Opinion Sur Joven

Deserts expanding over oceans, intense heat waves and excessive growth of the sea level. Those are some of the devastating consequences that the planet’s global warming will bring in a short term. So it’s explained on the report by the prestigious “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC ) 4th Assessment Report”, recently organized in Paris.

Such gloomy future awaits us not in a century from now, but just around the corner. Maybe that is why this topic is more present every time in the media and people’s minds. According to Greenpeace, 2006 is the year during which humanity became aware of climate change seriousness, due to the increasingly noticeable impact of the phenomenon and to the many actions for awareness.

On the IPCC’s report, the experts warn about the fact that global warming “will be much more destructive and will develop faster than estimated, with devastating effects on humanity”. They also point out that over the next years, temperature may increase about 4 and 5 degrees Celsius and that the causes of these environmental alterations “are human”. For instance: the average 30 degrees of January in Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro will become 35; Lima will start to reach -in average- the 30 degrees standard, with peaks of 35 or 40; La Paz will no longer have below zero temperature in winter.

Furthermore, the storms frequency will be even higher than today, the sea level will grow fast and the snow will remain only over the highest peaks of the planet. Deserts will be more expanded every time, oceans will become very acid, thus destroying large amounts of coral reefs, and heat waves will become very frequent in places which until now are warm.

No matter how scary these predictions may be, there is no better way of fighting against them than learning about the subject and understanding the process. Because, anyway, what do we mean when we talk about climate change?

English, please

“Global warming may be defined as an increase of the Earth temperature due to the use of fossil fuels and to other industrial processes which lead to accumulation of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons) in the atmosphere”, explains Alejandro San Martín, a journalist who holds a degree in Atmosphere Science.

Although these words may seem very complex, don’t worry, because once they are explained it gets even worse: “Climate change is an alteration of the chemical composition of the atmosphere –long-term changes in temperature, precipitations, winds and every other components of the weather on Earth- which is provoked by mass emission of some gases, which has grown significantly over the last fifty years in industrialized societies, due to the accelerated burning of fossil fuels combined with energy use, forest destruction, etc.”, San Martín tells us.

In simpler words: the increase of greenhouse gases alters the “natural greenhouse effect” because it leads to an imbalance which is compensated only by temperature increase, producing the mentioned “greenhouse effect” and generating the global warming which is proper of the climate change of our times. The worst of all is that, unlike other eras of the Earth, the current warming is being caused by man and, paradoxically, he is the most affected one by these problems.

The future is here

The IPCC report supported by United Nations brings clear and frightening examples of this reality. It highlights that 2005 and 1998 were the warmest years ever registered and that six of the warmest seven years of all history have occurred since 2001; that the average temperature of the surface has been increasing since 1850, and that the temperature of the air in continental areas has risen twice the one over the ocean since 1979.

According to the scientific community, this problem was originated when the industrialization process was strengthened. “The acceleration over the last years has had such a multiplying effect that today scientists recommend governments to enforce measures in order to adapt to these changes, because they consider them to be irreversible. The type of industrial development in China and India is especially worrisome, and now there is an arising dilemma regarding growth versus environment protection”, says San Martín.

Event though global warming has now everyone’s attention, the topic is not new. Warnings about it have been made for at least 15 years now, and it could be said that there was some more awareness by the mid 90’s. Although it hadn’t burst as now has, the subject was strong enough to lead to the Kyoto Protocol [1] in 1997, an international treaty by means of which the countries commit to reduce gas emission.

But Kyoto encountered the almighty limit of economy: the largest greenhouse gas emitter country, the United States, never signed the treaty. “It’s an instrument to lessen the crisis, but we must go beyond Kyoto”, San Martín points out. “Just like every instrument, it may be improved, but it’s still very important for the commitment of the nations to the solution”, he adds.

Of course, many celebrate the failure, not a total one but a failure indeed, of the Kyoto Protocol and the environmental policies. Few governments, most of them European ones, dare to set forth structural reforms and condition their industries to revert ecosystem damage and greenhouse gases emission. Politicians and pressure groups still find nowadays a justifying reasoning among those who deny the climate change to be caused by the humans.

What’s more, an American organization related to the oil lobby offered 10 thousand dollars to scientists and economists to debunk the UN report through the IPCC in Paris some days ago. More information

It’s not the first time attempts are made to debunk it. San Martín recalls that “there were many attacks to those who were alerting about the climate change, especially during the 90’s, when the market ruled the planet and the economic equation was more important than the environmental one: a terrible mistake, because they depend on each other. There were also minorities talking about a regular process of the Earth which would end up into another glacial period. All those theories were debunked by reality”.

Many environmentalists were labeled as fanatics and exaggerators because of the warnings they made at the time. Current reality vindicates them. If they hadn’t insisted so much, maybe today we wouldn’t pay much attention or be so aware of the dangerous course our planet is moving. As pointed out by Alejandro San Martín, with a little bit of hope, “the exaggeration which alerts us is better than the passivity which lets things happen, and many times it’s too late to redress them”.