Dear Editor,
About 252 million years ago the earth and ocean got hotter. The ocean became more acid. Forests died. Most of life on earth died. In fact, it was the biggest mass extinction on earth, widely known as the ‘Great Dying’. The main cause was carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. The main source was massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia. It took several million years for life on earth to recover. Today is Earth Day. Is the world heading for another ‘Great Dying’? The scientific consensus is that the safe limit for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million (ppm). Today, atmospheric greenhouse gases are over 420ppm. Humans must remove 70ppm or some billions of tons of greenhouse gases to get out of the danger zone.
The basic science, with which your readers will be familiar, is that greenhouse gases absorb the sun’s heat and radiate it back to earth. The earth and the ocean gets hotter. The climate system changes resulting in extreme cold, extreme heat, greater droughts and higher than usual rainfall. The earth’s ambient temperature has gone up by about 1C. Coral reefs are already dying. Forests are beginning to die. The Paris Agreement to allow global warming of 1.50C is a death sentence for life on earth. A warmer ocean expands. A hotter earth melts glaciers and polar ice and releases more water. Sea-levels are rising and will keep on rising. If you live on coast lands you will either be under water or you will have to seek refuge somewhere dry. The ocean is becoming more acid because carbon dioxide is dissolving in it. Shellfish cannot make their shells and are dying.
Scientists warn that we are on track for a “Hothouse Earth” in which global average temperature would be higher than in a million or more years. They say that we are on the edge of a mass extinction caused by humans. There has never been a moment on earth when humans lived without marine life, without trees, without other species. A major source of greenhouse gas is the burning of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, governments across the planet continue to subsidize oil, gas and coal even though they cost the earth. In desperation scientists are gluing themselves to public buildings wearing lab coats that say “New oil and gas = death”.
Antonio Guterres the UN Secretary General says that, “Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness. Such investments will soon be stranded assets…” For the first time in his life Professor Noam Chomsky, an American linguist who has written fourteen books on language, cannot find the right words. He says, “I don’t know what word in the language—I can’t find one—that applies to people of that kind, who are willing to sacrifice the existence of organized human life, not in the distant future, so they can put a few more dollars in highly overstuffed pockets. The word “evil” doesn’t begin to approach it.” So much for Earth Day.
Sincerely,
Melinda Janki
