How much do we care?

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Recently scientists warned our world is likely to breach the 1.5C climate threshold by 2027. The world is almost certain to experience new record temperatures in the next five years, and the global average temperature is likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Temperatures have risen faster than expected and the effects of our changing climate have been unexpectedly extreme.

Climate change matters because of the suffering and injustice it’s causing, and also because it’s one of the few issues that has obvious potential to affect our world over many future generations.

At over 420 parts per million, the present atmospheric concentration of CO2 is the highest level for 14 million years.

During the past 80,000 years, until the beginning of last century, humans lived within atmospheric levels between 180-280ppm. In 1911 CO2  levels reached 300ppm for the first time in human history, and have been accelerating ever since. Now global temperatures and climate change are catching up, bringing death and destruction in their wake.

“If we got rid of all emissions tomorrow, carbon dioxide would come down very, very slowly. It would take thousands of years,” says James Butler, director of global monitoring at the Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA.

In other words, if and when we cease emitting greenhouse gases, elevated levels of CO2 will remain in the atmosphere for centuries, and warming and other negative effects will continue for a very long time.

For example, if we have a one-metre sea level rise in the next 100 years, we could expect 10m more over the following 1000 years.

So if we manage to avoid existential catastrophe and humanity survives, future generations will be dealing with the negative effects of climate change for ages.

Presently we are experiencing the warmest years on record, and more than a million species — including ourselves — risk extinction. Yet still we pour out greenhouse gases as if there is no tomorrow and few seem to care a lot.

Bob Hughes