Politicians are good at talking about climate change, and their efforts to control the rise in global temperatures. Here in the UK we have a government that talks big on reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, but delivers little in reality. The same is probably true of many political leaders around the world. ‘Plans’, ‘reviews’ and ‘initiatives’ all sound good on the daily news, but what we really need is action. At the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in San Francisco earlier in December, scientists were reporting a ‘year of worsts’ for 2007.
2007 has seen the lowest level of sea ice in the Arctic. In September it was a massive 23% smaller than at anytime since records began. There were 1.6 million square kilometers more water than the previous record in 2005. Both air and water temperatures were also higher than previous maximums. John D. Walsh, Professor of Global Climate Change at the International Arctic Research Center for the University of Alaska, Fairbanks said: "We have a consistent picture that we've really moved into record territory in the past four or five years,"
In Greenland, a similar picture was emerging. This year, snow melted across a bigger area of the island than ever before, and for longer periods of time. The area of thawing has expanded by 19,000 square kilometers a year since 1988. Marco Tedesco, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County's Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, and NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center said: "In some places, melting occurred for 25 or 30 days longer than average."
Many scientists now believe the Arctic Ocean has reached a tipping point, with only a long-term global cooling able to reverse this trend. The Met Office's Hadley Centre for climate prediction believes the Arctic ice cap will become open water by the middle of this century (The Times).
A global cooling is unlikely to happen. A reduction of greenhouse gases is also unlikely to happen with our current political leaders in power. The simple fact is economic pressure is greater than the threat of global warming at the moment. Until global warming starts to impact on the economies of the developed world, there will be nothing more than words and token gestures from politicians. Our only hope is individual action. If enough people take a stand against global warming and make changes to their lifestyles, we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. If, we as consumers, spend our money solely on products and services that are environmentally friendly, the corporations that are feeding global warming, and dictating government policies, will have to change the way they operate to stay profitable. Profit is the bottom line for any company. We are responsible for the money earned by every director and shareholder of every company that is damaging our planet and our future. As a new year’s resolution, why not ‘say no to global warming’ and make the change to an environmentally friendly life. Put your money to good use and help to save our planet and our futures. This is the only hope we have.
