NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: First, let me apologize for the lag in time between the last post. One of the things I promised myself when creating this blog is that I wouldn't become a flash in the pan blogger (*cough* Ben Smith) who goes absolutely nuts for the first few weeks as if I've never known a life outside of blogging, and then just completely drop off the radar without as even as much as a explanation. Well fear not my 16 or so followers- Sustaining Sustainability lives on! Contrary to popular belief, (f)unemployment is a busy lifestyle. Searching for a job is just as demanding as actually having one. But I digress. Without further ado...
Anyone who knows anything about climate change is familiar with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC for short. Founded by Lester R. Brown (author of Plan B 4.0), the scientific intergovernmental organization was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to assess the risks of anthropogenic climate change, its environmetnal and socio-economic consequences, and how we can either adapt to these consequences or mitigating their effects.
Before we move on, I would like to address: the fact they were willing to ''adapt to the consequences'' that had occurred back in 1988 rather than mitigate or solve them, is worrying. If such organizations as the WMO and UN believed, 25 years ago, that there were man made consequences of climate change occurring that were already out of our technological grasp of fixing, what does that say about our current state of affairs? Continuing on...
About two months ago, the IPCC released the first of three working group reports as part of its 5th Assessment Report on Climate Change. The first report is titled Climate Change: The Physical Science Basis and provides one of the most comprehensive and relevant scientific studies about the human made effects of climate change. The remaining working group reports will be released in March and April of 2014 respectively, followed by a synthesis report in October 2014. In addition to the technical summary of Working Group I, the IPCC has also released a Summary for Policymakers, which provides an alternate summary of the findings, complete with small highlighted boxes throughout each section, which draw concise conclusions and summaries about the findings for the 'busy' policy makers. None the less, its a useful resource for quickly understanding the key facts about this often overwhelming and complex subject.
Even more relevant, earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to attend a workshop in Brussels organized by my former unit at the European Parliament- The Science and Technology Options Assessment Unit (STOA) which brought in 8 members of the IPCC to discuss the findings of this report. This unique, first hand explanation was attended by the IPCCs Head and Deputy Head of the Technical Support Unit of WGI, along with 6 IPCC Lead Authors (LA) and Coordinating Lead Authors (CLA) of WGI AR5. As well as summarizing their findings and discussing the implications, the event allowed for EU MEPs, various experts and even the general public to address the IPCC authors with questions comments, skepticism and praise.
Working Group I covers many crucial climate change areas including ''changes in temperature'' (surface, troposphere, stratosphere and ocean), ''changes in energy budget and heat content'' (aka- global warming resulting from radiative imbalance), ''water cycle changes", ''drivers of climate change'', and ''causes of radiative forcing'' among many others. What I found most striking was actually putting a face to the name of the IPCC, its researchers and authors. Most people have heard of the world renowned organization and its work, but I guarantee you 99.9 out of 100 people wouldn't be able to pick them out of a line up to save their lives. Although I did heard one attendee state, ''I work in the environmental sector and these guys are like my celebrities. I just had to come see them.'' I guess she was the 0.1 of a person.
But what is clear from reading this report and hearing the authors defend their work in person is something we've all been warned would occur for the past couple decades, "warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.'' Further, ''each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983 - 2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years.''
One of the best questions posed to the authors related to the significance of these findings compared to past trends, "what's to say this period of highest warmth is significant? There must have been a 'highest period' in the past, but why is this particular peak a concern for us." Simply answered, the authors noted that since the industrial revolution, we have developed a much more significant infrastructure, with greater industrial advancement, resource consumption, and population growth. These records are surpassing historical trends to the likes we have never seen. These trends are not typical to the natural cycle of Earth's peaks and troughs. Therefore the implications are also greater. Severe weather events are occurring more frequently with much more difficulty in adapting to them(e.i. the recent typhoon in the Philippines). Food and water security is no longer an issue of the impoverished or developing nations, its a global issue which even the most advanced and well off nations are having to deal with.
The take away message from this report and these findings is that climate change is a holistic issue. It's caused by very few man-made factors but effects the natural environment and complicates man's existence in a wide variety ways. But its awareness needs to be spread beyond the confines of small government workshops among scientists and politicians. These are issues that effect the common man, therefore they are issues that common man should be properly informed about. Workshops, town hall meetings, public hearings, seminars, conferences and even educational courses should be offered to inform the public on what the issues are, what is needed to tackle them and the consequences of ignoring them. For the EU in particular, with the upcoming 2014 European elections, the time has never been more ample to invoke public awareness. Bringing these issues to the forefront of the political agenda and demonstrating the public's desire to see these issues addressed could significantly alter the political action in the 2014 elections, creating a wider, firmer stance on climate change mitigation. This sort of action would only favor the EUs policy agenda, as it currently holds many commitments to climate change, emissions reductions, renewable energy share and energy efficiency for 2020 and 2050.
Working Group I covers many crucial climate change areas including ''changes in temperature'' (surface, troposphere, stratosphere and ocean), ''changes in energy budget and heat content'' (aka- global warming resulting from radiative imbalance), ''water cycle changes", ''drivers of climate change'', and ''causes of radiative forcing'' among many others. What I found most striking was actually putting a face to the name of the IPCC, its researchers and authors. Most people have heard of the world renowned organization and its work, but I guarantee you 99.9 out of 100 people wouldn't be able to pick them out of a line up to save their lives. Although I did heard one attendee state, ''I work in the environmental sector and these guys are like my celebrities. I just had to come see them.'' I guess she was the 0.1 of a person.
But what is clear from reading this report and hearing the authors defend their work in person is something we've all been warned would occur for the past couple decades, "warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.'' Further, ''each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983 - 2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years.''
One of the best questions posed to the authors related to the significance of these findings compared to past trends, "what's to say this period of highest warmth is significant? There must have been a 'highest period' in the past, but why is this particular peak a concern for us." Simply answered, the authors noted that since the industrial revolution, we have developed a much more significant infrastructure, with greater industrial advancement, resource consumption, and population growth. These records are surpassing historical trends to the likes we have never seen. These trends are not typical to the natural cycle of Earth's peaks and troughs. Therefore the implications are also greater. Severe weather events are occurring more frequently with much more difficulty in adapting to them(e.i. the recent typhoon in the Philippines). Food and water security is no longer an issue of the impoverished or developing nations, its a global issue which even the most advanced and well off nations are having to deal with.
The take away message from this report and these findings is that climate change is a holistic issue. It's caused by very few man-made factors but effects the natural environment and complicates man's existence in a wide variety ways. But its awareness needs to be spread beyond the confines of small government workshops among scientists and politicians. These are issues that effect the common man, therefore they are issues that common man should be properly informed about. Workshops, town hall meetings, public hearings, seminars, conferences and even educational courses should be offered to inform the public on what the issues are, what is needed to tackle them and the consequences of ignoring them. For the EU in particular, with the upcoming 2014 European elections, the time has never been more ample to invoke public awareness. Bringing these issues to the forefront of the political agenda and demonstrating the public's desire to see these issues addressed could significantly alter the political action in the 2014 elections, creating a wider, firmer stance on climate change mitigation. This sort of action would only favor the EUs policy agenda, as it currently holds many commitments to climate change, emissions reductions, renewable energy share and energy efficiency for 2020 and 2050.
