He's Heating Up!
With sea levels rising and weather catastrophes increasing in severity, why has it been so difficult for people to take action on climate change?
A couple recurring themes wove their way through many of our conversations:
People think their own action can’t make a difference.
Most people don’t know what to do.
The scientific community and most reasonable people have accepted that global warming has anthropogenic causes, i.e., that car you’re driving (hopefully not right now) is contributing to global warming. More specifically, the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are contributing to climate change.
Okay - so excess carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is causing global warming. How severe is our problem?
According to a new study published by Nature (summarized well by EarthSky here) Earth absorbs about 0.72 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year. This occurs through various means: carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean, trees chemically convert carbon dioxide as they literally grow out of the thin air (please take the time to watch this clip of Richard Feyman explain how trees grow, it’s two minutes very well spent), among others natural processes.
According to the World Bank, if you happen to be an average carbon emitter in the US, you produce about 17.3 tons of carbon dioxide per year. In other words, you emit about 24x what the Earth absorbs.
Imagine if you managed a business that spends 24x its cashflow. Not exactly what you’d describe as a sustainable model, right? And once our ecosystem goes bankrupt, who’s there to bail us out?
