You are here:
SRM: Landcare: WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE?
Table of Contents:
- Facts, threats and solutions
- What is climate change?
- Conclusions by leading researchers
- Short term scenarios and the expected impacts of climate change
- What you can do to mitigate the impact of climate change
- Additional resources
WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE?
Climate Change - Fact or Fantasy - by Dr Guy Midgley (extract from unpublished popular article)
For those of you who are confused and bewildered by the force of emotion and passion that some bring to the issue, here are a few facts:- “Climate change is nothing new; it’s all happened before.” The answer to that is, yes it has, but neither in the same way nor to the same degree.
- Yes, rapid climate change has occurred in the past, but the critical point is that global mean temperature has oscillated for many hundreds of thousands of years between a frigid glacial level of below 10°C and the balmy interglacial levels of 14-15°C during interglacials.
- Human-induced climate change will cause this level to be exceeded sometime in the next 50 years. And further increases into new temperature territory will continue for several decades beyond if we do not curb greenhouse gas emissions. The cool Earth to which most of our natural species and existing farming practices has evolved will become warm enough to be outside the evolutionary experience of many species and unable to sustain current farming practices.
- Modern industrial agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to the rapid advance of human-induced climate change.
- People that deny climate change is happening often say: "If you can’t predict the weather next week how can anyone predict climate in a few decades, right?" This baloney argument confuses weather with climate. (It’s said that if you don’t like the weather, then wait till tomorrow – but if you don’t like the climate, get ready to relocate).
- Two years ago – 2003/2004 - the Western Cape suffered a serious drought, leading to the declaration of a “State of Emergency” by the Premier of the Western Cape. The Premier, in collaboration with other provincial Ministers and heads of departments, decided that the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, must undertake a response study on climate change in the Western Cape - to understand climate change and its effects on the Western Cape as well as develop a response mechanism. Dr Guy Midgley, Chief Specialist Scientist for SANBI Climate Change Group, led this study, which confirmed that the Western Cape is being impacted by climate change
