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Why to care about Climate

Change?

WHAT: There is more and more a consensus among scientists and experts that human activity is -at least partly- responsible for the accelerating warming of the Earth. The emission and accumulation of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere captures the solar radiation, otherwise released in space, thus resulting in global warming [9,16]. The use of fossil fuels primarily and land use change are mainly responsible for the emissions of CO2, while agriculture and fossil fuels for methane (CH4) [9,11,20,21,22]. NOW: It is disturbing to read the facts but the direct impacts of climate change (CC hereafter) include: ocean acidification 30% up to now [22], floods from melting glaciers i.e. in Himalayas [8]; 1C warmer temperatures [9] and rising sea level (3,1 mm/year [9]) are the highest ever recorded in history, as the retreating arctic ice is younger and thinner than ever [22]. People all around the planet are already dispossessed, dislocated and ruined by the effects of CC while others paid with their lives from the more frequent and severe weather disasters; entire islands are becoming evacuated1 and other marginal areas are no longer liveable. Despite all this, GHG emissions are increasing dramatically at a rate of 3%/year [20] and they are likely to double by 2020 [23]. LATER: Now we have the ability with science to project the future: according to IPCC -a big group of the most prominent climate scientists- [9] as CC proceeds we will most likely experience more rock avalanches and floods in snow-covered areas as well as the extinction of animal species like predators, deaths from severe heat waves (mainly in Europe), more rain in rainy areas and less rain in already dry or semi-arid regions like dry tropics and the Mediterranean, relentless floods in coastal areas where many million people live; 75 to 250 million people will suffer from water stress in Africa alone and 20 to 30% of plant and animal species will be at risk of extinction. We will be stricken by more malnutrition-injuries-deaths from extreme weather events [9] while agricultural productivity is expected to decrease in seasonally dry and tropical areas, even with 1C or 2C temperature rise [9,10,18,19]. Generally, poverty, increasing hunger (923 million in 2007 [5]), lack of shelter and water are felt by millions and are very likely to exacerbate. WHO: The change of the Earths climate pattern is a complex process but the situation is simple and serious: climate change is caused by developed nations like EU, USA, Japan etc. by modern development: industry, transport, global trade and production, fossil fuels, consumption. Yet climate change effects vary greatly per region [9,22]; ironically climate change is hitting harder people in vulnerable areas of Africa, Asia etc. in small islands, high mountains, coastal areas, riversides primarily in less industrialized countries, poorer nations that participated the least in emitting GHG that cause CC. These societies have agrarian economy; their people are directly dependent on their surrounding ecology for their livelihoods in places with poor infrastructure and no access to goods or services; they do not have insurance or other welfare benefits. Still 80% of worlds resources are consumed by 20% of the population, for instance an average citizen of USA uses 15 to 150 times more energy than a person in an economically disadvantaged nation [3]. This is obviously related also to the unequal concentration of wealth in few hands, mostly large-scale TransNational Corporations (TNCs). Environmental injustice occurs from a global wealthy minority [13] historically responsible for accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere against poor nations
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First official climate change island refugees displaced as an entire community are the 2500 people of Carterets, Papua New Guinea. Report on guardian.co.uk and treehugger.com [28,29].

(international), vulnerable and deprived social groups (inter-societal), future generations (inter-generational) and all life on earth (inter-species). That is why we need to understand and work on Climate Justice: to pay back our ecological debt, restore the environmental disaster that limits the rights and opportunities of other peoples and species. THE BIG PICTURE: Lastly, it is important to correlate climate change to the larger environmental degradation, the bio-crisis [17] or eco-cide (ecological suicide) caused by human activities. Even if CC is for some a dubious issue, it is undeniable that humanity has exerted profound impact on the environment from local to global ecologies [1,26] beyond their capacity to sustain human activities as such [2,12]. The current way we live in Western affluent societies cannot be maintained [7,24]. Life on earth is dramatically altered [14]; our consumption demands support activities and environmental processes that inflict damage in unprecedented scale to biodiversity and human cultures [3]. Global warming is connected to the loss of biodiversity; species become extinct 100 times faster than the rate typical to earths history [3,14,25] due to their limited capacity to adapt [30]. Similarly, languages and local cultures are become faster extinct [15]: about half of the worlds 6000 languages are currently imperilled [27] and 90 % might become extinct the next 100 years. Massive is the loss also of farm crops, we have already lost of traditional varieties [4,12] or 90% [6]. Resilience of ecosystems is getting exceeded [9]. Air, water and soil pollution from synthetic compounds [14], toxicity, deforestation and depletion of worlds fisheries beyond restoration (90% reduction of fish biomass since industrial fishing [14]) are completing the picture. Ultimately, climate crisis is also connected to the food crisis, the economic crisis, the water crisis; all crises humanity has to confront are rooted to the same modern western model of development whose fierce tentacles have been penetrating every social or ecological life support system on Earth. Rigas Zafeiriou, February 2010 Sources:
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007). 4th assessment report - Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Valencia, Spain, 12-17 November 2007.

10. Kotschi, J. (2007): Agricultural Biodiversity is Essential for Adapting to Climate Change. GAIA 16/2. 98-101. 11. Le Qur C, Raupach MR, Canadell JG, Marland G (2009). Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. Nature geoscience Vol 2, December 2009. 12. Lincoln SF (2006). Challenged earth: An overview of humanitys stewardship of earth. Imperial College Press. 13. Lohmann L (2008). Carbon trading, climate justice and the production of ignorance: ten examples. Development 2008 51 (359-365). 14. MA (2005). Ecosystems and Human well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC 15. Mallarach JM (2008). Cultural and spiritual values of protected landscapes and seascapes: an overview. In Mallarach JM (ed.) 2008. Protected Landscapes and Cultural and Spiritual Values. IUCN, GTZ and Obra Social de Caixa Catalunya. Kasparek Verlag, Heidelberg. 16. Mestre-Sanchsa F and Feijo-Bellob ML (2009). Climate change and its marginalizing effect on agriculture. Ecological Economics 68 (2009) 896 904. 17. Mueller T and Passadakis A (2009). Green capitalism and the climate: its economic growth stupid! Critical currents; contours of climate justice-ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics. No. 6 October 2009. Dag Hammarskjold Foundation Uppsala. 18. Parry M, Rosenzweig C, Iglesias A, Fischer G, Livermore M (1999). Climate change and world food security: a new assessment. Global Environmental Change 9 (1999) S51}S67 19. Parry ML, Rosenzweig C, Iglesias A, Livermore M, Fischer G (2004). Effects of climate change on global food production under SRES emissions and socio-economic scenarios. Global Environmental Change 14 (2004) 5367. 20. Raupach MR, Marland G, Ciais P, Le Qur C, Canadell JG, Klepper G and Field CB (2007). Global and regional drivers of accelerating global CO2 emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, 1028810293. 21. Raupach MR, Canadell JG, Le Quere C (2008). Anthropogenic and biophysical contributions to increasing atmospheric CO2 growth rate and airborne fraction. Biogeosciences Discussions 5 (4), pp. 2867-2896. 22. RS (2009b). Preventing dangerous climate change: the need for a global agreement December 2009. The royal society, Document 12/09 DES1723. 23. Sheehan P (2008). The new global growth path: implications forclimate change analysis and policy. Climate change(2008) 91:211-231. 24. Sim S (2009). The carbon footprint wars: what might happen if we retreat from globalization? Edinburgh university press. 25. Sinclair ARE (2000). The loss of biodiversity: the sixth great extinction. In conserving natures diversity: insights from biology, ethics and economics van Kooten GC, Bulte EH and Sinclair ARE (eds.). Ashgate Publishing.

26. Steffen W, Sanderson A, Tyson PD, Jger J, Matson PA, Moore B, Oldfield F, Richardson K, Schellnhuber HJ, Turner BL , Wasson RJ (2004). Global Change and the Earth System: A planet under pressure. Springer, Heidelberg, Germany. 27. UNEP (2007). Fourth Global Environment Outlook, GEO 4. Environment for development. 28. Treehugger.com. First Official Climate Change Refugees Evacuate Their Island Homes for Good 05.08.2009 http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/first-climate-change-refugees-evacuate.php 29. Guardian.co.uk George Monbiot 08.05.2009 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/may/07/monbiot-climate-changeevacuation 30. Wiens JJ (2010). Master Class and Seminar Evolutionary and ecological origins of global biodiversity patterns. Friday 19-02-2010. Wageningen the Netherlands. WEES - Wageningen Evolution and Ecology Seminars.

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