11 Oct Global Warming Facts: From Bill McKibben UT Talk – The Problem, The Solution & A Video

I was at the dog park walking my Corgi named Marlo last week and I told the people I was with that I was going to the Belo Center for New Media at UT to hear US author and founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben speak on global warming.  I was shocked when one of the people I was with said, “You don’t really believe that mumbo jumbo!”  To which I replied that I certainly did not only believe it but was highly concerned by it.  Undeterred they continued to talk about scientists cooking the books and nature taking its course.  To which I gave a whimpie reply citing the Texas drought last year where over 500 million trees died and then the drought in the central US this year that has caused the cost of corn to rise … to which they said it was nature taking its course … droughts come and go you know. SIGH!

I’m writing this so you and I will have some bullet points to remember … facts from my notes taken during the inspiring talk that McKibben delivered on the UT campus.  I want to have these with me at all times so I can be more specific when challenged about global warming!  In case you want to fact check what is here please refer to Bill McKibben’s article in RollingStone from this summer titled Global Warming's Terrifying New Math – Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – and that make clear who the real enemy is

So here are some of my notes from McKibbens talk and his article … also tucked into this blog is a video from the 350.org website to help you be inspired!

·      June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States.

·      May was the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average

·      The odds of this occurring by chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.

·      This spring was the warmest ever recorded for our nation … it represented the largest temperature departure from average of any season on record.

·      Saudi authorities reported that it rained in Mecca despite a temperature of 109 degrees, the hottest downpour in the planet's history.

·      A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is now gone

·      The oceans are 30% more acidic – which is harming ocean reefs globally.

·      NASA scientist James Hansen, the planet's most prominent climatologist said "The target that has been talked about in international negotiations for two degrees of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster."

·      The official position of planet Earth at the moment is that we can't raise the temperature more than two degrees Celsius – it's become what McKibben calls the bottomest of bottom lines. Two degrees.

·      565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide can be added into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some [not much] reasonable hope of staying below the two degrees target.

·      Earth's temperature has risen by 0.8 degrees so far, so we're currently less than halfway to the target. But, computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO₂ now, the temperature would likely still rise another 0.8 degrees, since previously released carbon will continue to overheat the atmosphere. So that means we're already three-quarters of the way to the two-degree target.

·      CO₂ emissions last year rose to 31.6 gigatons, up 3.2 percent from the year before.

·      the amount of carbon already contained in the proven coal and oil and gas reserves of the fossil-fuel companies, or the fossil fuel we're currently planning to burn is 2,795 gigatons. 

·      This 2,795 gigatons is 5 times higher than the 565 gigatons we can put into the atmosphere and have a reasonable hope of staying below a 2 degree target.

·      The five biggest oil companies have made more than $1 trillion in profits since 2000 [they are not likely to stop]

The Problem:

The fossil-fuel industry is systematically undermining the planet's physical systems.  Alone among businesses, the fossil-fuel industry is allowed to dump its main waste, carbon dioxide, for free. McKibben says that until a quarter-century ago, almost no one knew that CO2 was dangerous. But now that we understand that carbon is heating the planet and acidifying the oceans, its price is becoming the central issue.  It’s like the cigarette industry.  People smoked for years before they realized the habit was leading to early death, cancer and worse.  This problem isn’t a personal matter – its everyone’s problem poised to affect generations to come.

The Solution

"Given the severity of the climate crisis, a comparable demand that our institutions dump stock from companies that are destroying the planet would not only be appropriate but effective," says Bob Massie, a former anti-apartheid activist who helped found the Investor Network on Climate Risk. "The message is simple: We have had enough. We must sever the ties with those who profit from climate change – now."

I’ll be memorizing these facts so I’ll be more convincing when people talk about global warming being so much mumbo jumbo.  I hope you’ll be inspired to do the same!  Here are others around the world who have been inspired by Bill McKibben and others from 350.org.