Credit: Climate Change report

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: Now we know – climate change is real, and it’s our fault

Aug 11, 2021 | 4:11 AM

KAMLOOPS — IF YOU WANT TO IMPRESS friends and acquaintances at your next social gathering, casually ask them if they’ve read Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It’s the latest United Nations report on climate change and, despite its unwieldy name, it might be the most important document of our generation.

It’s being described as “a code red for humanity” and the “death knell” for the fossil fuel industry. Basically, we’re all doomed unless we do something fast, and even then we can’t avoid dramatic climate change altogether.

What the report is trying to say, through all its scientific jargon, is that the Earth’s climate is going to hell and it’s our fault. It catalogues decreases in spring snow cover, the global retreat of glaciers since 1990s, ocean warming since the 1970s and resulting rise in sea level.

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While the report speaks in terms of a range of causes and outcomes, it’s very definite about certain things. Such as that extreme heatwaves have been more and more frequent and intense since the 1950s, and that they’re human induced.

“Human influence,” it says, “has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years.”

No region of the globe is exempt from the effects. Unless deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions occur, the average global temperature is likely to reach the 1.5-degree C warming threshold within 20 years. And, there’s no guarantee it won’t happen no matter what we do, because efforts to date have gone nowhere near far enough.

A couple of days before the report was released, James Peters rhetorically and fortuitously asked in an editorial if, in view of this season’s devastating wildfires, we’re finally ready to agree on the urgency of climate change.

The answer better be yes, and we’d better get our butts in gear.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.