Sighs, Signs, Sights, Signals – the 4 S’s of Trouble and the Parabolic Parable of Poisoned Communion the Church Rat and Skeptics -By Jimi Bickersteth

There are sighs, signs, sights, and signals of trouble all over the globe, and a season of metaphor to underlying a global tilted climatic conditions stilled ìn a sort of mythic, metaphysical reality. The world’s agog ìn the parabolic parables of a gothic christian eucharist communion that was calling to the World to come and drink at a nature’s party with a poisoned chalice, amidst corruption, scramble, power struggle and poverty.

The agony of a globally tilted climate is the crux of the matter ìn this write-up. Climate, by the way, is the long-term pattern of weather anywhere. Weather can change from hours to hour, day-to-day, month-to-month or even year-to-year. A description of a climate includes information on, e.g. the average temperature in different seasons, rainfall, and sunshine. Also a description of the (chance of) extremes is often included.

Climate change, by way of definition, is any systematic change in the long term statistics of climate variables such as temperature, precipitation, pressure, or wind sustained over several decades or linger. Climate change can be due to natural external forcings (changes in solar emission or changes in the earth’s orbit natural internal processes of the climate system) or it can be Human induced. The classical period used for describing a climate is about 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

In spite of the metaphorical allusions in the parabolic communion and the church rat, there appeared in the world today, a real, latent and quite serious threat posed by the atmospheric conditions and the global response to the ensuing global climatic changes. I was writing this on the afternoon of 22nd October, under a torrential downpour and flood incidences everywhere around the globe. An occurrence that has in recent times, consistently, put a lie to my geography tutor’s lessons of rainy/wet/sunny/dry/spring seasons, the present day occurrences had showed clearly instances that the rainy/wet/dry/sunny/spring/seasons all occurred simultaneously and interchangeably within, not the same day but the same hour.

The world saw a record number of weather-related disasters for which the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued emergency appeals. England and Wales saw the wettest year since record-keeping began in 1776. West Africa: Floods affected more than 800,000 people in 14 countries and destroying plants and farmland, which signifies imminent rise in cost of living in the forseeable future. In others high temperatures and drought destroyed crops. Some 55 million may require food aid. Not to mention the hundred of thousands left without shelter after torrential rains. What an outlook! What a prospect!

The world obviously, does not need scientific reports to tell it that the sea is rising. The beaches of our childhood are vanishing. The crops that used to feed the family have been poisoned by salt water. Most family have been displaced by spring tide flood and the waves showered their homes with rocks and debris. In Brisbane, Australia, gardens can only be watered on certain days, using a bucket–not a hose. Today, global warming is, not abstract science, but, a daily reality.

Many believe that human activities are a major cause of global warming, an overall increase in temperature in earth’s atmosphere and oceans, hence, climate-change, which have been unleashing catastrophic consequences for the climate and the environment. For example, large-scale melting of land-based ice and the expansion of the oceans as water warms could cause sea levels to rise drastically. Low-lying islands could disappear, millions of people could further be displaced.

At the same time, rising temperatures could intensify storms, floods, and droughts. In the Himalayas, disappearing glaciers– from areas that feed seven river systems– could cause shortages of freshwater for a sizeable portion of the world’s population. Also at risk are thousands of species of animals. Rising temperatures may also foster the spread of diseases by enabling mosquitoes, ticks and other disease carrying organisms, including fungi, to spread farther afield. 

“The dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons,” says the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The effects may be less dramatic in the short term… but over the next three decades climate change could cause irredeemable harm to the habitats upon which human societies depend for survival. Adding an even more ominous note, some scientists believe that changes attributed to global warming are occurring faster than expected.

But what is the world to make of these apprehensions? Some call it predictions. Is life on earth really, regally at a crossroads? However, skeptics of global warming say that such dire predictions are groundless, and perhaps the apprehensions are unfounded. Many others are not quite sure. So, what then is the truth? Is earth’s future– and ours in peril? Well, global warming has been described as the greatest threat facing humanity. What worries researchers, says the journal Science, “is the prospect that we’ve started a slow-moving but relentless avalanche of change.” Skeptics question this assertion cautiously and guidedly.

True, many agree that the earth is warming, but they are uncertain of both the causes and the consequences. Human activities may be a factor, they say, but not necessarily the primary one. Why the disagreement? For one thing, the physical processes that underlie global climate systems are complex and not fully understood. In addition, interest groups tend to put their own spin on the scientific data, such as that used to show why temperatures are rising.

Spin or not, the opinions of a world body carried so much wait and far greater preponderance of possibility.

According to a report of the UN sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global warming is “unequivocal,” or a fact; and “very likely,” mankind is largely to blame. Some who differ with this conclusion, especially in regard to the human factor, concede that cities may be heating up because they are growing in size, and what parameters that applied in one city may be different from the other. Moreover, concrete and steel readily absorb the Sun’s heat and tend to cool down slowly at night. That also widened the horizon of thought Beyond all reasonable doubts and or allusions.

But urban readings, skeptics say, do not reflect the trend in rural areas and can distort global statistics. On the other hand, living on an island off the coast of Alaska, one has seen changes with one’s own eyes. The people of this village travel across sea ice to the mainland to hunt caribou and moose. Rising temperatures, though, are making the traditional lifestyle impossible. The currents have changed, ice conditions have changed, and the freeze-up of the Chukchi Sea has changed. The sea used to freeze up at the end of October, but now it does not freeze until December. Ìn fact, what the world has seen this year fits the profile of lengthening melt seasons.

A reason given for such changes is an intensification of the greenhouse effect, natural phenomena vital for life on earth. When energy from the sun reaches the earth, about 70 percent is absorbed, heating air, land, and sea. If it were not for this mechanism, the average surface temperature would be about minus 18 degrees Celsius. Eventually, the absorbed heat is released back into space as infrared radiation, thus preventing the earth from overheating. But when pollutants change the composition of the atmosphere, less heat escapes. This can cause earth’s temperatures to rise.

Gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, as well as water vapor. The atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases has increased markedly over the past 250years, since the start of the industrial revolution and the increased use of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil. Another greenhouse-enhancing factor seems to be the rising population of farm animals, whose digestive processes produce methane and nitrous oxide. Some researchers point to other causes of warming that they say occurred before humans could have influenced climate.

Skeptics of humans induced warming point out that earth’s temperature has undergone substantial fluctuations in the past. They point to the so-called ice ages, when the earth was supposedly much cooler than is now; and in support of natural warming, they cite evidence that cold regions, such as Greenland, at one time supported vegetation that prefers warm areas. Of course, scientists concede that the further back they go, the more their certainty about climate diminishes.

What may have caused temperatures to vary significantly before human influence was a factor? Possible causes include sunspots and solar flares, which correlate with fluctuations in solar energy output. Additionally, earth’s orbit moves in cycles that take many thousands of years and that affect our planet’s distance from the sun. There is also the influence of volcanic dust and changes in oceanic currents. It became something akin to climate modeling.

If earth’s temperature is rising–no matter what the cause(s)–how will it affect us and the environment? Precise predictions are hard to make. Nowadays, though, scientists have access to powerful computers which they use to create digital simulations of the climate system. Incorporated into their models are the laws of physics, climate data, and natural phenomena that influence climate.

Whichever way the World wishes to views it, it is a stunning reality that Global warming presents the greatest test humans have yet faced. If it is to meet that challenge successfully, the World need to move quickly and decisively–and with a maturity we’ve rarely shown as a society or species. Will such maturity rise to the fore? Working against it are many factors: apathy, greed, ignorance, vested interests, the scramble for wealth in developing economy, and the business-as-usual philosophy of millions who want to maintain a high-energy-consuming lifestyle. The UN must as a body provide leadership at its most challenging, even as it provide the world a realistic appraisal of our capacity to solve our ethical, social, and governmental problems, in a world that is today, although armed with significant developments in science and technology, is faced with previously unimaginable threats.

However, the World is helped ìn a way ìn its battle to survive climate-change and its concommitant effects by Simulations which:

i. enable scientists to experience with in ways that are otherwise impossible. For instance, they can “change” solar output to see how this affects polar ice, air and sea temperatures, evaporation rates, atmospheric pressure, cloud formation, wind, and rainfall.

ii. they can “create” volcanic eruptions and examine the effects of volcanic dust on weather, and,

iii. they can examine the effects of human population growth, deforestation, land use, changes in the emission of greenhouse gases, and so on, all with the hope that their models will progressively become more accurate and reliable models.

How precise are present models? Much, of course, depends on the accuracy of the data and the amount of it fed into the machines. Hence, climate projections vary from the mild to the catastrophic. Even so, says Science, “surprises could spring from the [natural] climate system.” And some already have, such as the unusually rapid rate of Arctic melting, which has amazed many climatologists. Still, even if policymakers had only a rough idea of the consequences of present action or inaction, they could make decisions today that might reduce problems tomorrow.

With that possibility in mind, the IPCC examined six different sets of computer-simulated scenarios–ranging from unrestricted greenhouse-gas production to business as usual to severe restraint–each producing different climatic and environmental results. In the light of the predictions, analysts urge a variety of measures. These include mandatory limits on fossils fuel emissions, penalties for offenders, more nuclear power generation, and the introduction of more environmentally friendly technologies.

But, are the models reliable? Well, present forecasting methods oversimplify poorly understood climate processes” and simply ignore others. There are also inconsistencies in computed projections and the world have remained so humbled by the results of the tasks of measuring and understanding the extraordinarily complex climate system that we are skeptical of the ability to know what it is doing and why. Some would argue, of course, that using an element of doubt as justification for doing nothing is gambling with the future. How would we explain this to the incoming generation?

Whether the climate models are accurate or not, the world can be certain that the earth is in serious trouble. Its life-sustaining environment is being assaulted by pollution, deforestation, urbanization, and the extinction of species, to name just a few factors that no one can successfully dispute.

In view of what the world now know, can we expect mankind as a whole to make an about-face so as to spare our beautiful home–and us too? What is more, if human activity is causing global warming, we may have only years, not centuries, to make the needed adjustments and ultimate changes. At the very least, making such adjustments would mean promptly addressing the root causes of earth’s problems–human greed, self-interest, ignorance, inept government, and apathy.

It is true that there has been a lot of talk about tackling climate change and other harmful trends, but little has been done. Yes, our planet may appear to be in peril, but its continued existence as a home for mankind is not in doubt. Is nuclear power a solution? Energy consumption worldwide is breaking record after record. Since the burning of oil and coal produces greenhouse gases, some governments are taking a closer look at nuclear power as a cleaner alternative. But it too presents challenges. A report claimed that in France, one of the world’s most nuclear-reliant countries, up to 19 billion cubic meters of water is required annually to cool reactors. In the heat wave, the hot water normally expelled from her reactors threatened to raise the temperature of rivers to environmentally damaging levels. Hence, some power stations had to shut down. This situation is expected to worsen if global temperatures rise. The world must solve the climate-change problem if it were going to have nuclear power,

Adaptation to climate change and disaster risk management are gradually entering the political agendas at different levels, fostering development of early climate services. It showcased that the global climate change is not a future problem but a present nemesis and Changes to Earth’s climate driven by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse. It is noteworthy that the effects of human-caused global warming is become so phenomenal; with real flooding in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world, a hurricane in Puerto Rico and the present continued aggression in Ukraine offered a mixed experience.

In tackling three of the earth’s greatest challenges of our time – climate-change, a broken food system, the one being an offshoot of the other, and thirdly, gender inequality, the continued aggression in Ukraine, insecurity and political instability in the third world, the UN seem to have identified future themes in global development and preparedness, and its finding ways that can accelerate solution to those problems with human ingenuity, innovation, political will, and sustained funding. There were green shoots – encouraging signs of resolve and, in the more startling moments, actual steps to improve the lot of the people around the globe, not to mention the planet itself.

The action around climate-change couldn’t just be a long toss-up and a long-term goal but is actually important now. The World cannot have progress on complex systemic issues at the scale and ambition it need; in a sustainable way if the present attempts at ameliorating the present global are not seriously pursued.

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Jimi Bickersteth is a public affair analyst/commentator, writer and super blogger.

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