Tiki’s guide to the climate emergency
Have you heard about how the world’s getting hotter? Most people say it is. A few say it isn’t. Who’s right? And does it matter? How will it affect you and your friends?
Good news but…
At the United Nations climate conference (COP 21) in Paris on 12 December 2015, the world’s nations made history. At long last, they seemed to have reached a fair deal to limit climate change. Things were looking good but not for long. In June 2017, the USA — the world’s second biggest polluter — vowed to pull out of the deal now agreed between all the world’s other 194 member countries. But the election of Joe Biden has brought the USA back to the United Nations system in time for the critically important COP26 climate conference in Glasgow (Scotland) in early November 2021.
Why “critically important”? The boss of the UN, António Guterres, said loud and clear that the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, released in August, signalled Code Red for all humans.
The evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions are choking our planet & placing billions of people in danger.
Unfortunately, this COP failed to get the essential Nationally Determined Contributions NDCs from countries which are heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
- Saudi Arabia’s economy depends on oil. NDC zero by 2060
- Australia depends on large exports of coal. It’s NDC is 2060. The politicians seem to have short memories for just a year ago, the country was being roasted by massive bushfires not to mention drought
- India agreed an NDC which would bring the country to carbon neutrality by 2070.
- China is the world’s biggest coal user and polluter but also the world’s greatest producer of renewable energy. Its NDC is 2060.
- Russia has agreed to aim for 2060. Its economy also depends heavily on oil and gas.
- Almost all other countries have agreed to try to get their emissions down to net zero by 2050. This was the date which was supposed to be able to keep us to 1.5°C of total heating if all countries had got their emissions down to zero.
Every other country has agreed to try to get their emissions down to net zero by 2050. This is hardly a success for the young people who were there to make sure that their future was not forgotten. But sadly, very sadly, they couldn’t see much hope. This doesn’t mean giving up. Far from it. These brave young people know that the only power strong enough to get things changed is themselves, united and international.
Hey humans!
People have got to stop using carbon-based fuels starting now. But you aren’t doing, so there’s little chance of keeping global temperatures within the 1.5°C limit, set out as an important goal in the 2015 Paris conference. The latest report from the IPCC shows that global temperatures are already higher than they had predicted. The message is very clear: quit using carbon-based fuels starting now so that by 2050, there is no more carbon pollution of our planet’s atmosphere.
And now for… Rapper Baba Brinkman’s take on the IPCC predictions and warnings for the future. Don’t watch if you are easily scared !
This is where you kids come in. You don’t have to sit idly by, watching today’s adults ignoring the problem or even denying that it exists. There are lots of things you can do to make sure that the world’s politicians and business leaders take serious action so that you will have a planet fit for humans and all other life forms when you are grown up. Find out what you can do at the end of this guide.
Finding your way around my Climate Change Guide
You can jump to any part that interests you by clicking on the tabs in the section below
The sun warms the air and hot air rises bringing with it moisture from the sea. As the moist air rises, it expands. This makes it cooler and so any moisture in the air condenses to make clouds.
The sun also warms the seas and oceans which makes huge currents of water — a little like winds, but inside the ocean. One of these called the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic Ocean. This keeps countries in Northern Europe warm even though they are nearer the North Pole than the equator. Another huge current — this time a cold current — affects Chile and Perú in South America. This is called the Humboldt current. It brings lots of food for fish to eat which once made the Peruvian fishing industry the biggest in the world. It also means that many seabirds can live there… including penguins. All these things — the oceans, the atmosphere, the hot and the cold parts of the planet, deserts, rainforest — all depend upon climate and upon the sun.
Almost all machines use oil, gas or coal. All of them produce pollution — you know, the smelly stuff that comes out of car exhaust pipes and factory chimneys, that sort of thing. Much of this is a gas you can’t see called carbon dioxide (CO2). It’s this gas which seems to be the main cause of the trouble.
Pandora’s carbon box
Pandora was a woman who figured in one of the Greek myths. In the myth, the gods gave her a mysterious box. They’d put something nasty in the box and told her never to open it. But she was overcome by curiosity and opened the box. Out flew horrible stuff like plagues, sorrow and misery. She tried in vain to shut the lid but it was too late: the horrors were free.
It’s a little like that with fossil fuels. For millions of years, the planet has been tucking away its Click link for carbon dioxide in the form of coal, oil, limestone. This natural sequestering of carbon and burying it deep in the Earth’s crust has kept the climate machine in balance. Too much carbon means global warming; too little means cooling. Humans have opened the planetary Pandora’s carbon box and let out fossil fuels on a vast scale. Burning them releases the carbon they contained back into the air as carbon dioxide, CO2.
- Poor planet Earth. All the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are making our planet much too hot.
– Wallace Broecker
What happens next is not good news for people or penguins. The thing that bothers me is that the ice of the poles is melting. Some of it already is melting fast. The Arctic sea ice get’s less every year and the great frozen continent of Antarctica (my home) is losing ice too. Other seas, like the North Sea, are warming too. This means that fish which need colder waters have to swim north and this can have bad effects on both fishing and seabirds.
As you know, penguins like ice. Without very cold water and ice, we get too hot because, like polar bears, we’re built for cold weather. But for you people, it will be much worse.
For a start, all the ice that melts will start to fill up the oceans and make them overflow on land. And the water itself will take up more space simply because it is warmer. That will make it overflow even more onto the land:
The really sad thing is that it will be poor people who suffer most. I think that’s very unfair because it’s the people in rich countries who have been the cause of almost all global warming but it’s the poor who drown or starve.
What do you think?
Then there’s disease. As the world warms, nasty diseases like malaria are starting to spread because the changing climate favours the mosquito that carries the disease. air travel: bad for the planet; great for spreading diseasesAir travel is not just a cause of global warming but aids in spreading diseases very quickly just about anywhere. Someone with an illness like TB may easily pass on the disease to others during an airplane flight of a few hours. Insects like Click link for videomosquitoes which can carry disease can even ‘hitch a ride’ on flights from one country to another.
But then at the end of 2019, lots of people started to get ill in Wuhan, China. Chinese scientists quickly identified the source of the illness. It was a coronavirus, and unlike previous coronavirus outbreaks (like SARS and MERS), this one spread fast and a few months later, the World Health Organisation declared that it was a pandemic. Like many other illnesses, this virus – now known by everybody in the world as Covid-19 – has jumped species and is called a zoonotic disease. This is a particularly vicious and rapidly spreading version. It has already killed well over 2 million people around the world. Fortunately, scientists working for big pharmaceutical companies and governments around the world have rapidly come up with vaccines which are beginning to be given to people at high risk from the disease. These vaccines at present seem to be very effective but the virus, which is whisked round the world in aircraft, keeps on making mistakes as it forms new versions of itself. These are mutations and some make the virus even more infectious and possibly more deadly.
I’m afraid worse is to come: people who study earth’s climate have found that as it warms up, the weather is going to get more violent and unpredictable. Hurricanes, for example, will become more powerful — a big worry for people living in the south of the United States and in the tropical Pacific or Indian ocean areas like the Philippine islands and Bangladesh. Deserts are increasing and places like the Great Plains of America will get drier. Rain will be heavier in other parts of the world so there will be more floods. These things have already started to happen.
What is El Niño?
This is a huge climate ‘event’ during which winds and sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean go into reverse. All kinds of weird weather happens worldwide because of this, much of it very damaging. El Niño events erupt every few years and peak arond Christmas: El Niño (Spanish) means The Child (Jesus). 2015-16 has seen the biggest El Niño episode for some years. Climate change seems to be making El Niño events stronger. More on what happens…
Just for the record…
Fifteen of the 16 hottest years on record have all been this century, with 2020 looking like it will be the hottest since records began The record temperatures over both land and the ocean surface up to 2020 were accompanied by many extreme weather events such as heatwaves, flooding, severe droughts and massive wildfires throughout Australia. The Greast Barrier Reef, famous for its beautiful corals, was bdaly damaged AGAIN by hot seawater which caused bleaching and the beginning of the end for coral reefs everywhere. Over 70,000 fires burned in the Amazon rainforest which could soon begin to give out more CO2 than it absorbs. Most of the fires were deliberate so farmers could produce more cattle to make into hamburgers, and grow feed for them.
The case for climate change – global warming – is now beyond doubt. There is so much evidence from all over the planet. So wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone agreed to work together to stop using fossil fuels. Well it seems that they may actually do this following the agreements reached at the Paris climate conference in December 2015.
Yes, climate change is real and unfair! But now there’s some good news at last…
“Climate change… seriously threatens polar bear survival in the future”
– IUCN Director General, 2015.
The world is getting hotter. And I’m sorry to say it’s all people’s fault.
But it’s not everyone that’s doing it. Mostly it’s people in rich countries — North America, Europe and Australia. They are the ones with energy-hungry lifestyles which guzzle fossil fuels.
Life is not fair!
A child born in the United States will create thirteen times as much ecological damage over the course of his or her lifetime than a child born in Brazil
The average American will drain as many resources as 35 natives of India and consume 53 times more goods and services than someone from China
With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper
American fossil fuel consumption is double that of the average resident of Great Britain and two and a half times that of the average Japanese
Source: Scientific American 2012
Poor people like those in most African countries, Asia and Latin America can’t afford to travel all over the place in cars and planes, they don’t have heating or air conditioning in their homes or eat fancy food. Many don’t even have anything more to live in than a one-room shack with no toilet, no kitchen, no running water. These people are not the ones causing global warming. Yet they are the ones who suffer most from climate change caused by the rich. It’s not fair, is it?
As for us other animals, we are innocent too because the only fuel we use is that which we get from our food … so what are you folks going to do about it?
Good news!
But — at last — people are starting to take serious action on climate change…
In 1988, a group of scientists from many nations began working together to examine the evidence for climate change and make careful suggestions to the world’s governments as to what they could do about it. This group is called the IPCC.
IPCC scientists have studied the climate all around the world. They’ve known for many years that climate change really is happening. They knew that it would be bad for people and much other life. And as more evidence piled in, it became obvious that it is mostly due to humans and their pollution of the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. So way back in 1992, most of the world’s countries got together at a United Nations (UN) conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This was called the Earth Summit. Here everyone agreed to start a series of conferences to try and get a worldwide agreement to slow climate change. Most countries soon joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change..
Kyoto: a lot of hot air? Back in 1997, 192 countries in the world came together in a big conference at Kyoto in Japan. Here they began to try and agree what to do about climate change. Lots of promises were made but countries haven’t been very good at carrying them out. Many people consider Kyoto was a failure. Pollution by greenhouse gases continued to climb.
Since then, the evidence for change has become stronger and stronger. The special computer ‘climate models’ which IPCC scientists had used to predict what would happen are better than ever. The ice sheets in both the Arctic and the Antarctic are melting, in some cases very fast. Sea levels are rising. Temperatures are rising, especially in the Arctic and Antarctic. Glaciers on other mountains of the world are melting very fast — especially in the tropics. Animals and plants which like cooler conditions are moving away from the overheated tropics towards the poles. Storms are getting stronger, with damaging winds and heavy rain causing serious flooding. All these things are predicted by climate models. And really sadly, most of the world’s coral reefs, including the Australian Great Barrier Reef, are dying because of unusually hot seas.
“Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.”
IPCC Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report: Fifth Assessment Report
The COP 21 Paris Agreement
Since Kyoto, there have been more climate conferences. The most important of these conferences took place in Paris, France, at the end of 2015 (COP 21). At last, everyone from all the 195 countries attending the conference agreed that NOW is the time to take climate change seriously, so they set up a system to do it. The aim is to keep the global temperature rise to below 2°C.
This is the first time there has been general agreement about what to do and how to do it. Well done humans, I say! It’s called the Paris Agreement. But it won’t be easy because the entire global economy is hooked on fossil fuels. So the road ahead may be rocky but it is passable. It has to be!
So now it’s up to you humans to undo the damage that has been done to the Earth’s climate system by burning fossil fuels. Obviously this hasn’t been done by you kids but unfortunately, it is you – your generation – which will have to slam on the fossil fuel brakes hard or live with a wild climate which will be very unpleasant indeed for much of life on Earth, especially human life… not to mention penguins and polar bears! But I think you humans are incredibly clever and resourceful, and I think you will solve the problems ahead. The next really important UN Climate Change Conference (Conference of the Parties, COP 26) — because of the COVID-19 virus pandemic — has been postponed for a whole year. Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, will host this in November 2021.
At the end of this guide, you should find 4 quizzes about global warming.
Now try using this clever tool to see how you would choose to reduce CO2 emissions to 20 per cent of 1990 levels. It’s fun to use and gives you an idea of the difficult choices you people have to make to avoid dangerous climate change.
But it’s not all doom and gloom! Check out what you and your friends, family and schools can do. You CAN make things better. See below for things YOU can do… !
Climate change links and resources
The Climate Reality Project – working to accelerate the global shift from the dirty fossil fuels driving climate change to renewables so we can power our lives and economies without destroying our planet. And you can help!
Global Weirding with Katharine Hayhoe – Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist and associate professor of political science at Texas Tech University, where she is director of the Climate Science Center. She introduces you to climate change and answers all the questions in a new series of easy-to-understand videos. Scroll down to see them all.
350.org – Standing up to the fossil fuel industry to stop all new coal, oil and gas projects and build clean energy for all. You can join up wherever you are in the world
Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot make short film on climate crisis
Sustainable Energy – without the hot air by David MacKay FRS
NASA’s Climate Kids Really cool site! There’s even a climate time machine
National Center for Science Education’s climate change education initiative defends and supports the teaching of climate change in schools
Carbon Brief fact-checked stories about climate science online and in the press. It gives you briefings on the people and organisations talking about climate change, and produces background materials on science issues and news stories.
What You Can Do About Global Warming The fossil fuel industry continues to try to confuse the public about the real science of climate change. But the Union of Concerned Scientists is fighting back.
Climate change guide: A infographic guide from the UK Meteorological Office looking at the facts, impacts and history of climate change.
Climate Mama is about what other Mama’s and Papa’s are doing to help make the world a better place by tackling climate change
Climate Change Wildlife and Wildlands Toolkit This free tool helps teachers tell their students about individual climates and how they are affected by global warming. It’s also to inspire kids to take part in doing something about climate change themselves.
Flying off to a warmer climate? This is one of my favourites! Find out how much fuel you use and pollution you create when you fly in an aeroplane.
Green Living: A Family Guide to Going Green
Sustainability Hub: Climate change videos for kids
Climate Ark – Climate Change Portal A huge amount of information here with news which is right up-to-date.
ClimatePrediction.net Now this really is interesting. Here you can join in an experiment to help forecast the climate. All you need is a computer.
Friends of the Earth What you can do .
Greenpeace International on climate change and renewable energy,
Resources/Recursos
Climate Change Worksheets for Kids (in Spanish): Cambio Climático para Niños, en Hojas de ejercicios
Twelve Really Important Ways You Can Help Slow Global Warming
Hey! We’ve got to do something!
Don’t worry, you can do lots
Talk with your friends, your teachers and your parents about what you could do. For a start, you could write to or call your country’s politicians telling them that you’re worried about climate change and why. If enough people make a fuss, they have to do something.
And now, this ‘something’ is clear because of the 2015 COP 21 Paris Agreement. So do ask what your government is doing to comply with this historic agreement. Nobody wants their country to be ‘named and shamed’ because they aren’t doing what they have agreed to do. And carbon pollution really is an international problem so every one of the world’s 195 countries needs to ‘pull its weight’ and work together with all the others to tackle climate change and its damaging effects. Just think: if you said (in your own words if possible) something like that to your political representative. They wouldn’t just be impressed; they’d be gobsmacked!… especially if you were, like, young — say only 11 or 12!! [scroll down for more…]
How do you contact your government?
If you are lucky enough to live in a democratic country, you will have an elected person you can find and talk to. Here are some examples of how to find who your representative is:
- If you live in the USA, you can find out who to contact at USA.gov.
- For India, click here.
- For the UK, WriteToThem tells you who your representative is.
- For Australia, click here.
- For Canada, click here.
Know what damage humans are doing and get to be an expert! It’s not much use trying to change something if you’re part of the problem or you don’t understand what it’s all about!
Why not start by finding out Carbon Footprint what your carbon footprint is with WWF’s Footprint Calculator? What's a carbon footprint ?
Why drive when you can walk?! If your family has a car, see if you can get them to use it less. Next time they’re thinking about buying a new(er) car, think electric. They don’t spew out any exhaust.
And yes, I do understand that because of the design of so many modern cities – all based around cars – you simply can’t walk to school or anywhere else. This is sad and has to change. Many European cities, particularly in Holland and Denmark, give priority to bicycles and even stop cars from entering certain parts of cities completely. Now that’s a great idea and it should spread.
Unlike penguins, humans are built to walk and run. Sitting in cars is boring. And there’s a big bonus if you get plenty of exercise. Plenty of exercise helps you grow up strong and healthy. There is a bonus for the planet too: more people walking equals less car use. Less car use means less pollution, less illness (exhaust fumes kill thousands and damage the lungs of millions of kids around the world) and less climate change. It’s a win win wouldn’t you say?
Make your own climate… in your home or your room!
- Turn the heating down in winter. If you’re cold, wear more clothes! And maybe your home needs insulating?
- Turn the air conditioning down in summer or use a fan.
Make your own climate… around you!
- When it’s hot, dress cool
- When it’s cold, dress warm
It’s a no-brainer really. But you have a brain and a clever one too or you wouldn’t be reading this! And you’d be surprised at the number of people who would rather turn up the heating than put on a jacket or a pullover. Perhaps they don’t care about the high heating bills or just don’t think it through.
Buying local food
Travelling light: Don’t travel long distances unless you really have to. Particularly try and avoid using aeroplanes and big, gas-guzzling cars cars like SUVs. See if your friends and parents could holiday locally.
Wind turbines
See if you can get your parents and friends interested in free solar energy — that’s energy from the sun and wind. Solar panels can help you get much of your hot water and heating from the sun and even generate electricity. If you live in a windy place, a wind turbine — also called ‘windmill’ — really is a serious option. More and more people are installing them and more and more companies are producing well-designed, sturdy machines. Many of the largest windfarms are now built offshore. Here’s a really huge one being built.
Find out more about renewables in my Energy guide.
Sun-powered cycling
How can you use solar power for cycling? Simple: plants use the sun to make and store energy. Your food mostly comes from plants (or animals that have eaten plants). The food gives you energy… so when you walk or jump on your bike, you too are using stored solar power.
Generating your own power is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint. Solar energy is free
What you eat affects climate change. Find out why and what you can do about it
Learn to cook! Home cooking is not only fun, it means you don’t have to drive to a takeaway or fast food restaurant. Result? Less pollution. If you make a garden, you can grow much of your own food. Did you know that if you eat fewer meat and dairy products, you can reduce greenhouse gas output? Here's why. And composting your waste food means it doesn’t have to be trucked away to a landfill waste dump where it will cause more pollution including methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
Why meat-eating is becoming a problem for everyone on the planet
It takes, on average, 28 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce 1 calorie of meat protein for human consumption, [whereas] it takes only 3.3 calories of fossil- fuel energy to produce 1 calorie of protein from grain for human consumption. —David Pimentel, Cornell University
Giant livestock farms, which can house hundreds of thousands of pigs, chickens, or cows, produce vast amounts of waste. In fact, in the United States, these ‘factory farms’ generate more than 130 times the amount of waste than people do. —Natural Resources Defense Council
This kid recycles whatever she can. She knows her 4 Rs
Reduce, reuse, recycle, repair: Remember your four Rs!
- Reduce: the most important. If you don’t buy so much stuff in the first place, then you don’t need to reuse or recycle it.
- Reuse whatever you can (like plastic supermarket bags). If you can’t reuse something,
- Recycle it! Or if you or someone in your family is handy, why not try to
- Repair it!
Landfill
The four Rs help cut down the amount of trash that ends up in landfills. If you can’t do any of those things, the waste you generate will end up in a huge landfills. Much of what you find in these stinking dumps is plastic waste. This is a special problem so I have written a
guide to the problem of plastic
which I hope you’ll look at. You’ll be shocked by what you find out just as I was when I was writing it!
Turn off things that use electricity when nobody’s using them
- Turning things off may seem a boring turn-off.
But leaving lights, heating, air conditioning, computers, TVs and stuff on when you don’t need them wastes a lot of energy. Turning them off saves money too!
- If it’s warm in one room and cold in another, close the door. The door helps keep heat in.
- Leaving things on standby (like TVs, computers and stuff) also uses a surprising amount of energy. Newer models mostly use much less standby power but if you’re away for a few days, it still makes sense to turn stuff off. This also lessens the risk of fire.
- Turning things off may seem a boring turn-off.
And here’s a Ragbag of ideas for action…
- the polluter pays: carbon-taxes
- carbon rationing: the unfair way and the fair way
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
</blockquote>
The Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama (approx. 563-483 BC)- demos: join a campaigning group and go on a climate demo with your friends
- make sure to follow up on No 1 of this list of 12 — Get active. Follow Greta Thunberg . Pester politicians. Join a protest group like Extinction Rebellion (XR). Make a fuss! This is the most important and probably the most difficult thing on the list But don’t give up!
So climate change is not all gloom and doom. There’s plenty you can do.
Let’s make a start with my four climate change quizzes.
- Click or tap here for quiz 1
- Click or tap here for quiz 2
- Click or tap here for quiz 3
- Click or tap here for quiz 4
If you know your stuff and “get it” on global heating, then you should get a very high score. And whilst you can make this into a competition between your friends the real aim is to alert you to the terrible tragedies which may well lie ahead of you if you cannot stop today’s “grown-ups” destroying what you will need in the future.
I also have a Climate crossword puzzle.
Please please remember: how you choose to use energy affects all life on Earth. The more energy you use, the more the planet warms up. So please think before you act… and turn off that light. Everything you do like that helps a little!Want to find out more? Visit my global warming links section (above). If you haven’t seen my Energy Guide, now’s the time to look.What do you think about climate change? Have you any good ideas about what we can do to make things better?
OK kids. It’s your planet. Please treat it kindly!