I spend most of my time here talking about our individual, personal health and well being. But what good is that if we make our planet sick?
"Our planet is rapidly changing, and what we are witnessing is unlike anything that has occurred in human, or even geological, history. The heat-trapping nature of CO2 and methane, both greenhouse gases, has been scientific fact for decades, and according to NASA, “no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response”. Evidence shows that greenhouse gas emissions are causing the Earth to warm 10 times faster than it should, and the ramifications of this are being felt, quite literally, throughout the entire biosphere.
Oceans are warming at unprecedented rates, droughts and wildfires of increasing severity and frequency are altering forests around the globe, and the Earth’s cryosphere – the parts of the Earth so cold that water is frozen into ice or snow – is melting at an ever-accelerating rate. The subsea permafrost in the Arctic is thawing, and we could experience a methane “burp” of previously trapped gas at any moment, causing the equivalent of several times the total amount of CO2 humans have emitted to be released into the atmosphere. The results would be catastrophic.
Climate disruption also brings with it extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods. For instance, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, leading to an increase in the frequency of severe major rain events, such as Hurricane Harvey over Houston in summer 2017, which dropped so much rain that the weight of the water actually caused the Earth’s crust to sink by 2cm.
Earth has not seen current atmospheric CO2 levels since the Pliocene epoch, some 3m years ago. Three-quarters of that CO2 will still be here in 500 years. It takes a decade to experience the full warming effects of CO2 emissions. Even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions, it would take another 25,000 years for most of what is currently in the atmosphere to be absorbed into the oceans.
Climate disruption is progressing faster than ever, and faster than predicted. Seventeen of the 18 hottest years ever recorded have occurred since 2001. The distress signals from our overheated planet are all around us, with reports, studies and warnings increasing daily. Worst-case prediction made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the rise in temperatures, extreme weather, sea levels and CO2 levels in the atmosphere have fallen short of reality. Countless glaciers, rivers, lakes, forests and species are already vanishing at a pace never seen before, and all of this from increasing the global mean temperature by “only” 1C above the preindustrial baseline. Some scientists predict it could rise by as much as 10C by 2100. A study led by James Hansen, the former director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warned that the rise we have seen so far has already caused unstoppable melting in both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
Mountaineering in today’s climate-disrupted world is a vastly different endeavour from what it used to be. Glaciers are vanishing before our eyes, having shrunk to the lowest levels ever recorded, and are now melting faster than ever. Seventy per cent of the glaciers in western Canada are projected to be gone by 2100. Montana’s Glacier National Park will most likely not have any active glaciers by 2030. The Matanuska Glacier’s ancient ice is already rapidly vanishing. Dramatic changes are occurring even in the planet’s highest and coldest places. Even Mount Everest is transforming, as thousands of glaciers across the Himalayas are likely to shrink by up to 99% by 2100. A child born today will see an Everest largely free of glaciers within their lifetime."
- Dahr Jamail, Reporter
"Our planet is rapidly changing, and what we are witnessing is unlike anything that has occurred in human, or even geological, history. The heat-trapping nature of CO2 and methane, both greenhouse gases, has been scientific fact for decades, and according to NASA, “no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response”. Evidence shows that greenhouse gas emissions are causing the Earth to warm 10 times faster than it should, and the ramifications of this are being felt, quite literally, throughout the entire biosphere.
Oceans are warming at unprecedented rates, droughts and wildfires of increasing severity and frequency are altering forests around the globe, and the Earth’s cryosphere – the parts of the Earth so cold that water is frozen into ice or snow – is melting at an ever-accelerating rate. The subsea permafrost in the Arctic is thawing, and we could experience a methane “burp” of previously trapped gas at any moment, causing the equivalent of several times the total amount of CO2 humans have emitted to be released into the atmosphere. The results would be catastrophic.
Climate disruption also brings with it extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods. For instance, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, leading to an increase in the frequency of severe major rain events, such as Hurricane Harvey over Houston in summer 2017, which dropped so much rain that the weight of the water actually caused the Earth’s crust to sink by 2cm.
Earth has not seen current atmospheric CO2 levels since the Pliocene epoch, some 3m years ago. Three-quarters of that CO2 will still be here in 500 years. It takes a decade to experience the full warming effects of CO2 emissions. Even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions, it would take another 25,000 years for most of what is currently in the atmosphere to be absorbed into the oceans.
Climate disruption is progressing faster than ever, and faster than predicted. Seventeen of the 18 hottest years ever recorded have occurred since 2001. The distress signals from our overheated planet are all around us, with reports, studies and warnings increasing daily. Worst-case prediction made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the rise in temperatures, extreme weather, sea levels and CO2 levels in the atmosphere have fallen short of reality. Countless glaciers, rivers, lakes, forests and species are already vanishing at a pace never seen before, and all of this from increasing the global mean temperature by “only” 1C above the preindustrial baseline. Some scientists predict it could rise by as much as 10C by 2100. A study led by James Hansen, the former director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warned that the rise we have seen so far has already caused unstoppable melting in both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
Mountaineering in today’s climate-disrupted world is a vastly different endeavour from what it used to be. Glaciers are vanishing before our eyes, having shrunk to the lowest levels ever recorded, and are now melting faster than ever. Seventy per cent of the glaciers in western Canada are projected to be gone by 2100. Montana’s Glacier National Park will most likely not have any active glaciers by 2030. The Matanuska Glacier’s ancient ice is already rapidly vanishing. Dramatic changes are occurring even in the planet’s highest and coldest places. Even Mount Everest is transforming, as thousands of glaciers across the Himalayas are likely to shrink by up to 99% by 2100. A child born today will see an Everest largely free of glaciers within their lifetime."
- Dahr Jamail, Reporter
