Climate Change For Dummies. Elizabeth May

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СКАЧАТЬ looms, steel mills, railroads and steamships: Coal powered England to become the first great industrial empire. The technology was then exported around the world, to Europe and the new states in America, and industrial output exploded.

      With this new kind of industry, people began to be employed in large numbers in centralized locations. The move from the country to the cities accelerated. In the cities, coal was burned for heat, for hot water, and “coal gas” lit indoor and outdoor spaces. People worked longer hours of work and enjoyed evening entertainments in theaters and music halls.

      But wait. There's still more.

       The second Industrial Revolution begins

      In 1859, oil was produced from a well in Pennsylvania, and the second Industrial Revolution began. Coal remained dominant for a long time, but the use of oil and its companion product methane gas (called natural gas to help with marketing) grew rapidly until the use of oil equaled coal by the 1950s and then displaced coal from most uses (except to make electricity and steel) by the 1970s. Oil is easier to handle than coal, produces more usable energy with less smoke and soot, and is just a better fuel source for railroads and ships, for industry, and for electrical generation. So King Coal lost its crown.

      But humans were making more and more stuff and were still burning a lot of coal and now a lot of oil and gas as well. When that coal and oil was burned, humans got to use that ancient solar energy again to make things and move things and keep things warm. And all that carbon was released again, off into atmosphere as carbon dioxide and other gases called greenhouse gases because they act like the glass in a greenhouse to keep heat in. So, like any good greenhouse, the Earth became warmer. And it’s still getting warmer today. And that’s the problem to solve.

Tapping into The Roots of Global Warming

      Just what are humans doing to release all those GHGs into the atmosphere? You can pin the blame on two main offenses, which we discuss in the following sections: burning fossil fuels and deforestation.

      Fueling global warming

      When you burn fossil fuels, such as coal and oil (named fossil fuels because they’re composed of ancient plant and animal material), they release vast amounts of GHGs (largely, but not exclusively, carbon dioxide), which trap heat in the atmosphere. Fossil fuels are also a limited resource — meaning that humanity can’t count on them over the long term because eventually they’ll just run out.

The fossil fuel that produces the most GHG emissions is coal, and burning coal to produce electricity is the major source of coal-related GHGs. The second-worst offender is using gasoline and diesel for transportation, followed by burning oil to generate heat and electricity. In fact, if people could replace the coal-fired power plants around the world and switch away from the internal combustion engine, humanity would have most of the problem licked. This switch is happening now, more and more quickly, but industries that have been built on the fossil fuel bonanza, and their supportive governments and bankers, continue to delay the inevitable progress. (Check out Chapter 4 for more fossil fuel info, Chapter 13 for the scoop on energy alternatives, and Chapter 17 for an introduction to the disruption expected and feared by those industries.)

      Heating up over deforestation

      Forests, conserved land, and natural habitats aren’t important just for the sake of saving trees and animals. Forests and all greenery are important players in keeping the climate in check. Plants take in the carbon that’s in the atmosphere and give back oxygen, and older trees hold on to that carbon, storing it for the duration of their lives. By taking in carbon dioxide, they’re significantly reducing the greenhouse effect. (See Chapter 2 for more about how plants help the Earth keep atmospheric carbon at a reasonable level.)

      Unfortunately, much of the world’s forests have been cut down to make way for farmland, highways, and cities. Deforestation is responsible for about a quarter of GHG emissions. Rainforests and mangrove forests (very productive forests that grow in wetlands) are especially good at soaking up carbon dioxide because they breathe all year round. Temperate forests, on the other hand, don’t absorb much carbon dioxide over the winter, practically going into hibernation. (Chapter 5 has more about deforestation.)

Examining the Effects of Global Warming around the World

This book could easily be called Climate Emergency For Dummies. Although “global warming” is the common term for the climate changes that the planet’s experiencing (and scientists agree that average global temperature is increasing with the buildup of GHGs), the term doesn’t tell the whole story. The Earth’s average surface temperature is certainly going up. But while the average keeps rising, the variations around the average are also getting larger and larger. So some areas of the planet may actually get colder or experience more extreme bouts of rain, snow, or ice build-up. Consequently, most scientists prefer the term “climate change.” In the following sections, we look at how different places around the world will experience climate change.

      

Much of this section is pretty depressing. But nothing is exaggerated — the information here is all based on peer-reviewed scientific reports. Just how serious could the global impact of climate change be? The first global comprehensive scientific conference, which was held in Toronto, Canada, in 1988, described the potential effects of climate change this way: “Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war.”

      Of course, different parts of Earth have very different climates now, and climate change won’t affect every part of the planet in the same way. The following sections explain in general terms how some parts of the world are being affected by climate change.

      The United States and Canada

      In the United States and Canada, average temperatures have been rising because of climate change. As a result, the growing season has lengthened; trees have been sucking in more carbon, and for a while, farms were more productive. The recent years have had far more severe wet years followed by extreme drought. The 2021 drought had negative and long-term impact on wheat, corn, and other crops, according to Forbes.

      Many plants and animals are spreading farther north to adapt to climate changes, affecting the existing species in the areas to which they’re moving. Increased temperatures have already been a factor in more forest fires and wildfires and damage by forest insects, such as the pine beetle epidemic in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. (See Chapter 8 for more information about how global warming will affect animals and forests.)

      Scientists project that the United States and Canada will feel the effects of climate change more adversely in the coming years. Here are some of the problems, anticipated to only get worse if civilization doesn’t dramatically reduce GHG emissions:

       Droughts and heat domes: Rising temperatures are increasing droughts in areas that are already arid, putting even larger pressure on scarce water СКАЧАТЬ