Stop that Carrot from Sinking!

Recent research on the rate of global warming has given me some semi sleepless nights recently and prompted this particular blog.

Prof Chris Field told the American Science conference in Chicago in February 2009 that global temperatures will be beyond anything previously predicted. He said that even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had underestimated the rate of change, and that warming is likely to cause more damage than has hitherto been forecast.

The IPCC projected only last year that the world needed to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 based on the assumption that Artic summer ice may be gone by the end of the century. However recent research is indicating the summer ice could be gone within 5 years - so this figure needs to be radically readjusted.

Apparently for the world to be relatively safe it’s necessary to keep the temperature rise estimated for the end of the century at less than 2%. Currently we are heading for a projected 6% which will have devastating consequences for us all - ie without sounding melodramatic the end of life as we know it!

How is the UK performing? If we consider all carbon emissions including aviation, shipping and carbon emitted in other countries for goods consumed in the UK then we have increased our emissions by 8% since 1990. Even without including the latter we are barely breaking even.

What should we do? - well shout about it to all and sundry, lobby your MP, organise email petitions to Gordon Brown (or find out if there are any active ones currently), contact your councillor ( is our council aware of these recent findings and if so what initiatives are we planning to do about it is as a council). The list could go on…

In the final analysis if we are to tackle the problem effectively head on it’s obviously got to be at international level.
As Danny Chivers (New Internationalist) put it, “Imagine ten rabbits lost at sea in a boat carved out of a giant carrot. The carrot is there only source of food, so they all keep nibbling at it. The boat is shrinking rapidly but none of them wants to be the first to stop, because then they’ll be the first to starve. There’s no point in any of them stopping unless everyone stops – if even one rabbit carries on eating, the boat will sink”.

That’s why the Copenhagen talks on climate change at the end of this year are going to be so crucial. With a new US administration in toe perhaps there will be real progress who knows? But we all have a responsibility this year to push for the international single mindedness necessary to meet the challenges facing us all. We owe it to future generations.

So shout as loud as you can, stop that carrot from sinking!