Sometimes we need to think the unthinkable, particularly when dealing with a problem as dangerous as climate change – there is no room for dogma when considering the future habitability of our planet. It was in this spirit that I and a panel of other specialists in climate, economics and policy-making met under the aegis of the Stockholm Network thinktank to map out future scenarios for how international policy might evolve – and what the eventual impact might be on the earth’s climate.

We came up with three alternative visions of the future, and asked experts at the Met Office Hadley Centre to run them through its climate models to give each a projected temperature rise. The results were both surprising, and profoundly disturbing. We gave each scenario a name. The most pessimistic was labelled “agree and ignore” – a world where governments meet to make commitments on climate change, but then backtrack or fail to comply with them. Sound familiar? It should: this scenario most closely resembles the past 10 years, and it projects emissions on an upward trend until 2045.

A more optimistic scenario was termed “Kyoto plus”: here governments make a strong agreement in Copenhagen in 2009, binding industrialised countries into a new round of Kyoto-style targets, with developing countries joining successively as they achieve “first world” status. This scenario represents the best outcome that can plausibly result from the current process – but ominously, it still sees emissions rising until 2030.

The third scenario – called “step change” – is worth a closer look. Here we envisaged massive climate disasters around the world in 2010 and 2011 causing a sudden increase in the sense of urgency surrounding global warming. Energised, world leaders ditch Kyoto, abandoning efforts to regulate emissions at a national level. Instead, they focus on the companies that produce fossil fuels in the first place – from oil and gas wells and coal mines – with the UN setting a global “upstream” production cap and auctioning tradable permits to carbon producers.

Instead of all the complexity of regulating squabbling nations and billions of people, the price mechanism does the work: companies simply pass on their increased costs to consumers, and demand for carbon-intensive products begins to fall. The auctioning of permits raises trillions of dollars to be spent smoothing the transition to a low-carbon economy and offsetting the impact of price rises on the poor. A clear long-term framework puts a price on carbon, giving business a strong incentive to shift investment into renewable energy and low-carbon manufacturing. Most importantly, a strong carbon cap means that global emissions peak as early as 2017.

This “upstream cap” approach is not a new idea, and our approach draws in particular on a forthcoming book by the environmental writer Oliver Tickell. However, conventional wisdom from governments and environmental groups alike insists that “Kyoto is the only game in town”, and that proposing any alternative is dangerous heresy.

But let’s look at the modelled temperature increases associated with each scenario. “Agree and ignore” sees temperatures rise by 4.85C by 2100 (with a 90% probability); for “Kyoto plus”, it’s 3.31C; and “step change” 2.89C. This is the depressing bit: no politically plausible scenario we could envisage will now keep the world below the danger threshold of two degrees, the official target of both the EU and UK.

This means that all scenarios see the total disappearance of Arctic sea ice; spreading deserts and water stress in the sub-tropics; extreme weather and floods; and melting glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas. Hence the need to focus far more on adaptation: these are impacts that humanity is going to have to deal with whatever now happens at the policy level.

But the other great lesson is that sticking with current policy is actually a very risky option, rather than a safe bet. Betting on Kyoto could mean triggering the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet and crossing thresholds that involve massive methane release from melting Siberian permafrost. If current policy continues to fail – along the lines of the “agree and ignore” scenario – then 50% to 80% of all species on earth could be driven to extinction by the magnitude and rapidity of warming, and much of the planet’s surface left uninhabitable to humans.

Billions, not millions, of people would be displaced.
So which way will it go? Ultimately the difference between the scenarios is one of political will: the question now is whether humanity can summon up the courage and foresight to save itself, or whether business as usual – on climate policy as much as economics – will condemn us all to climatic oblivion.

The constant climate change is a fact that we just can’t disregard anymore. As unreal as it may sound, the world may soon end and we have some fault whereas these changes are concerned. Global warming is something that can’t be controlled as easily as one might think, having a dreadful effect all over the world. The catastrophic results reflect on the biodiversity of the planet and its eco-systems.

In order to attract people’s attention, many “festivals of life” and other similar campaigns have been organized in order to save Mother Earth. But campaigns, commercials, experiments… they are all useless when it comes to climate change. Responsible for this situation are indirectly greenhouse gases and directly the human race. In order to remediate this problem, the Kyoto protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan on 11 December 1997. The international agreement was signed by several countries (with well-developed industries), all agreeing on the importance of reducing greenhouse gases that have led to climate change.

All this trouble could have been avoided if the emissions of these gases would have been interdicted since their first appearance, but people are greedy and they always put money before ecology, not realizing that as rich as you may be, it means nothing… if the air that surrounds us is not breathable.

Although it is quite late, the solution remains the same and could still be put in practice in order to save what is left of nature, and that is: stopping the emission of greenhouse gases. But what are people constantly thinking about? Ecology? Of course not! Economy! Are they thinking that with the daily burning of new fossil fuels, the Amazon forest that sustains life on Earth is dying a little bit more and more? It’s hardly likely!

Global warming is a real problem and one that should be tackled with more seriousness. What we have seen in movies like “Armageddon”, “The Apocalypse”, “The end of the days”, “The core”, etc, is becoming more and more a possibility. Maybe it won’t happen now, but in 20-25 years or something… who knows?

In their attempt to stop climate change, a lot of scientists have repeatedly said that it is a “must” to develop forests, as many and as big as possible. This is the only way of reconstructing the ozone “blanket”. We all know that this gas – the ozone – is one of the most important gases that exist in the Earth’s atmosphere. The ozone has the very difficult task of blocking the harmful ultraviolet rays from reaching the Earth’s surface and it also helps the temperature of the Earth’s surface to stay warm enough.       

Global warming is the single most destructive force hurting our planet. The industrial revolution of the past two centuries has taken a toll on our planet’s wild life and environmental infrastructure due to mankind’s destructive behavior. Global climate change is obvious in all corners of the Globe, from melting polar ice caps to ozone depletion. The theory behind this phenomenon is that the Earth receives heat from the Sun; the Sun gives off the heat in the form of radiation in which the Earth absorbs 70%, which warms the surface and the oceans, while the remaining 30% is reflected into space.

Global Warming is one of the things people search a lot for on the Internet. People often search for articles with questions like does global warming lead to a high death rate and whilst there is information around a lot of it will not be useful if you do not word your search well. It is also important to remember that the Internet is full of websites written with agenda and that the information on some websites may not be factual or correct, this is especially important in the case of websites about Global Warming.

Climate change can affect everything and it could eventually affect the death rate of our population if things do continue to get worse over the next few years. Climate change will affect everything and that includes global warming affecting ocean life. The truth about climate change is that no matter how people deny or ignore it the Worlds temperature is increasing and with that rise the sea levels in the world are rising so the global warming affecting ocean life will happen and make things different in the World.

If you are wanting to know about the human causes global warming then there is not only plenty of information available online but also plenty that you can do to help prevent global warming from getting worse.

People often want to know about the effects of global warming in Singapore and the places like this that are at major risk and there are websites on the Internet that can offer you accurate advice about what exactly climate change will do and what areas will be most affect by Global Warming.

One of the biggest worries about the planet is that global warming can’t be reversed and it will eventually destroy our planet if we do not take action against the rising temperature and the problems that it will cause for future generations. If you do ignore the problems then they may go away for you but will not in the long term and we are all accountable and could do more to ensure that our planet is save for many years to come. If you are interested then there are plenty of things you can do and you can start to make a difference straight away even with little things like turning appliances off and making sure that you wash clothes on a lower temperature. They may seem trivial things but if everybody in the world starts to do them then it will start to make a big difference.

A common mistake made by people who have a limited understanding about global warming will often loosely refer to the problem as either climate change or global warming. While the two have much to do with each other, they are two separate things that are related to the same cause, which is carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere by human activity. Global warming is referring to the rise in the average global temperature. It is this rise in temperature that causes the climate changes being seen around the world.

It may seem like it isn’t a big deal, but this really is something people should be concerned about. Global warming has been proven to be greatly caused by the greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide that people are putting into the air through their daily activities. These emissions are caused by cars, airplanes, factories, businesses, or anything else that burns fossil fuels. While there are other greenhouse gases put into the air, carbon is what makes up the largest contributor from human activities. Many don’t realize that global warming affects everyone, perhaps not in the most obvious way every day, but it does affect everyone. Global warming is what is causing the earth to warm, which, as mentioned before, causes the major climate changes that are being seen. What are some of these major climate changes and what does this have to do with people? Floods, severe hurricanes, odd weather patterns such as abnormally cold or warm winters; all of these are products of global warming.

Food and resources come from the natural world and if global warming causes severe drought (which it is in many places around the world), the crop yield will be much lower and money is lost. Not to mention that it’s less food available to people. Global warming is also what is warming the polar ice caps and drying up other fresh water resources. Life needs fresh water and without it, life tends to die.

It is something that people can change if they can take responsibility over it. It is possible to slow and stop the global warming, making the world a healthier place with the necessary resources available. It means that the burning of fossil fuels has to stop. Using energy sources that don’t require the burning of fossil fuels is what is needed. The sun and wind are both excellent examples of the tireless sources of energy available to humans. Saving water and producing less waste is also needed to reduce the carbon emissions. As more people turn to alternatives instead of burning fossil fuels, global warming could be stopped, which in turn would stop causing the major climate changes that have been the cause of such devastation in recent years.

Image by Changhua Coast Conservation Action via Flickr

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