Death by volcano: If the 44-mile-wide active Yellowstone volcano in America erupts, the result could be global devastation, even human extinction.
Deadly Waste: Microplastics, almost invisible tiny shreds of plastic waste, which are being
discovered in the stomachs of ocean life such as fish.
Tech sabotage: Anti-climate change tweets by automated bots. One-fourth of all such daily
tweets are by bots labelling global warming a hoax.
Very few non-glamorous campaigners can become global celebrities in the overloaded age of digital influencers. The very fact a blond, pig-tailed 17-year-old Swedish schoolgirl named Greta Thunberg can become the most powerful ambassador of the anti-climate change movement shows that the new generation is concerned that global warming could push mankind to the verge of extinction. Last year, millions of children participated in rallies worldwide against political lethargy over the climate crisis. The UN calls climate change “the defining issue of our time,” and “the greatest challenge to sustainable development.” Scientists calculate that mankind has just a decade left before climate change becomes irreversible. “The world must bend the global curve of emissions by 2020 and then cut emissions in the world by half by 2030,” said Professor Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research at Davos.
“It took 10 years to land a man safely on the moon, we now have 10 years to land Earth on a safe trajectory for our future,” he added. Private offers of help to fight climate change are the only hope: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has committed $10 billion for the cause. The Bezos Earth Fund, which amounts to 8 per cent of the e-commerce multi-billionaire’s wealth, will back “any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world,” according to his Instagram post.
As the Corona Contagion continues to wreak destruction on public health and economies, countries are going into self-imposed quarantine. It is worth remembering that global warming has endangered Nature’s natural checks and balances such as rivers, oceans and mountains, which have been rendered useless by the carbon spreading airline industry. In 2014, the Ebola epidemic, which spread through international travel, claimed 12,000 lives within a short span of time. If Nostradamus, the fecund ore of tabloid headline writers, is to be believed, the end of the world is nigh. World leaders do not seem unduly concerned. Donald Trump has unilaterally pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Change Accord. Australian Premier Scott Morrison was holidaying in Hawaii when savage wildfires slaughtered over 1 billion animals in the country.
European governments are too sluggish to act against the exploitation of fossil fuels: at Davos early this year, the Adani coal mine project, one of the world’s largest, came under fire from climate activists who want companies to curb fossil fuel use to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of bringing global heating down to 2°C this year. Most of India’s energy needs are met by coal, which causes 68 per cent of the country’s emissions leading to a significant rise in air pollution. The world is on fire. July 2019 was the hottest month on record in the world.
India’s National Disaster Management Authority concludes that 27 of the 37 states and UTs are disaster-prone with rising sea levels threatening the Sundarbans. The Himalayas witness floods, cloud bursts and landslides. Dr Miniya Chatterji, Director, Centre for Sustainability, Anant National University, Ahmedabad, says, “We should start with developing our own discourse on climate change and realistic solutions. At the moment, it’s heavily skewed towards Europe. The only way to do so is to have policymakers, private sector, and educational institutions work together.” In 2018-19, extreme weather events killed over 2,400 Indians; according to World Bank estimates, average temperatures in India could go up to 29.1°C by the end of the century, an increase of 4°C and by 2°C by the 2040s.
In Vidarbha, the epicentre of farmers’ suicides, the World Bank expects climate change to bring down GDP per capita by nearly 10 per cent by 2050. Maharashtra experiences weather swings ranging from hailstorms, heat waves, frost and erratic rainfall. India’s agricultural policy, which doesn’t account for massive water wastage, needs a complete overhaul. Climate change affects the poor the most. Expect crop production to come down by 12 per cent and increased dependence on exports, which became redundant after the green revolution. The drought in 2016 which affected most of India was caused by drastic rise in temperature, which rose to 51°C in May in Rajasthan. According to the Central Water Commission, there are 91 reservoirs in India, in which water levels were at their lowest in a decade.
In Chennai and Kerala, unprecedented floods due to an unexpected increase in sea level have claimed lives, caused epidemics and destroyed livelihoods. Divya Narayan, Campaigns Director at Jhatkaa.org, which is committed to building grassroots citizen power, says, “Rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns will affect farmers. Greater frequency of floods and drought will affect the rural population. It’s important to acknowledge that we aren’t doing enough to implement mitigation strategies and help these populations adapt to the changing environment.” The International Labour Organization says heat stress could put 34 million full-time jobs at risk and cripple productivity. Big corporations which are major contributors to pollution getaway, thanks to poor legislation: the Air Act enacted by the Parliament under Article 253 meant for the prevention, control and abatement of air pollution does not mention the term ‘Climate Change’.
The first climate change in the world’s living memory took place about 1,500 years ago when two subsequent massive volcanic eruptions over two years threw up so much black dust into the upper atmosphere preventing sunlight from reaching the earth. This led to a cold wave that devastated agriculture and commerce. Today, the problem is the exact opposite: too much of solar heat is trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases generated by burning fossil fuels. What are the Doomsday predictions of scientists about climate change? Death by Volcano. The 44-mile-wide Yellowstone volcano in America’s Yellowstone National Park is very much active. An eruption (the last was 630,000 years ago), according to Bryan Walsh, the author of End Times, “could lead to global devastation, even human extinction.” When the Lake Toba supervolcano in Sumatra erupted 75,000 years ago, it caused a “bottleneck” effect in human development, leading to a dramatic shrinking of the global population, according to scientists.
They say that the Lake Toba which sits atop a massive volcanic crater is in a stage of “resurgence.” This puts Southeast Asia at risk and can cause a mega-tsunami. Periodic landslides on Hawaii’s Big Island have caused tsunamis. According to The Independent, the “movement of the Hilina Slump generated a smaller, yet destructive tsunami that reached California” in 1975. Climate change is expected to increase the number of mega hurricanes such as Irene, Katrina, Wilma and Sandy, which devastated the East and Gulf Coasts of America. The San Andreas Fault could kill millions in a mega-earthquake in the coming few decades causing devastating tsunamis.
Climate change scientists predict that land on which some 150 million people live will go below the high-tide line by 2050, according to The New York Times. This will affect China, Thailand and all of Vietnam. All of low-lying Maldives could sink into the ocean by 2045. The eruption of the unstable Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands would wipe out the many island nations in the Caribbean. Chatterji says, “International platforms such as the various COP meetings have succeeded in bringing heads of states together to make commitments. This is a massive step forward. However, it has to be seen how world leaders will carry their commitments forward. One size does not fit all and climate policy in every country needs to consider the political economy and its immediate needs.” According to Bloomberg, climate scientists are worried about unexpectedly high readings on earth system models run on massive supercomputers which set their baseline of the atmosphere heating up to 3°C. Some projections exceed 5°C. These models have accurately
India at Risk
India is the fifth most vulnerable of 181 countries, with its poorest being the most at risk, according to the 15th edition of the Global Climate Risk Index 2020 prepared by Bonn-based think-tank Germanwatch. Japan is the most vulnerable, followed by the Philippines, Germany and Madagascar.
India’s economic losses due to climate change were the second highest in the world with a loss of Rs 2.7 lakh crore, says the Germanwatch report. This is equivalent to losing about 0.36% per unit of GDP.
The country reported the most deaths (2,081) in 2018 due to extreme weather events triggered by climate change—cyclones, heavy rainfall, floods and landslides.
According to the World Migration Report (2020), 3.3 million new displacements were estimated in South Asia, caused by the sudden onset of hazards in 2018. India bore the maximum brunt of disasters, with more than 2.7 million people displaced due to tropical storms and floods.
India accounts for 7% of annual global greenhouse-gas emissions. It is the world’s fourth-largest emitter, after China (27%), the US (15%) and the EU (10%). However, India’s per capita energy use
is around one-tenth of the US’s.
According to the National Disaster Management Authority, 27 of the 37 states and union territories in India are disaster-prone. While places like Sundarbans in the east face the threat of sea-level rise, the mountains in the north are vulnerable to floods, cloud bursts and landslides. The Aila cyclone of 2009 in Bay of Bengal or Kedarnath floods of 2013 in Uttarakhand are proofs to this fact.
There has been a decline in coastal marine fish production in India over the last few years. CMFRI data reveals a 9% decline in overall catch in 2018 compared to the previous year.
India recorded just nine of 93 disasters in Asia in 2019 but accounted for nearly 48% of the deaths, says the latest State of India’s Environment 2020 report of the Centre for Science and Environment.
predicted global warming for over 50 years and form the policy framework for governments and the private sector, including the sixth encyclopedic assessment by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2020. The findings show that man has less time than believed to set the earth right. Matching 300 digital configurations of weather flows to historical data, the models doubled CO2 projections to 5.3°C—33 per cent over past simulations. The social, cultural and economic disruption due to population displacements by adverse weather effects is causing tension worldwide. The CAA/NPR debate is largely about migrant populations skewing the ratio, especially in border states.
Extreme weather events leading to more precipitation, soil degradation and desertification are displacing over 20 million people every year. They seek places in low-lying coastal zones, which are safer, and cities, which offer jobs and educational opportunities. This puts pressure on infrastructure and expands urban limits, thereby forcing populations to move over 1,000 km. The authors of a UN paper see population density in the tropical margins and subtropics increasing by 300 per cent or more, leading to a rise in nationalism with immigrants impacting local culture and economy.
Data collected by Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre on disasters-induced migration concluded that 1.6 million people were living in camps or out of their homes in 2019. Around 2.7 million Indians were displaced by disasters and extreme weather last year—the world’s highest. None other than businessman-president Donald Trump who has wide construction interests across the world and his cronies lead the dark side of the climate war. The Guardian recently broke a story about an anti-climate change tweet wave by automated Twitter bots. One-fourth of all such daily tweets is by bots labelling global warming a hoax.
A Brown University study found that bots sent out millions of tweets praising Trump’s announcement that the US would pull out of the Paris climate agreement. The US has called climate crisis “bullshit” and a “hoax”. One of the Twitter accounts with 16,000 followers that comes on top of the list is
@sh_irredeemable, which said, “Get lost Greta!” in December. In October 2019, the Narendra Modi government imposed a nationwide ban on single-use plastic products with the goal of making India completely free of single-use plastics by 2022. But microplastics—almost invisible tiny shreds of plastic waste—which are being discovered in the stomachs of ocean life such as fish, sea otters and giant killer whales, are a new threat. Microplastic pieces are tiny bits from moving car tires, which enter streams and rivers through rainwater and eventually land up in the ocean.
They also come from fleece garments and spandex in washing machines, which penetrate the earth when soiled water is poured into drains. They also come from the countless discarded straws, cups, water bottles, plastic bags and other single-use plastics. In 2018, California passed a law to evolve a method to test for microplastics in drinking water. Awareness of this new plastic danger is almost nil in India. According to the British Plastic Association, India has about 25,000 plastic manufacturing companies employing three million workers and has one of the highest growth rates in the world. Consumption is growing yearly at 16 per cent compared to 10 per cent in China.
In spite of political indolence, some action is slowly emerging on the anti-climate change front. The US Air Force Research Lab set aside a $100 million last year for a programme to develop hardware for a satellite, which can beam solar power to Earth. Currently, the globe receives 173,000 trillion watts of solar energy. Scientists estimate that just 1 per cent of that is sufficient to meet global energy requirements. Since solar panels are affected by cloud cover and the efficacy rate of sunlight conversion is poor, a space-based solar station could be the answer we are looking for. Companies are turning to geothermal energy, which depends on the use of hyper-hot water drawn deep from the Earth’s subterranean reservoir to operate turbine generators.
However, there are not enough hot water springs on earth. Enhanced geothermal technology is severely underfunded; drilling machines are used to penetrate hot dry rock and pump the water into newly created chambers. Such activity is both capital-intensive and dangerous since drilling into the wrong rock formation could trigger earthquakes. There is not enough government or private incentive to encourage this nascent eco-friendly industry. Desperate times require desperate measures: in spite of fierce anti-nuclear energy environmentalists, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has acknowledged that nuclear energy can be effectively used to contain global warming.
Since 2011, Canadian energy behemoth General Fusion has been receiving investments from the Earth Fund to build the world’s first nuclear fusion power plant, which would be, when finished, an unlimited source of clean energy which can produce more toxic waste-free energy, than a traditional nuclear power plant. NuScale Power, an Oregon-based energy startup, has built a prototype modular nuclear reactor in the US’s State University campus. Micro is the new prevailing trend in tech: such reactors can be easily shipped to any location, thus making the cumbersome process of setting up a nuclear reactor redundant. These small engines can operate without meltdown because they use very little nuclear fuel compared with existing reactors. Scientists are also advocating the use of hydrogen energy since there is an abundance of the element in the atmosphere. Honda has a third-generation hydrogen cell-powered car, which hasn’t found buyers. Hydrogen energy can be counterproductive currently because the technology needed to break up water into its two components will require fossil fuels.
The downside of government is its dependence on traditional forms of industry which will take huge investment to replace with eco-friendly models. This has been preventing state leaders who depend on corporate donors to take decisive steps for the future of their own children. Dr Kavya Michael, Associate Fellow, Centre for Global Environment Research, Earth Science and Climate Change, TERI, says, “Climate change compounds and exacerbates pre-existing myriad socio-economic and biophysical vulnerabilities. Accelerating adaptation action is the biggest hope to ensure a safe future for all in light of increasing climate change impacts. Through a number of initiatives, we are beginning to extend our knowledge and research in climate science and policy to other emerging economies.”
The climate change conversation has clear racial overtones, which favour the West which is exploiting natural resources in Africa and Asia without heeding the impact of their tech on the local climate. Eight-year-old Manipuri girl Licypriya Kangujam, India’s youngest climate activist, hates being compared with Greta. She has spoken against global warming in 21 countries. When Spanish newspapers labelled her the ‘Greta of the Global South’, she tweeted, “We have a common goal but I have my own identity, story. I began my movement in July 2018 even before Greta started.” It is not too late for India to follow her cue.
Global Stand
What the countries are doing (or not doing) to achieve the globally agreed goal of holding warming below 2°C
INDIA
India is formulating its renewable energy policy but at present, such energy security lies far ahead in the future. While the country needs to reduce its dependence on coal-based energy and balance growth and environment, a reforming farm policy can help tackle water shortages and discourage crop burning.
USA
After pulling the US out of the Paris pact, Donald Trump is backing industrial activity without ecological responsibility. The real estate developer-president is downgrading protected parks allowing logging. Land development is threatening extinction of native species. The Clean Power Plan is scrapped.
CHINA
The world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter (27% of global emissions) vows to control coal consumption and raise use of natural gas and power. But its fossil fuel consumption went up by 4% in the first half of 2019. It started boosting 28 GW of new coal-fired power capacity in 2018, and is financing and building both fossil-fuel and renewable infrastructure in other countries. Its totalitarian secrecy prevents clarity about the real picture.
EU
The EU’s Paris Agreement target of at least a 40% emission reduction below 1990 levels by 2030 is insufficient while its policies are on track to meet the target. The UK played a key role in ensuring strong EU action, but dwindling London-Brussels ties post-Brexit could jeopardise joint efforts to achieve the 2050 emissions-neutrality goal.
Evidence for Rapid Climate Change
Most of the current warming trend in the earth is linked to—with greater than 95 per cent probability—human activity since the mid-20th century. It is proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.
8 inches Sea Level Rise
Global sea level rose about 8 inches in the last century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and is accelerating slightly every year.
Extreme Events
Scientists are establishing a stronger link between the planet’s warming and its changing weather patterns with hotter heat waves, drier droughts, bigger storm surges and
greater snowfall
12.85 per cent Declining Arctic Sea Ice
The extent, as well as thickness of Arctic sea ice, have declined rapidly over the last several decades. Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum each September. September Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 12.85 per cent per decade, relative to the 1981 to 2010 average.
Glacial Retreat
Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world—including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa.
286 billion tonnes (Greenland)
127 billion n tonnes (Antarctica)
Ice lost per year between 1993 and 2016
Shrinking Ice Sheets
The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 286 billion tonnes of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 127 billion tonnes of ice per year during the same time period. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade.
30 per cent Ocean Acidification
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30 per cent. This rise is the result of humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence more being absorbed into the oceans. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the upper layer of the oceans is increasing by about 2 billion tonnes per year.
Decreased Snow Cover
Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and that the snow is melting earlier.
1.62 °F Temperature Rise
The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with the five warmest years on record taking place since 2010.
Over 0.4 °F Warming Oceans
The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969.
Apocalyptic Scenarios
Solar storm
In 2012, Earth narrowly escaped the most powerful solar storm in over 150 years. A hit will completely destroy the internet and nearly all communications which would cost the world economy trillions in damages.
Asteroid attack
predict that mile-long asteroid 1997XF11 will miss the planet in 2028 by a whisker; however if it doesn’t, it would hit the earth at 30,000 mph or energy roughly equal to a one-million megaton bomb. This would guarantee a mass extinction of life very much like the dinosaurs were wiped out millions of years ago. Nostradamus predicted that an asteroid would hit the earth and “we shall see the water rising and the earth falling under it.”
How did We Get Here?
Gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect
Water vapour
The most abundant greenhouse gas, but importantly, it acts as a feedback to the climate. Water vapour increases as the Earth’s atmosphere warms, but so does the possibility of clouds and precipitation, making these some of the most important feedback mechanisms to the greenhouse effect.
Carbon dioxide (CO2)
A minor but very important component of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is released through natural processes such as respiration and volcano eruptions and through human activities such as deforestation, land-use changes, and burning fossil fuels. Humans have increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by more than a third since the Industrial Revolution began. This is the most important long-lived “forcing” of climate change.
Methane
A hydrocarbon gas produced both through natural sources and human activities, including the decomposition of wastes in landfills, agriculture, and especially rice cultivation, as well as ruminant digestion and manure management associated with domestic livestock. On a molecule-for-molecule basis, methane is a far more active greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but also one which is less abundant in the atmosphere.
Nitrous oxide
A powerful greenhouse gas that is produced by soil cultivation practices, especially the use of commercial and organic fertilisers, fossil fuel combustion, nitric acid production, and biomass burning.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
Synthetic compounds entirely of industrial origin, used in a number of applications, but now largely regulated in production and release to the atmosphere by international agreement. Because they have the ability to contribute to destruction of the ozone layer. They are also greenhouse gases. Source: Nasa
“People are suffering, people are dying. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is the money and fairytales of eternal economic growth… For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away!” Greta Thunberg, Teen Swedish climate activist, at UN Climate Action Summit, September 2019