The great British summer – promised rain, a few days of sun and then more promised rain. Right? Not necessarily. It’s no secret that the weather is getting warmer, and has been for years. But that’s good news for our sun tans, ice cream shops and washing lines, so it’s not that bad – we all go on holiday for the heat, so we won’t need to. Right?
Absolutely not. Since 1880, the combined land and ocean temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.07°C per decade. That’s not much, is it? Well, the average rate of increase since 1981 (0.18°C) is more than twice as great (Climate.gov). Basically, we have done the most damage in the past 40 years. But a couple of degrees isn’t a big deal – we see these changes in temperature everyday. Well, a one degree global increase is not the same as a local one degree increase throughout the day. These temperatures fluctuate due to things like time of day and season, whereas a global temperature increase is the average temperature of everything. If everything – the land, sea and atmosphere – has risen by 1 degree, then it has to have been very, very warm.
So the planet is heating up, but everyone loves hot weather so this isn’t a problem, is it? Sadly, it really is. If our planet continues to warm like this, then in the future we will see more drought and wildfires, like those we’ve seen in Australia recently, and whole ecosystems could potentially disappear. Agriculture would also be hit, as crops often require certain temperatures to grow, and animals become heat stressed, which would affect food production.
For humans, there are a number of issues that could come with higher temperatures, if the planet continues to warm as it is. There is the possibility that tropical diseases may become more common in parts of the world where they were not a problem, and diseases that we have evolved to kill off using our body temperature will be better equipped to survive higher temperatures. Respiratory, cardiovascular and kidney problems could become more common, and heatstroke or other heat related illnesses could be constant daily struggles. Outdoor work could become practically impossible, as temperatures and humidity become too much to handle. As increasing temperatures are caused by greenhouse gases, air pollution will also be a huge problem (even more so than it already is). This won’t be helped by the excessive use of air conditioning which uses electricity, which sometimes can produce more pollution.
In The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, they paint a picture of two worlds – one that will happen if we do not stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and one that could happen if we do everything in our power, as the human race, to become carbon neutral. The things I’ve mentioned above are just the start, if we do nothing. But we do not have to do nothing. The Future We Choose presents us with this choice, and to me, it seems an easy one.
Sources:
- https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91OhlQi9s-o&app=desktop
- The Future We Choose, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac
- https://www.c2es.org/content/heat-waves-and-climate-change/
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/08/climate-change-global-heating-extreme-heat-humidity#:~:text=Humidity%20is%20more%20dangerous%20than,study%20published%20in%20Science%20Advances.
- https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/global-temperatures#:~:text=World%20of%20Change%3A%20Global%20Temperatures&text=The%20world%20is%20getting%20warmer.&text=According%20to%20an%20ongoing%20temperature,2%C2%B0%20Fahrenheit)%20since%201880.
Waste Makes Waste 
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