Six Degrees – Our Future on a Hotter Planet

Six Degrees - Mark Lynas

Having recently read the book: Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas I thought I would share with you some of my thoughts about the book  and discuss some of the global warming issues – real or perceived.

I was in the ‘fortunate’ position to be reading this book during the Hurricane season of the North Atlantic which really brought home to me some of the facts and figures. I could watch on CNN or SkyNews this enormous Category 4 hurricane hurtling towards the Gulf Of Mexico and then read in Lynas’ book about the North Atlantic current and how the warming of those oceans is going to have a dramatic effect on Hurricane activity.  A really interesting example came our way just recently (29th September 2008 in fact) when a rare hurricane made it way past the eastern seaboard of the United States and up into Canada. Admittedly hurricane Kyle had weakened into a tropical storm as it swept across the Canadian Maritimes but was reminiscent of Hurricane Juan, a category 2 storm which caused an estimated $100 million in damage in 2003.  Scientists readily admit that Canada does get hurricanes every couple of years but can we expect to see an increase in this activity?  Time will tell.  Lynas also predicts that we may need to reconsider the current hurricane category scale and introduce a level 6 as storms get more severe.

As an aside I did note how ‘Westernised’ we are as television audiences as there have been an equally large number of destructive Typhoons in the South China Sea which have received far less coverage than their counterparts in the Americas.  These typhoons have caused more damage and loss of life overall.  Quite possibly the reason for this is due to the nature of the third-world construction and residential establishments in that part of the world?  I would anticipate typhoon television coverage to increase however as China enters the first world and the storms become more numerous and violent.

Hurricane Katrina

In his book Mark Lynas has distilled an enormous amount of scientific research (judging by the size of the bibliography at the end of the book) and presented it in a way that is quite readable and understandable by the man in the street – that’s me.  He describes in detail the impact that global warming will have on our planet as the average global temperature rises by a degree at a time with Six Degrees being a practical doomsday scenario.  Make no mistake however that a simple one or two degree change has catastrophic effects world-wide with a global overall average increase of just two degrees seeming to be the tipping point.  The real problem as far as I understand is that the temperature increase effects are cumulative and have an exponential impact as the planet warms up.  To illustrate, as the ice caps or glaciers begin to melt that run-off begins to warm up the oceans, which has an effect of warming overall global temperatures even more which has an effect of increasing the rate of ice melt. So you can appreciate the knock-on effect each degree of temperature increase will have overall.

As Lynas tantalizingly describes each degree of increase it struck home to me as well the socio-economic impact global warming will have.  Countries will undoubtedly close ranks and conflict will arise over scarcer resources.  As populations begin to leave drying areas and move north or south this will put extra pressure on already scarce resources in countries that are barely getting by.  More-over those countries may not allow the influx of this added burden and border conflicts will arise.  It’s hard to imagine whole populations on the move but this is perhaps a future that our children have to look forward to?  From a resource and climate point of view it does appear as though we in Southern Africa are in for a rough ride.  We already live in a very dry part of the African continent and this is only going to get worse as the Kalahari begins to take a firmer grip over the sub-continent.  This does not even take into account the impact that rising sea-levels may have on our ports and harbours and the corresponding negative economic impact.

It is generally acknowledged that climate change is happening on our planet and could result in catasrophe for mankind unless we attempt to reverse the cycle of carbon emmissions by significant levels.  The root cause of those carbon-emmision increases however remain a very debateable point.   As I perceive it however the real trouble is that the biosphere is slow to react to change in real terms and the longer we delay a strategy for change the less likely it will be effective should we pass the 2 degree tipping-point.  It has taken a few hundred years of industrialisation before global warming has gained impetus on our planet.  Conversely if we are able to halve carbon emmissions tomorrow it will still take tens or hundreds of years for green-house gases and carbon to reduce to a level where temperatures begin to stabilise, never mind diminish.

Kilimanjaro - Glacial Melt

It is important to think critically however and note that not all of what Lynas writes about is accepted wholesale by scientists world-wide.  Some of the evidence seems clear enough to me but I am not a scientist and I don’t have the luxury of having read all of the available literature to make a truly informed opinion.  As an example an issue that I found really interesting was the root cause of glacial melt.  It does seem to be acknowledged that a large proportion of glacial melt (especially that occuring in the Himilayas) is as a result of global warming caused by an increase in carbon emmissions.   However, the iconic example of the receding glacial ice-cap of Mount Kilimanjaro on the border of Tanzania and Kenya seems to be hotly debated.  As can be seen by the attached photograph ice cover has shrunk by 90%.  Photographs of this mountain were used by Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth” and Greenpeace activists have in the past staged protests on top of this mountain to highlight the impact of global warming.   However most scientists who study Kilimanjaro’s glaciers have long been uneasy with the volcano’s poster-child status saying that Kilimanjaro just happens to be the worst possible case study for global warming related glacial melt.  Glacial decline is evident on Kilimanjaro for well over a century, long before humans began pumping large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Therefore it goes without saying that one needs to approach the subject with some scepticism and critical thinking in order to understand all aspects of the problem.

We should all acknowledge that any steps we take to reduce carbon emissions should have a positive impact on our environment and we should undertake to reduce our own carbon footprint.  The trouble is that as an individual it seems difficult to perceive how much of an impact we may have so as a result we tend to leave it up to policy-makers and large corporations in the hope that they ‘will do the right thing‘.  Will they?