark Lynas's book, "Six Degrees," the author helps readers process the haunting information they just read in the journey through an average global temperature increase of six degrees. Lynas breaks this chapter up into several important sections, which I shall break this blog post into as well.
Knowing What We Don't Know
This section focuses on two major ideas, future warming and climate sensitivity. Both of these carry a great importance and are often ignored when discussing climate change, simply because there is no way to prove their occurrence. Future warming is just that: even if we stop raising the Earth's temperature by our emissions, the carbon already in the atmosphere would still cause a possible 1 to 1.5 degrees of warming. This relates to positive feedback loops, where the Earth will continue causing its own problem, even without any further stimulus. Climate sensitivity describes just how reactionary the environment is to carbon emissions, in that low sensitivity means that high emissions would not increase the temperature much, but high sensitivity means high increases. Because these factors are so unknown but would definitely have a high effect on the future of the planet, scientists ran many, many calculations with changing scenarios and typically base their information off of averages calculated. They did this by a website called climateprediction.net, a project by Oxford University that seems to no longer be available.
Setting a Target
In the following section, Lynas gives his ideas on what our goal should be for carbon ppm and by what year. Unfortunately, his goal was having "peak carbon," or the highest emissions amount, by 2015, and decrease from there. He said that the peak carbon amount should be 400ppm or less. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
Lynas also states that he predicts 450ppm will bring 3 degrees of warming, 550ppm will bring 4 degrees, 650ppm will bring 5 degrees, and 800ppm will bring 6 degrees. This includes his observations on future warming and climate sensitivity.
States of Denial
As predictable, humans don't like to admit they are in the wrong, especially when it comes to causing climate change. Every excuse possible is used to defend their Earth-killing behaviors--excuses we have all used. This can most obviously be evident with cars and the dependency on them in our country. Many people value their individual needs above the needs of the collective, making these excuses easy to justify. This goes back even further, in a societal sense. As a whole, we believe that natural resources are the same as free resources, and never account sustainability into the economic equation. Perhaps if we did, we would value it more. We also equate a high carbon lifestyle with societal status, especially with fancy cars.
Knocking In Wedges
In this section, Lynas really focuses on what we can do to save the planet. One of the key factors from this section is that there is not gonna be some radical technology that comes out soon and automatically fixes everything. We already have the tools we need, now we just need to implement them. He simplifies this down to seven things, which he calls wedges: halve the distance people drive annually, double vehicle fuel economy, increase efficiency of buildings and fossil-fueled power stations, build two million one-megawatt wind turbines, cover five million acres with solar panels, cease tropical forest destruction, and increase tree coverage. Even with these, we still need to find another four or five additional wedges to stay within a two-degree target of warming. Unfortunately, this requires two majors changes, one in societal expectations and thinking, and the other in international governmental policies. Together, these two changes allow the seven wedges to come to life and prevent further damage.
In a final thought and analysis, I really enjoy how Lynas illustrates both the threat and reality in a manner that is not entirely terrifying, but still scary enough to motivate change. The individuals, especially in the United States, need to come together to inspire these changes. Only then will we have a chance. And while we have surpassed the 400ppm goal, there is still hope if we take action. I hope that this past Earth Day has helped inspire more people to think green, act green, and most importantly, vote green!
