Global warming

Although the conviction that global warming does exist and is a man-spurred phenomenon is more than prevalent among scientists, there are still single human beings who call this into question, just to mention the president of the USA (he recently begrudgingly confessed he noticed the process of warming, but back in late January 2019 when Chicago was hit by a cold blast, with temperatures down to -31C, he had denied it), or to quote the recent front cover of a PiS-affiliated newspaper (which incidentally does not live up to standards of gullet press).

The opponents of the man-caused global warming claim climate on earth went through phases of warmer and colder periods and what is happening now is just another cycle coming over. In principle they are right in the first part of their assertion, pertaining to history of our planet. They just badly ignore the pace of changes taking place. In the history, process of climate warming was spread over centuries; today we are witnessing it progressing decade and decade, i.e. the climate change is accelerated by the mankind.

To illustrate what is so wrong with the global warming, if anything at all (one of PiS politicians said recently the global warming is good,since water in the Baltic Sea would finally be warmer), imagine the atmosphere is a like a pot of water. When the water is cool, you can see it is smooth, but once you heat it up towards temperature of boiling, you can see particles fizzling around. The same happens on a global level in an ever-warming atmosphere – air moves over more quickly which means more extreme events occur around the world.

To use statistical measures, you may say mean temperatures would generally rise, but because of the “pot-of-boiling-water” phenomena, standard deviations from the mean across the globe and over time will be increasing. Also the frequency of extreme weather will get more intense. In 2019 we had 12 days heat (defined as day-time high above +30C) in Warsaw while the yearly average is 5. If each year actual readouts beat the average, something is wrong with the average (answer: it is derived from 1981-2010 period). Winters will actually get milder, but cold snaps and heavy snowfalls might hit heavily. Droughts will be interspersed with floods, just because of uneven distribution of rainclouds in the atmosphere.

Some side effects might disturbingly work the other way round. Ice melting in the Arctic and cooling down water in Northern Atlantic Ocean might impair the Gulf Stream which mildens the climate in the Western Europe, in a consequence making it harsher. Other side effects work as a self-propelling mechanism. The growing popularity of electricity-consuming air conditioning boosts energy production and consequently emission of greenhouse gases during heat waves. In such sense, each single heat wave gives rise to another one or exacerbates itself.

What to do to halt the global warming? It is untrue only governments are responsible for tackling it. The broadest answer is to consume less. What we consume must be earlier be produced while manufacturing of goods is generally responsible for emission of greenhouse gases. We should teach ourselves not to give in to aggressive consumerism and to buy only things we need to possess, look after them and use them as long as possible rather than replacing them out of whims. This pertains to clothes, footwear, consumer electronics, furniture and personal belongings, but even more to vehicles, the way we use them and how often we change them. I do not encourage you to stop using a car at all, but to give up nearly altogether on short-distance communing (disturbingly, 40% of passengercar journeys in 2014 were shorter than 2 miles, such short distance I last covered by car before Easter when I had to drive to the hypermarket to a big shopping) and switch to public transport where reliable (in big cities absolutely doable). Instead of an SUV changed every five years a compact car with a petrol-fuelled (not diesel!) or hybrid engine replaced every fifteen years. Plus we should vote for politicians who can boast being aware of the problem and active in tackling it. Here hats down to the mayor of Warsaw who is an excellent example of environmental-mindful local governor.