Climate 2016 The Race Against Time

Spring Issue

Revised May 24, 2016

Bill Gates on Climate Change:

‘We Need a Miracle’ “Scientists say that to avoid... dramatic long-term changes to the climate, the world must cut green-house gas emissions by up to 80 percent by 2050, and eliminate them entirely by the end of the cen-tury. When I first heard this I was surprised. Can’t we just aim to cut carbon emissions in half? I asked many scientists. But they all agreed that wouldn’t be enough. The problem is that CO2 lingers in the atmosphere for decades. Even if we halted carbon emissions tomorrow, the temperature would still rise because of the carbon that’s already been released. No, we need to get all the way down to zero. When I say “miracle,” I don’t mean something that’s impossible. I’ve seen miracles happen before. In this case, however, time is not on our side. Every day we are releasing more and more CO2 into our atmosphere and making our climate change problem even worse.”

When I say “miracle,” I don’t mean something that’s impossible. I’ve seen miracles happen before.

Planet Earth Casts It’s Vote For Climate Action

For five decades, scientists have repeat-edly warned us. Even U.S. Presidents have beat the drum. Now the planet earth seems to be weighing in. Last year, average global temperatures surged again, setting new record breaking highs (see chart on page 2).1 Then March 2016 became the 11th month in a row to set a new record high for monthly global temperatures. Even the number of record breaking months in a row is itself a new all time record.2 Then there was more bad news. In March, atmos-pheric CO2 again surged to record break-ing levels. What made this news espe-cially bad was that last year, CO2 levels made their largest ever recorded annual leap3(see chart on page 2).

Yes! Nobel Laureate, author of “An Inconvenient Truth” and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, has now founded The Climate Reality Project. Despite our setbacks, Al Gore believes that we have the tools to avert calamity. He is using The Climate Reality Project to broadcast the con-vincing view that solutions exist, and that every day, new solutions are emerging. Our ability to convert sunshine into useable energy is rapidly becoming more advanced and accessible. The cost of clean energy technologies is dropping, and is now equal to or cheaper than fossil fuel energy in about 79 countries. The electric car market is booming, thanks to falling battery prices. Businesses are finding that going green is good for the bottom line. Homes, schools, and workplaces are all becoming more energy efficient. Over 6.5 million people are employed globally by the renewable energy industry. There might even be hints of progress. Despite the continuing surge in atmospheric CO2, energy production related global CO2

emissions may be leveling off.4 The question that remains is, will world citizens and leaders take the necessary steps to drastically reduce and then eliminate fossil fuel emis-sions in time to avert global calamity?

Is There Good News?

Annual Global Temperatures, 1958 - 2015 (Relative To The 20th Century Average Global Temperature Baseline)

1958— Charles Keeling brings the world's attention to the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by beginning to take continuous measurements of atmospheric CO2

11

2015 — “The Paris Agreement” Initial hope over the 125 nation

agreement faded as climate scien-tists warned of “deadly flaws” in

the agreement and measures that “fall woefully short”7

2008—Leading climate scientist James Hansen warns of the dangers of atmospheric CO2 exceeding 350 ppm.8

2008 — Author and professor Bill McKibben founded 350.org, which has grown into an international movement.9

Atmospheric CO2 (1958 - present)

1988 — Leading climate scientist James Hansen warns Congress that global warming has begun and urges action to reduce CO2 emissions.10

2006 — Al Gore popularizes the science behind global warming in his publication of “An Inconvenient Truth”.12

1965 — Lyndon B. Johnson becomes the first President to warn the nation about “a steady in-

crease in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.” His science advisory committee forecasted coming global warming, sea level rise, and a 14 - 30% increase in atmospheric CO2 by 2000, all of

which ended up being accurate.5

Source: Scripps Institution of Oceanography

2015 — Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization: "We are moving into uncharted

territory with frightening speed"6

Baseline = 20th century average global temperature

1957-2015 Trendline (rising at 1.41o C/Century)

Data and charting source: National Oceanic and Atmos-pheric Administration

1998 — The so-called global warming hiatus begins, fueling 15 years of global warming denial.

Isn’t climate change as old as the hills? Hasn’t climate always been changing? Yes. However, multiple lines of scientific evidence prove that human activity, primarily related to the emission of fossil fuels, are driv-ing current global warming. Fossil fuel emissions contain CO2, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. Today’s greenhouse effect then drives cur-rent global warming, which in turn drives modern day climate change. A look at the chart to the right shows that since 1958, CO2 has skyrocketed to levels way beyond anything that could be con-sidered natural. In addition, scientific findings show that hu-mans are emitting carbon into the atmosphere ten times fast-er and in greater quantities than during the most extreme nat-ural event that has occurred in at least the last 66 million years,13 and humans are elevating atmospheric CO2 concen-trations “a million times faster” than the average natural his-toric rate of change.14

What is the difference between Climate Change and Global Warming? Global warming refers to a long term increase in Earth’s average surface temperature. The term climate change is inclusive of global warming and also re-fers to a host of other long term climate changes, such as more frequent and intense heat waves, drought, extreme storms, flooding, and other extreme weather patterns. Sci-entists still use both terms. There has been debate about which term is politically correct, but actually both terms are necessary for understanding the critically important changes to our Earth System.15 For example, both terms are important in understanding ocean warming, ocean acidifi-cation, sea rise, or ice melt trends. Put simply, global warm-ing is the primary driver of the planet’s current and future long term climate change and it’s consequences.16

Quick Facts About Climate Change and Global Warming

Human related emissions of greenhouse gases dis-rupt and overwhelm the

earth’s natural systems for regulating green house

gases (such as the carbon cycle).15

Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, thereby causing global

warming.15

800,000 YEARS

Global warming in-duced climate change and the earth system

chain of events.

Certain climate and earth changes feed back into the climate/earth system, po-tentially intensifying the changes17

Global warming causes a complex series of climate

and earth changes.15

“The boiling frog is an anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwilling-ness of people to react to or be aware of threats that occur gradually.” (Wikipedia, ”Boiling Frog”)

The Good News: Energy-related CO2 emissions paused for the last two years19.

Despite this, the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentrations accelerated, and global

temperatures set new record highs.

The 25-50 Year Climate Lag

Why do greenhouse gas emissions take so long to have their full effect on global

warming? As heat builds up in the atmos-phere, the ocean acts as a massive heat sink,

absorbing atmospheric heat until an equilibrium is reached. This process takes several decades. James Han-sen and others estimate that the time required for 60% of global warming to take place in response to increased emissions now, to be in the range of 25 to 50 years.18

Alan Marshall from climatechangeanswers.org observes that “conservative elements in both politics and the me-dia have been playing up uncertainties in some of the more difficult to model effects of climate change, while ignoring the solid scientific understanding of the cause. If past governments had troubled themselves to understand the cause, and acted in a timely way, climate change would have been contained with minimal disruption. By refusing to acknowledge the cause, and demanding to see the effects before action is taken, past governments have brought on the current crisis. By the time they see those effects, it will too late to deal with the cause. “ 18

Is it just me, or is it getting a little

warm in here?

Nonsense, Mate! You’ve Been Taken In By That Global

Warming Hoax That’s being Promulgated by thousands of scientists. Just Relax and

Chill!

Teams of environmentalists around the world are working to help a miracle come true. The more people who get on board, the better our chances. To find out how you can make a difference, join our local community of envi-ronmental citizens at Triad EcoHub!

Search Google for Triad EcoHub or go to: http://www.meetup.com/Triad-EcoHub

Questions or comments? Call Cameron at (336) 582-3356, Sally at (336) 251-2658, or Gayle at (336) 407-2767.

This publication was produced by Temple Emanuel’s Envi-ronmental Movement (TEEM), a sub-committee of the So-cial Action Committee. The information in this publication is based on research of environmental topics.

References: 1. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Climate at a

Glance, at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ 2. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Global Analysis -

March 2016, at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ 3. “CO2 levels make largest recorded annual leap, NOAA data shows”

The Guardian, March 10 2016 4. “Global energy-related CO2 emissions”, International Energy Agency,

2016 5. “LBJ’s Climate Warning: A Milestone Reminds us, What We Knew,

and When We Knew It.”, climatecrocks.com, February 9, 2015 6. Gwynne Dyer, “Here’s why it may be too late to stop climate change”,

Bangor Daily News, April 18, 2016 7. Tom Bawden, “COP21: Paris deal far too weak to prevent devastating

climate change, academics warn”, The Independent , January 8, 2016 8. J. Hansen , M. Sato, P. Kharecha, D. Beerling, R. Berner, V. Masson-

Delmotte, M. Pagani, M. Raymo, D. L. Royer, J. C. Zachos, Target at-mospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim? Open Atmos. Sci. J. (2008), vol. 2, pp. 217-231 https://350.org/

9. Philip Shabecoff,”Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate”, The New York Times, June 24, 1988

10. Rob Monroe, THE HISTORY OF THE KEELING CURVE, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (online), Apr 3, 2013

11. Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, May 26, 2006

13. Damian Carrington, “Carbon emission release rate ‘unprecedented’ in past 66m years”, The Guardian, March 21, 2016 .

14. Chris Mooney, Michael Mann, "We are engaged in an unprecedented experiment. Scientist Michael Mann on 400ppm”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egkeRhiHomU

15. https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/science/causes.html 16. Global Warming vs. Climate Change, www.skepticalscience.com/

climate-change-global-warming.htm 17. https://www.climate.gov/teaching/essential-principles-climate-

literacy/teaching-essential-principle-2-climate-regulated 18. Alan Marshall, “Climate Change The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and

Effect”, www.skepticalscience.com/ September 22 2010 19. “Decoupling of global emissions and economic growth confirmed”,

International Energy Agency at https://www.iea.org, March 16 2016