Climate Change
Climate Change
Climate Change
Climate change (aka Global warming) is a term used for the observed century-scale rise
in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system and its related effects.
Scientists are more than 95% certain that nearly all of global warming is caused by
increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other human-
caused emissions.
Our atmosphere is getting hotter, more turbulent, and more unpredictable because of
the “boiling and churning” effect caused by the heat-trapping greenhouse gases within
the upper layers of our atmosphere. With each increase of carbon, methane, or other
greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, our local weather and global climate are
further agitated, heated, and “boiled.”
Global warming is gauged by the increase in the average global temperature of the
Earth. Along with our currently increasing average global temperature, some parts of
the Earth may actually get colder while other parts get warmer—hence the idea of
average global temperature. Greenhouse gas-caused atmospheric heating and agitation
also increase the unpredictability of the weather and climate and dramatically increase
the severity, scale, and frequency of storms, droughts, wildfires, and extreme
temperatures.
Global warming can reach levels of irreversibility as it has now, and increasing levels of
global warming can eventually reach an extinction level where humanity and all life on
earth will end. (Click here to discover why total human extinction is not realistic or
probable and the worst humanity will experience is near-total extinction (50 to 90+% of
humanity going extinct.)
The temperature levels described above for irreversible and extinction-level global
warming are not hard and rigid boundaries, but boundary ranges that describe the
related consequences and their intensities within a certain level of global warming.
These temperature boundary levels may be modified by future research. More about
how irreversible global warming and extinction-level global warming can come about
because of complex interactions will be explained in the tipping point information will
set the foundation necessary to understand how we are already creating the conditions
that have not only created irreversible global warming, but also extinction-level global
warming if we keep going as we are now.
Carbon in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning isn’t our only problem.
While the situation is critical, it is still possible to slow and lessen global
warming enough for the climate to establish a new, stable equilibrium. However,
that equilibrium may be unlike anything previously seen in Earth’s history and it
may not be suitable for humanity to thrive.
Atmospheric carbon from fossil fuel burning is the main human-caused factor in the
escalating global warming we are experiencing now. The current level of carbon in our
atmosphere is tracked using what is called the Keeling curve. The Keeling curve
measures atmospheric carbon in parts per million (ppm).
Each year, many measurements are taken at Mauna Loa, Hawaii to determine the parts
per million (ppm) of carbon in the atmosphere at that time. At the beginning of
the Industrial Revolution (1) around 1880, before we began fossil fuel burning, our
atmospheric carbon ppm level was at about 270. Here is the current Keeling curve
graph for where we are today:
As you can see, we are not doing very well. As of Jan of 2022 we are at about carbon 420
ppm. In this section of this website (on the Learn pull down,) you will learn what this
exponentially rising carbon means to your future. You also will see other graphs that
will show you how today’s atmospheric carbon levels compare to those of our near and
far distant past (hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of years
ago).
No matter what you hear in the media, if the total carbon ppm level is not going down
or carbon’s average ppm level per year is not falling or at least slowing its steep increase,
(3) we are not making any significant progress on resolving the escalating climate
change emergency. Total atmospheric carbon and carbon’s average ppm level per
year are the most dependable measurements of our progress and a predictor of what
will be happening with global warming and its many consequences.
There are at least two ways we will be able to tell that we are making honest progress in
reducing global warming:
1. When we see our average annual increase in carbon ppm levels (currently at
about 3 ppm per year) begin dropping, remaining at the current level, or at least
rising at a slower rate.
2. When we start seeing the above Keeling graph levels drop from the current
carbon ppm level (approximately 414 ppm) to carbon 350-325 ppm. (How we do
this is in the free Job One Plan.)
A quick look at the historic rise of carbon in the atmosphere since the Industrial
Revolution
The following graph demonstrates that carbon has been rising in the atmosphere long
before 1960. With the introduction of fossil fuels, carbon began rising at the beginning
of the Industrial Revolution around 1880.
In the graph below, you will notice that the curve of carbon increasing in the
atmosphere proceeds from about 1880 to 1950 in a gradual linear progression. From
1950 to 2000 and beyond, carbon increases in the atmosphere is a far steeper, more
exponential curve.
How escalating global warming destabilizes the climate and creates economic,
political, and social chaos
It is important that we understand that the stability of our climate is the essential
foundation for running our personal and business lives smoothly and successfully. If
the global climate continues to destabilize because of escalating global warming, most
people will not connect the dots to see that their normal lives will also destabilize until
it is too late.
1. What will happen when food production drops due to drought, floods, and
extreme heat, which will cause food prices to soar and many foods to be scarce.
2. How storms will continue to grow more violent, costly, and cataclysmic. Damage
to homes, businesses, and infrastructure will increase, as well as occur in more
and larger areas.
It is not an overstatement to say most people do not understand how much of the
stability, predictability, and success of their daily lives (and futures) is completely
dependent upon a stable temperature range and a stable climate. By and large, they take
the ubiquitous general stability of the climate for granted, almost as though it could
never change.
Within the climate’s many systems and subsystems, there are factors that directly and
indirectly affect the overall stability of the global climate and our temperature. One of
these factors is that some climate systems and subsystems have carbon-eating or carbon-
releasing qualities.
When we say something has a carbon-eating quality, we mean that it takes carbon out
of the atmosphere and helps to reduce global warming. When we say something has a
carbon-releasing quality, we mean that it puts carbon back into the atmosphere, which
causes an increase in global warming. The climate’s carbon-eating or
releasing subsystems, which can raise or lower the Earth's average temperature and the
climate’s stability are:
Oceans with their currents, different water temperatures, and descending and
ascending layers hold absorbed carbon or heat. Initially, the oceans absorb carbon and
help us. But when too much carbon is absorbed, the oceans begin the process of
emitting carbon back into the atmosphere. That will raise temperatures.
Forests can either eat or release carbon based on the temperature and other conditions.
When trees die, their stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere. Trees normally
take carbon out of the atmosphere. If certain conditions exist or it gets too warm trees
will take less carbon out of the air.
Soils can also eat or release carbon depending upon their condition under heat
variables. This is due to carbon deposits from plant life.
The carbon-eating and oxygen-producing plankton in the oceans. If the oceans absorb
too much carbon from global warming, they become acidic—specifically carbonic acid.
This acidity will eventually kill some or all of the carbon-eating and oxygen-producing
plankton. If we kill off this necessary plankton, we will find ourselves with insufficient
oxygen in a world no one will be able to endure.
The climate also has systems that produce, reflect, or absorb heat. These systems can
also raise or lower global temperature. Some of the climate’s heat-producing, reflecting,
or absorbing systems and subsystems are:
The total amount of heat-increasing water vapor in the atmosphere. Atmospheric water
vapor is the most important human-caused greenhouse gas increasing atmospheric
temperature. The higher the temperature, the more water vapor escapes into the
atmosphere from evaporation, turning this cycle into a vicious self-reinforcing positive
feedback loop.
The scientific revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early modern
period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including
human anatomy), and chemistry transformed societal views about nature. The scientific
revolution began in Europe toward the end of the Renaissance period, and continued
through the late 18th century, influencing the intellectual social movement known as
the Enlightenment. While its dates are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus
Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly
Spheres) is often cited as marking the beginning of the scientific revolution.
The scientific revolution was built upon the foundation of ancient Greek learning and
science in the Middle Ages, as it had been elaborated and further developed by
Roman/Byzantine science and medieval Islamic science. The Aristotelian tradition was
still an important intellectual framework in the 17th century, although by that time
natural philosophers had moved away from much of it. Key scientific ideas dating back
to classical antiquity had changed drastically over the years, and in many cases been
discredited. The ideas that remained (for example, Aristotle’s cosmology, which placed
the Earth at the center of a spherical hierarchic cosmos, or the Ptolemaic model of
planetary motion) were transformed fundamentally during the scientific revolution.
The change to the medieval idea of science occurred for four reasons:
New Methods
Under the scientific method that was defined and applied in the 17th century, natural
and artificial circumstances were abandoned, and a research tradition of systematic
experimentation was slowly accepted throughout the scientific community. The
philosophy of using an inductive approach to nature (to abandon assumption and to
attempt to simply observe with an open mind) was in strict contrast with the earlier,
Aristotelian approach of deduction, by which analysis of known facts produced further
understanding. In practice, many scientists and philosophers believed that a healthy
mix of both was needed—the willingness to both question assumptions, and to interpret
observations assumed to have some degree of validity.
During the scientific revolution, changing perceptions about the role of the scientist in
respect to nature, the value of evidence, experimental or observed, led towards a
scientific methodology in which empiricism played a large, but not absolute, role. The
term British empiricism came into use to describe philosophical differences perceived
between two of its founders—Francis Bacon, described as empiricist, and René
Descartes, who was described as a rationalist. Bacon’s works established and
popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian
method, or sometimes simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned
procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and
theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper
methodology today. Correspondingly, Descartes distinguished between the knowledge
that could be attained by reason alone (rationalist approach), as, for example, in
mathematics, and the knowledge that required experience of the world, as in physics.
Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley, and David Hume were the primary exponents of
empiricism, and developed a sophisticated empirical tradition as the basis of human
knowledge. The recognized founder of the approach was John Locke, who proposed
in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) that the only true knowledge that
could be accessible to the human mind was that which was based on experience.
New Ideas
Many new ideas contributed to what is called the scientific revolution. Some of them
were revolutions in their own fields. These include:
The heliocentric model that involved the radical displacement of the earth to an
orbit around the sun (as opposed to being seen as the center of the universe).
Copernicus’ 1543 work on the heliocentric model of the solar system tried to
demonstrate that the sun was the center of the universe. The discoveries of
Johannes Kepler and Galileo gave the theory credibility and the work culminated
in Isaac Newton’s Principia, which formulated the laws of motion and universal
gravitation that dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next
three centuries.
Studying human anatomy based upon the dissection of human corpses, rather
than the animal dissections, as practiced for centuries.
Discovering and studying magnetism and electricity, and thus, electric properties
of various materials.
Modernization of disciplines (making them more as what they are today),
including dentistry, physiology, chemistry, or optics.
Invention of tools that deepened the understating of sciences, including
mechanical calculator, steam digester (the forerunner of the steam engine),
refracting and reflecting telescopes, vacuum pump, or mercury barometer.
The scientific revolution laid the foundations for the Age of Enlightenment, which
centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and emphasized
the importance of the scientific method. By the 18th century, when the Enlightenment
flourished, scientific authority began to displace religious authority, and disciplines
until then seen as legitimately scientific (e.g., alchemy and astrology) lost scientific
credibility.
Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many
Enlightenment writers and thinkers had backgrounds in the sciences, and associated
scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favor
of the development of free speech and thought. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment
science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought, and was embedded with the
Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. At the time, science was dominated
by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centers
of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone
of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the
popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. The century saw
significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the
development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and
electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the
foundations of modern chemistry.
Isaac Newton’s Principia, developed the first
set of unified scientific laws
Industrial Revolution was the most profound revolution in human history, because of
its sweeping impact on people’s daily lives. The term “industrial revolution” is a
succinct catchphrase to describe a historical period, starting in 18th-century Great
Britain, where the pace of change appeared to speed up. This acceleration in the
processes of technical innovation brought about an array of new tools and machines. It
also involved more subtle practical improvements in various fields affecting labor,
production, and resource use. The word “technology” (which derives from the Greek
word techne, meaning art or craft) encompasses both of these dimensions of innovation.
The technological revolution, and that sense of ever-quickening change, began much
earlier than the 18th century and has continued all the way to the present day. Perhaps
what was most unique about the Industrial Revolution was its merger of technology
with industry. Key inventions and innovations served to shape virtually every existing
sector of human activity along industrial lines, while also creating many new industries.
The following are some key examples of the forces driving change.
Agriculture
Western European farming methods had been improving gradually over the centuries.
Several factors came together in 18th-century Britain to bring about a substantial
increase in agricultural productivity. These included new types of equipment, such as
the seed drill developed by Jethro Tull around 1701. Progress was also made in crop
rotation and land use, soil health, development of new crop varieties, and
animal husbandry. The result was a sustained increase in yields, capable of feeding a
rapidly growing population with improved nutrition. The combination of factors also
brought about a shift toward large-scale commercial farming, a trend that continued
into the 19th century and later. Poorer peasants had a harder time making ends meet
through traditional subsistence farming. The enclosure movement, which converted
common-use pasture land into private property, contributed to this trend toward
market-oriented agriculture. A great many rural workers and families were forced by
circumstance to migrate to the cities to become industrial laborers.
Energy
Deforestation in England had led to a shortage of wood for lumber and fuel starting in
the 16th century. The country’s transition to coal as a principal energy source was more
or less complete by the end of the 17th century. The mining and distribution of coal set
in motion some of the dynamics that led to Britain’s industrialization. The coal-fired
steam engine was in many respects the decisive technology of the Industrial Revolution.
Steam power was first applied to pump water out of coal mines. For centuries,
windmills had been employed in the Netherlands for the roughly similar operation of
draining low-lying flood plains. Wind was, and is, a readily available and renewable
energy source, but its irregularity was considered a drawback. Water power was a more
popular energy source for grinding grain and other types of mill work in most of
preindustrial Europe. By the last quarter of the 18th century, however, thanks to the
work of the Scottish engineer James Watt and his business partner Matthew Boulton,
steam engines achieved a high level of efficiency and versatility in their design. They
swiftly became the standard power supply for British, and, later, European industry.
The steam engine turned the wheels of mechanized factory production. Its emergence
freed manufacturers from the need to locate their factories on or near sources of water
power. Large enterprises began to concentrate in rapidly growing industrial cities.
Metallurgy
In this time-honored craft, Britain’s wood shortage necessitated a switch from wood
charcoal to coke, a coal product, in the smelting process. The substitute fuel eventually
proved highly beneficial for iron production. Experimentation led to some other
advances in metallurgical methods during the 18th century. For example, a certain type
of furnace that separated the coal and kept it from contaminating the metal, and a
process of “puddling” or stirring the molten iron, both made it possible to produce
larger amounts of wrought iron. Wrought iron is more malleable than cast iron and
therefore more suitable for fabricating machinery and other heavy industrial
applications.
Textiles
This industry arose partly in response to the demand for improved bleaching solutions
for cotton and other manufactured textiles. Other chemical research was motivated by
the quest for artificial dyes, explosives, solvents, fertilizers, and medicines, including
pharmaceuticals. In the second half of the 19th century, Germany became the world’s
leader in industrial chemistry.
Transportation
Concurrent with the increased output of agricultural produce and manufactured goods
arose the need for more efficient means of delivering these products to market. The first
efforts toward this end in Europe involved constructing improved overland roads.
Canals were dug in both Europe and North America to create maritime corridors
between existing waterways. Steam engines were recognized as useful in locomotion,
resulting in the emergence of the steamboat in the early 19th century. High-pressure
steam engines also powered railroad locomotives, which operated in Britain after 1825.
Railways spread rapidly across Europe and North America, extending to Asia in the
latter half of the 19th century. Railroads became one of the world’s leading industries as
they expanded the frontiers of industrial society.
NATURAL RESOURCES
Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few
modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial
and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. On Earth, it
includes sunlight, atmosphere, water, land, all minerals along with all vegetation,
and wildlife.
A natural resource may exist as a separate entity such as fresh water, air, as well as any
living organism such as a fish, or it may be transformed by extractivist industries into
an economically useful form that must be processed to obtain the resource such
as metal ores, rare-earth elements, petroleum, timber and most forms of energy. Some
resources are renewable resource, which means that they can be used at a certain rate
and natural processes will restore them, whereas many extractive industries rely
heavily on non-renewable resources that can only be extracted once.
Classification
There are various criteria of classifying natural resources. These include the source of
origin, stages of development, renewability and ownership.
Origin
Potential resources: Resources that are known to exist, but have not been utilized
yet. These may be used in the future. For example, petroleum in sedimentary
rocks that, until pulled out and put to use remains a potential resource.
Stocks: Resources that have been surveyed, but cannot be used due to lack of
technology. E.g.: Hydrogen vehicles.
Renewability/Exhaustibility
Extraction
Resource extraction involves any activity that withdraws resources from nature. This
can range in scale from the traditional use of preindustrial societies to global industry.
Extractive industries are, along with agriculture, the basis of the primary sector of the
economy. Extraction produces raw material, which is then processed to add value.
Examples of extractive industries are hunting, trapping, mining, oil and gas drilling,
and forestry. Natural resources can add substantial amounts to a country's wealth;
however, a sudden inflow of money caused by a resource boom can create social
problems including inflation harming other industries ("Dutch disease") and corruption,
leading to inequality and underdevelopment, this is known as the "resource curse".
Depletion of resources
Wind is a natural resource that can be used to generate electricity, as with these 5 MW
wind turbines in Thorntonbank Wind Farm 28 km (17 mi) off the coast of Belgium.
In recent years, the depletion of natural resources has become a major focus of
governments and organizations such as the United Nations (UN). This is evident in the
UN's Agenda 21 Section Two, which outlines the necessary steps for countries to take to
sustain their natural resources. The depletion of natural resources is considered a
sustainable development issue. The term sustainable development has many
interpretations, most notably the Brundtland Commission's 'to ensure that it meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs'; however, in broad terms it is balancing the needs of the planet's
people and species now and in the future. In regards to natural resources, depletion is
of concern for sustainable development as it has the ability to degrade current
environments and the potential to impact the needs of future generations.
At present, there is a particular concern for rainforest regions that hold most of the
Earth's biodiversity. According to Nelson, deforestation and degradation affect 8.5% of
the world's forests with 30% of the Earth's surface already cropped. If we consider that
80% of people rely on medicines obtained from plants and 3⁄4 of the world's
prescription medicines have ingredients taken from plants, loss of the world's
rainforests could result in a loss of finding more potential life-saving medicines.
The depletion of natural resources is caused by 'direct drivers of change'such as mining,
petroleum extraction, fishing, and forestry as well as 'indirect drivers of change' such as
demography (e.g. population growth), economy, society, politics, and technology. The
current practice of agriculture is another factor causing depletion of natural resources.
For example, the depletion of nutrients in the soil due to excessive use of nitrogen and
desertification. The depletion of natural resources is a continuing concern for society.
This is seen in the cited quote given by Theodore Roosevelt, a well-known
conservationist and former United States president, who was opposed to unregulated
natural resource extraction.
Protection
In 1982, the United Nations developed the World Charter for Nature, which recognized
the need to protect nature from further depletion due to human activity. It states that
measures must be taken at all societal levels, from international to individual, to protect
nature. It outlines the need for sustainable use of natural resources and suggests that
the protection of resources should be incorporated into national and international
systems of law. To look at the importance of protecting natural resources further, the
World Ethic of Sustainability, developed by the IUCN, WWF and the UNEP in 1990, set
out eight values for sustainability, including the need to protect natural resources from
depletion. Since the development of these documents, many measures have been taken
to protect natural resources including establishment of the scientific field and practice of
conservation biology and habitat conservation, respectively.
Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's
biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from
excessive rates of extinction. It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on science,
economics and the practice of natural resource management. The term conservation
biology was introduced as the title of a conference held at the University of California,
San Diego, in La Jolla, California, in 1978, organized by biologists Bruce A. Wilcox and
Michael E. Soulé.
Habitat conservation is a type of land management that seeks to conserve, protect and
restore habitat areas for wild plants and animals, especially conservation reliant species,
and prevent their extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range.
Management
Management of natural resources involves identifying who has the right to use the
resources, and who does not, for defining the boundaries of the resource. The resources
may be managed by the users according to the rules governing when and how the
resource is used depending on local condition or the resources may be managed by a
governmental organization or other central authority.