Written for Shift Magazine in Europe, April 2008 edition
I was sitting at the kitchen table at 6am last Tuesday morning, a loyal cup of dark coffee to my left and a notebook displaying my sporadic handwritten notes to my right. My co-author, Elizabeth May, in an identical set-up on the other side of the table.
Staring directly at me were the notes from a scientist from the Nobel Prize winning International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who is reviewing our manuscript Global Warming for Dummies. Track changes on my Word document sent a chill down my barely-awake spine as I focused my early-morning eyes:
“Deleted: 379 p.p.m.”
“Inserted: 388 p.p.m.”
P.p.m is short end for parts per million, the measurement used for the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 400 is the number we want to stay away from. It’s in between 400 and 500 that things get really messy.
I hadn’t planned on getting to know number 388 until 2010 or 2011. Now here I was, as if I’d been shot into the future, and it was staring at me on a glowing screen, in 2008.
“Good morning to you too, climate change”, I thought.
The climate generation
Not enough has been done in the past 20 years to reduce emissions that are causing global warming. But in those 20 years, dedicated people built a base of international environmental awareness. And in those same 20 years, a new generation of people emerged taking a strong lead on climate change.
It’s a common sentiment among people my age – those of us who were born when the first consensus came out on climate change by the international scientific community.
Who was watching when we were 5-years-old and the IPCC wrote the first major climate change report? Who was in charge when we were 10 and science showed that humans were changing the climate? And what was the world doing at the creation of the Kyoto Protocol when we were 12?
But then we get a twinkle in our eyes as we remember that we dedicated ourselves to climate change at 18. We smile at each other when remembering being at the first meeting of the Kyoto Protocol at age 19.
And we break into a full grin when we realise we’re creating more changes than we ever thought possible at age 22. Meet my generation. The generation that woke up to climate change.
Raising global awareness
A new movement is happening, and it’s more than just a feeling, a thought, or an interpretation. In the past 4 years, 5 major youth coalitions have sprung to life: the Energy Action Coalition (US and Canada based), the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change, and, most recently, the Chinese Youth Climate Action Network – arising in the areas most needed.
My generation – from children to young adults in our 20s – is proving to be the international catalyst of a new focus and a new era of awareness.
Never before have we been able to connect around the world in networks as far-reaching as today. Never in the history of humankind has there been real-time communication on a global level. And never before has there been an issue as global, time dependent, and solution-based as climate change.
Youth are connecting to their local government representatives through Adopt-a-Politician programs to work on climate change at a national level. These coordinated efforts encourage politicians to lead on climate solutions in sessions of parliament and to support major policies requiring large-scale improvements in lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Empowering from the bottom up
We are taking up the issue in our own communities: our university and college campuses. Projects range from working with university governments to adopt clean energy policies to empowering fellow students to positively alter our day-to-day lives.
As students we have a goal of institutionalising change at the level of our campus community. And when we move on from university, we will do the same in our cities and towns, our countries, our world. And for those of us not in college or university, we are changing whatever community we have found ourselves in.
Hundreds of international youth collaborate on an annual basis to represent our generation, and future generations, at international United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conferences.
All of us come from diverse backgrounds – whether on the basis of religion, geography, experience, age, political views, or education – yet we all have the same goal of prioritising immediate and pragmatic action on reducing GHG emissions and effectively implementing projects that will help us physically adapt to the changes in climate.
On the home front these leaders are bringing together hundreds of colleagues on an annual basis to conferences in order to spur networking, the sharing of dialogue, and the basis for transcending each other’s silos.
The piece that really glues us together, however, is the basic and primal understanding that we depend on one another – and will continue to depend on one another for decades to come – to make this world a safer place in which to live. We depend on each other for survival. But that’s how life on earth has always been.
Air, water and hope
I could sit down with you and talk for hours about the climate change work of young people around the globe. But for now I just want to convey that, as I pause for a moment to reflect on this exact moment in time, I feel a sense of security I’ve never felt before.
I can’t help but feel a surge of pride and independence as our generation moves on – seamlessly at times – influencing widespread changes to the best of our ability.
I know that much of this has been done before. I know what we are doing would never have been possible without groundwork laid before us.
And I also know we all have stories to share – and we should. Because we all breathe the same air. We all drink the same water. And we all crave the same thing: Hope.
Despite the past, we’re looking forward to the future.
Considering old barriers, we’re now watching change happen.
And no matter who it is, we are working together.
To simply reiterate what we said on the world stage at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali last November: Join Us.
Subscribe by Email!
Subscribe by RSS!
Share on Facebook
Keep up the great work
http://tinyurl.com/54v4je
Thanks Fred.
Interesting graph that you posted. It certainly is a great example of how short term trends of 5 to 10 years can tell a different story than long term trends of 850,000 years.
The long term consequences of rising temperatures resulting from increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gas emissions) is indeed around what the urgency of climate change is centered.
I do hope that graph is taken with a grain of salt.
All my best,
Zoë
The generation that woke up to climate change?
Ah, the smug arrogance of youth. I remember those days. Of course, when I was a youth, we were told we were heading for the next Ice Age. We were also supposed to run out of oil by the mid-80’s. When that didn’t happen, we were supposed to run out in the 90’s. Not to mention the mass starvation and war we were supposed to go through because by now, as we were supposed to have run out of food and potable water to feed the world’s population. We were all incensed that our parent’s generation wasn’t taking things seriously enough, too.
How my parents must’ve been rolling their eyes at me – that is, when they weren’t having to use the front end loader attachment on our tractor to open a path from our house to the various buildings on our farm, so we could make sure our animals were fed, watered and didn’t freeze to death.
Here’s a memo for you: Climate changes. It always has, it always will. We can adapt to it, but we can’t control it. To suggest we humans are powerful enough to control global climate is a bit like claiming the bacteria on our eyelashes can control, our bodies.
If you’re goint to be active about making the world a better place, more power to you. There are plenty of real concerns out there. Just please make sure you’re doing something that will actually make a difference, instead of the equivalent of trying to stop the tide.
Kunoichi,
You are correct – climate changes. There is natural climate change, and there is human-caused climate change. I am referring to the latter.
There is overwhelming scientific evidence to support the fact that humans are indeed changing the global climate. It is with 95% certainty that the climate changes we are seeing cannot be explained by non-human factors alone. I’m more than happy to discuss this at length should there be particular questions that you have.
My pride wells from the fact that I’ve worked with amazing groups of people that have created substantial change in their communities and on their campuses. The community in which I work ranges from youth to the most-experienced business managers and directors whom have been working on climate change and environmental issues for over 30 years.
Yes, I believe that my generation quite literally woke up to climate change – but we would in no way be as effective and successful as many of us are today without the intensive work of those who came before us. That almost goes without saying.
I do hope you’ll get the chance to pick up my recent co-authored publication, Global Warming for Dummies (written with Elizabeth May) – it compares and contrasts natural and human-caused climate change, and also addresses youth work on a local and international scale.
Sincerely,
Zoe
I started out leaning towards the belief that humans may be contributing to climate change, but right from the start, things didn’t add up for me. I had too much background information to be able to accept it completely. Then I started doing the research. Now, after nearly 3 years of looking specifically at climate data, and a near lifetime of studying ancient civilizations (and noting rather quickly, the strong role geography and climate plays in our development, as well as the positive effect warm periods have had for life on earth in general, compared to the negative effects cold periods have had), earth history, geology, meteorology, etc., I am more than ever convinced that we humans are not only *not* responsible for global climate change (local climate is another issue – UHI effect, being the primary example), but that the idea that we are anywhere near powerful enough to do so would be silly, if it weren’t for the fact that so many resources are being re-routed to “fight”climate change, real environmental concerns are falling by the wayside.
There is NOT overwhelming scientific evidence to support that humans are changing global climate. Quite the opposite. There is substantial evidence that there are more things influencing climate than we even know about, never mind have the ability to control. While our effect on local environment is a concrete issue that can be addressed, our effect on global climate is negligible. There is climate change. There is no human induced climate change. Our effect on global climate is so tiny, it would, in a sane world, be considered “statistically insignificant.” Sadly, we don’t seem to be living in a sane world, but then, perhaps, we never have.
It doesn’t help that an alarming amount of data is corrupted and incomplete. Revisionist history, fudging of computer models until the desired results emerge, manipulation of historical data and a politicization of science increases the confusion. Even to say there’s “95% certainty” is meaningless, not to mention a questionable claim. If you’re referring to the IPCC reports, it’s even more meaningless, they are so badly flawed.
Truth is, we don’t even fully understand our climate (or a great many other things about our earth). We have a good working knowledge, and that knowledge has increased by leaps and bounds in recent years. This is a good thing. Unfortunately, I think we’ve been so blinded by how much we’ve learned, we’re forgetting how little we know. This is a pattern that has repeated itself throughout human history, so it’s no surprise to see it now. As an example, “In the first century AD, Roman naturalist and historian, Pliny the Elder, believed that already the sea was understood, that the definitive list of marine fauna was complete – totally 176 species! – and that ‘by Hercules, in the ocean … nothing exists which is unknown for us.’” (The Deep by Claire Nouvian). Today, 5-7 new species are being discovered in the Mariana Trench EVERY DAY. When it comes to climate, we’re not much more knowledgeable then Pliny the Elder was about the oceans in the first century AD.
Oh, and just as an aside, I used to vote Green. Until Elizabeth May became the leader. I am saddened by the direction she has been taking the party, and her misguided, alarmist views on climate change play a large part in that.
Humans contributing to climate change is a scientific theory grounded in stark evidence, which is much more than a “belief”.
The data grows stronger year by year. Our scientific projections have in fact been under-shooting the effects we are seeing.
I personally think of the issue of climate change not as a sole issue in itself, but as one more reason, if not the strongest reason, to take action on most major environmental concerns, as the solutions are often cross-beneficial.
There is indeed overwhelming scientific evidence to support that humans are changing the global climate. To be frank, to think otherwise in this day and age surprises me. That is clear primarily through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which, to my knowledge, is the most reputable source of climate change information. I do not know of another body that takes all peer-reviewed climate science and then compiles that information into summarized reports, citing the full range of probability for each projection. If there is another body of work that has been compiled with such fervor, I would be very much interested in seeing it.
Yes, humans are flawed. Yes, we know relatively little. And yes, this level of scientific knowledge is as good as we have.
I am quite sorry you feel that way about Elizabeth May. As her colleague and friend, I know that she approaches all her work from a point of passion with a goal to created positive environmental change in the world.