What I Think is True About Climate Change
On my trip to the United Nations climate conference I’ve made it as far as Paris, and I’m waiting for my next plane to Dubai. On my first stop, in Atlanta, as I was walking to the international terminal I passed a long hallway of art inspired by the grain patterns in the wood of endangered trees. In a bathroom on the way, two of the attendants were talking about the odd weather in Atlanta and how it’s affecting their allergies. Those were just two more reminders of how people around the world are talking about and processing the changes they are seeing in the planet.
I think that’s why these UN climate conferences have become such a big deal. I heard that 97,000 people have been given permits to attend this year’s meeting, called “COP28,” which is almost double the number from last year’s meeting in Egypt.
Although I don’t expect too many global warming deniers among those 97,000 people, they won’t all be activists. The number includes at least 600 lobbyists for the oil industry. So even at COP28 the wide spectrum of views on climate change will be represented.
You might wonder where I stand on this spectrum. Maybe you’re still trying to figure out where you stand. Do you find it hard to know what climate-related news to trust? Do you suspect there is a lot of fake news out there?
Before I land in the United Arab Emirates, I thought it might be helpful to let you know what I think is true about climate change.
I’ll arrange my comments in four categories, and I’m borrowing these categories from Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and author of the book Saving Us.
1. Global Warming is Real
Just a couple of days ago the World Meteorological Organization declared 2023 the hottest year ever recorded. In addition, the water temperature in the oceans is also at a record high. These temperatures this year are not an unusual blip but part of a century-long upward trend. There’s just no doubt that the planet is warming and it’s showing itself in real changes in weather for real people.
2. The Warming Has Been Caused by Humans
A reasonable question to ask is, could this warming be part of a natural cycle of heating and cooling that our planet goes through? It’s true that our earth has experienced these fluctuations over thousands of years. But that’s not why the warming is happening now. The sun has not gotten hotter over the last hundred years, and other natural changes cannot explain the warming either. According to NASA, which put out the graph I’ve included, “...the warming we’ve seen in recent decades is too rapid to be linked to changes in Earth’s orbit and too large to be caused by solar activity.”
When you look at human activity, we’re pretty much holding the smoking gun. About 50 years after we began using fossil fuels to generate electricity and power our vehicles, we begin seeing unprecedented warming. We also began to see a saturation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that had never been seen for hundreds of thousands of years. As we pumped out an ever-increasing volume of greenhouse gasses, the warming accelerated at a pace never seen in recorded history. The evidence is pretty obvious. We’ve done this to ourselves.
3. It’s Serious
The effects of excess heat are actually causing much more damage than scientists anticipated. In the Antarctic, for example, the heating is happening at least two times more rapidly than in the rest of the planet. Scientists repeatedly have had to change their predictions for how quickly the warming would cause ice melting in Antarctica. In a report I read this summer, a study concluded that “It appears we may have lost control of the West Antarctic ice shelf melting over the 21st century.” In other words, the heating that has already happened on our planet may have set in motion a chain of events that can’t be reversed. As a result of this melting in western Antarctica, the researchers expect sea levels to rise by 10 feet or more over approximately the next 100 years. This will be devastating for the 700 million people who live in low-lying coastal communities.
What really concerns me is how one problem makes another worse. For example, in the Arctic as the warming oceans and increasing temperatures cause the sea ice to melt, this exposes blue water which absorbs more heat than white ice does, and this causes more warming of the polar region. This increased heat causes permafrost to melt which releases methane from previously-frozen organic matter. This methane gas traps even more heat; it has more than 28 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. The melting ice also changes ocean currents and threatens the survival of polar bears, whales and fish.
God has given us such a precious gift in this planet we live on. The conditions are incredibly finely balanced to allow for life. We’re finding that even our current 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming causes unbelievable damage.
4. We Can Still Do Something About It
In spite of all these downward spirals, I still have some optimism. One reason is this meeting I’m heading toward. If something like this didn’t exist and I asked you, “Do you think it’s possible for every nation on earth to agree to voluntarily set limits on themselves to improve the climate?” would you think that could ever happen? When this agreement was finalized in Paris in 2015 one of the leaders of the meeting made a point of thanking the people who prayed. Even to non-religious people, the consensus felt miraculous. For all it’s faults, it’s amazing we have a global forum like this that 197 nations have come to again this year. I see it as a tremendous opportunity for good.
Also, we are making progress. Advances in solar and wind technologies have now made them the cheapest ways to generate electricity, cheaper than fossil fuel, though the cost to store that electricity is still a challenge. In some ways, this is such an exciting time to be alive. To transition away from fossil fuels will require so many innovations. It’s a time already full of creativity.
For example, two days ago I read about a robot that fixes wind turbines. Apparently the tips of the windmill blades move so quickly that raindrops hit like bullets. This robot can climb the blade, scanning for damage, cleaning and sanding, filling the worn areas, and shaping the filling to restore the aerodynamics.
I think one question to ask is, “What will this season of crisis and creativity mean for me?” In my case, I’m wondering if it means I will do more to train young Christians to explore how God might be leading them to become part of the solution. On a lot smaller scale, it also means that I pick up trash when I go jogging.
And of course, I’m going on this trip to COP28. Who knows how God will stretch me, and stretch all of us, as we respond to the needs of the planet? Thanks for joining me on this adventure.