Feature Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
The Great Big Green Week is the place to go to learn more about climate change and what you can do as individuals and consumers to make a difference. We can make better consumer, voter, and community member choices when we are informed about how we use resources and what we can do to limit our own carbon footprint.
the great big green week
From 18-26th September, communities across the country are joining together for the Great Big Green Week – a national week of events celebrating action on climate change.
The Great Big Green Week will be the UK’s biggest climate and nature event ever, with over 2000 events taking place across the country, including local Greenpeace group events, where you can get involved in a range of activities to build pressure on the UK government before it hosts world leaders in Glasgow, at the global summit on climate change (also known as COP26).
What is Climate Change?
Climate change is the term used to describe the shift in global climate conditions including weather phenomena, average temperatures and rising sea levels, caused by greenhouse gas emissions attributed directly or indirectly to human activity.
Climate change is a natural process, but one which occurs naturally over a time period that is noticeable in geological terms, not in a century, which it has for us. It’s our capitalist society, which puts profits above people and the planet, that has accelerated climate change at such an unnatural (and, indeed, unprecedented) rate.
Climate change is our biggest concern today and is caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are released into the air, resulting in global warming as the atmosphere traps heat radiating from the earth. Over the last 170 years human induced warming from a growing population has resulted in increased carbon dioxide concentrations that in 2017 reached approximately 1˚C, or 45% above pre-industrial levels and we’re emitting more each year. Other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide are also on the rise and contribute to global warming. If temperatures increase further, to just a half degree C – less than 1 degree F, it will lead to far more serious impacts.
Tackling Environmental Challenges for a Sustainable Future
I recently started a course that focuses on our efforts to tackle some of the world’s environmental challenges. As you may already know, our planet is changing in many ways and at an alarming rate. Many of these changes are brought about by our own actions, and as a result, we are facing a whole range of major environmental issues: our energy use is unsustainable, our planet is warming up, ice and permafrost are thawing, we are producing waste plastic that is endangering our seas and waterways, creating air, plastic and water pollution on a global scale and large parts of the natural world including a biodiverse range of species are disappearing.
global warming
This week I have been learning all about global warming and its impact on glaciers, and whilst in the past, natural drivers were the most dominant control on our climate, in recent decades, by far the most significant control on our planet’s temperature and thus ice cover is the amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gases that exist in our atmosphere – in other words, what we, as human beings, are doing to the planet. As a result, the vast majority of glaciers around the world are retreating and getting smaller because more melt is taking place and there is insufficient new snow being added to compensate for this increased melt.
Over geological time, the amount of ice on the planet has varied considerably. Currently, something like 10% of the Earth’s surface is covered in ice, but over the Earth’s history, there have been huge, repeated and dramatic changes in the extent of ice cover, however changes of fluctuating ice volume, known as glacials and interglacials have taken place over comparatively shorter time scales and are controlled by shorter-term changes in environmental conditions.
Glaciers and their impact on sea level
Perhaps the most well-known consequence of retreating glaciers is their impact on sea level. As a result of climate change and increasing glacier melt, more and more water is being removed from glaciers and ice sheets, and it is instead being added to the oceans. Consequently, seas are rising as ice masses shrink in size. Sea level rise is an extremely urgent concern for huge proportions of the world’s populations who live in coastal areas.
In late June and late July 2019 heat waves set all-time high temperature records in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the UK and Germany, eventually impacting Greenland, during which approximately 90% of the whole ice sheet underwent melting, creating approximately 55 billion tons of water.
Such large volumes of water on the surface of Greenland are of great significance. Whilst the water is transported across the ice in ‘supraglacial channels’ cut into the surface, in some locations, large volumes of water pond in localized basins on the ice surface forming large ‘supraglacial lakes’ that are even visible from space.
These supraglacial lakes range in size from just a few square metres in area up to several square kilometres in size but contribute to a decrease of the surface albedo.
what is albedo?
Albedo is a measure of how much of the sun’s radiation is reflected back into space, and snow or clean ice has a high albedo, meaning that it reflects more of the sun’s energy back into space. A darker coloured material, such as water in supraglacial lakes has a lower albedo, which means that less energy is reflected, and more is absorbed. Water, and thus supraglacial lakes, have a low albedo. This means that as more water is generated over the surface of Greenland, the albedo across an enlarging region is lowering, leading to enhanced energy absorption and thus further warming of the ice body, leading to more and more melt taking place and thus more lakes.
These supraglacial lakes are becoming more common and dangerous as they have been known to become heavily swollen, for example a chunk of ice falling into the lake could create displacement of billions of litres of water over the edge creating a flood wave that would be truly devastating for the people and livelihoods in its path and for people considerable distances from the lakes. These lakes are particularly common in the Andes and the Himalayas.
Earth; the “Water" or “Blue Planet”
Most people have heard Earth referred to as the “Water Planet” or the “Blue Planet” and that’s because water covers 70% of the surface of the Earth. This vast space acts as the lungs of our world, providing over half of the oxygen we breathe and regulating our climate and absorbing over 90% of the heat that enters the atmosphere. Without our oceans, our planet would not be habitable.
Over 68 percent of the fresh water on Earth is found in icecaps and glaciers, and many of the world’s major river systems start out life in the high mountains, so water that flows in the rivers that drain from glaciers is also very important, for example, glaciers that exist in the high mountains of the Himalayas, the Andes and the Alps, have a key role in ensuring year-round water flows, playing an important role in the hydrology of these regions.
Glaciers have the ability to store water during the winter (as ice) and then release it (as meltwater) during the dry season (the summer) when there is traditionally less rain, but higher air temperatures lead to glacier melt. Such glacier-fed river systems are therefore vitally important as they act to bridge more arid periods, acting as a buffer to prevent drought from impacting on human beings and the wider natural ecosystem. It is estimated that 140 million people in the world live in locations where the meltwater from glaciers provides at least 25% of river discharge, however, as glaciers continue to shrink in size, eventually they will not be able to sustain the flow in rivers to the same degree.
what can we do?
This November, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) is to convene in Glasgow, Scotland, amid continuing global pandemic concerns, the reality is that the number and severity of extreme weather events are overtaking efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
What is clear is that we need to find sustainable solutions to these serious problems – and soon. Such concerns are arguably the most pressing issues facing us in the world today and are also of the utmost importance when it comes to thinking about sustaining life and biodiversity on the planet into the future. As a result, there has never been a more important time to learn about the environment and what we can do as individuals and consumers to make a difference. We can make better consumer, voter, and community member choices when we are informed about how we use resources and what we can do to limit our own carbon footprint.
If you want to know more, go along to one of the events during Great Big Green Week and find out how you can get involved: https://greatbiggreenweek.com/