Do These Things to Help Fight Global Warming
Global warming is the greatest existential threat of our times. Read. Understand. Take action.
Essential Reading
The conclusions of this book are well summarised on this PDF here. Back in 2008, the author of the book stated:
We have only seven years left to peak global emissions before facing escalating dangers of runaway global warming.
From Wikipedia:
Runaway climate change or runaway global warming is hypothesized to follow a tipping point in the climate system, after accumulated climate change initiates a reinforcing positive feedback.
The outcome of runaway global warming is acknowledged to be mass extinction.
Climate change augurs a wide range of adverse impacts. These impacts range from the seemingly innocuous, like more potent poisonous plants, to cataclysmic extreme weather events, like continent-sized superstorms. Other serious threats include widespread coastal flooding, storm-surges, heatwaves, drought, wildfires, mass migration, famine, disease, conflict, anoxia, species extinction and ultimately human extinction.
So where does this leave us? Are we doomed?
While no clear answer is known yet, Margaret E. Atwood does a great job at illustrating two hypothetical and extreme scenarios for what may lie ahead:
As a follow-up article, Nafeez Ahmed writes about the Crisis of Civilization, and well describes the current state of things here:
He asserts that the transition to a post-capitalism world is already in progress and it has the potential to avoid the collapse of civilization.
Quoting a widely-reported paper in Science Advances published in June 2015:
Although it is still possible to avoid a loss of critical ecosystem services essential for human survival, through “intensified conservation efforts,” the window of opportunity to do so is “rapidly closing”.
While some of the great forces at play in our world will determine the outcome, we all have a collective responsibility to be good citizens of the world and take action.
Take Action
In the words of Joe Romm, the most important thing we can do is this:
Talk about climate change and its solutions with everyone you know a lot more than you are doing now.
It can be hard bring up this topic with friends, family or strangers, but we need to understand that it is a moral obligation to act.
On an individual level, we can also do a lot to reduce our carbon footprint:
Checklist
- Reduce food waste & meat consumption (especially beef)
- Take less flights
- Reduce car usage
- Use heating efficiently
- Shower efficiently
- Eliminate standby energy usage
- Reduce clothing purchases
Sources
Donate
The Amazon rainforest is the world’s largest tropical rainforest. It absorbs more CO2 than it puts back in the atmosphere. Shifting weather patterns in the warming world could reverse this effect and trigger a tipping point for irreversible global warming.
We depend on our forests, yet 50% of them have already been lost. It is in our best interest in preserve and safeguard them from the effects of deforestation and climate change. We can contribute by donating to these organisations:
- OneTreePlanted.org (NGO) — donate one dollar, plant one tree (Africa, Asia, North America, South America).
- Stand For Trees (GO) — support specific forest communities to protect trees.
- Rainforest Partnership — on Twitter
- World Land Trust — Plant trees to restore lost forest or to reconnect areas of forest habitat.
- Trees4Trees — community forestation, Indonesia.
Illustrations
More Information
Data
- The World Bank — CO2 emissions
- climate.nasa.gov
- NASA — GISS Surface Temperature Analysis
- CO2 emissions — globalcarbonatlas.com
On The News
- [Nov 17, 2016. Washington Post] The North Pole is an insane 36 degrees warmer than normal as winter descends
- [Nov 9, 2016. Indipendent.co.uk] Climate change may be escalating so fast it could be ‘game over’, scientists warn
- [Nov 9, 2016] A warm climate is more sensitive to changes in atmospheric CO2
- [June 13, 2016] The Terrifying Truth About Climate Change
- [May 11, 2016] See Earth’s Temperature Spiral Toward 2°C
On Medium
Publications to follow
Articles
- [Nov 15, 2016] Living Through the Death of Capitalism
- [Jun 21, 2016] These Six Companies May Well Change the World. We Should All Be Rooting For Them
- [Jan 19, 2015] In Your Wildest Schemes — illustration about free markets and climate change
- [Nov 11, 2016] There will never be a better time to save the planet
- [Nov 18, 2016] The Politics of Optimism
- [Jul 27, 2015] It’s not Climate Change, it’s Everything Change
- [Jul 28, 2015] Beyond Extinction — Transition to Post-Capitalism is inevitable
- [Apr 7, 2016] Treating Soil A Little Differently Could Help It Store A Huge Amount Of Carbon
- [May 8, 2016] Future-ready cities: Choosing where to live on a planet in crisis
Appendix: Renewable Energies
While it is important of us to make changes to reduce our carbon emissions, it is also clear that we need to change how the world works at a system level.
The majority of our energy consumption comes from burning fossil-fuels. Replacing these with renewable energies can dramatically cut our CO2 emissions. This section outlines the adoption trends for renewable energies.
5 Part Series looking at the economic trends of new energy technologies.
- Part 1: How Cheap Can Solar Get? Very Cheap Indeed
- Part 2: How Steady Can Wind Power Blow?
- Part 3: How Cheap Can Energy Storage Get? Pretty Darn Cheap
- Part 4: How Far Can Renewables Go? Pretty Darn Far
- Part 5: How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?
Renewable Energies News
- [Nov 9, 2015. Fortune.com] This is Why Solar Panels Will Boom Early Next Year
- [Apr 21, 2016] The $2 Trillion Project to Get Saudi Arabia’s Economy Off Oil
Help make this article better
I wrote this article as a go-to place to create awareness about the threat of global warning. I have tried to include relevant sources of information to better explain what is at stake, and what can be done.
By no means this is a complete overview to the problem and its solutions. There is so much more we need to learn and do. If you feel that I should include more relevant articles or resources, please let me know in the comments and I will update this article accordingly.
About me: I’m not a climate expert. Rather, I’m a simple human that is trying to understand the impact we are having on the world, and do something to leave behind a liveable planet for our children and future generations.
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