At about the time this book will first appear in the shops a new Climate Change Act will be passing into UK law. This will be the world’s first legally binding national framework for long-term reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. If the government has done its job properly the law will set a target for cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, including emissions from aviation and shipping. Friends of the Earth’s Big Ask campaign and the voices of hundreds of thousands of people have been crucial in securing this breakthrough. It shows how powerful we are when we act together. In all my years working on the environment I have never been so excited about the changes that we’re about to see – changes that people like you have made possible. There’s a lot do, but we are making real progress.
The book in your hands is one of the next steps. It is the perfect companion for making the most of the opportunity created by the new Climate Change Act. The solutions are out there. Get on board and make them live.
None of us can deal with climate change alone - we have to act together. How can I stop climate change? I can’t. But we can.
Tony Juniper, Executive Director, Friends of the Earth, 2002–08.
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH
“The honest answer to the question ‘How can I stop climate change?’ is ‘I can’t. But we can.’”
Executive director, Tony Juniper
the climate is changing around us
Flood, drought, storm, heatwave.
What’s happening to the weather?
a warmer world
Even without the scientists telling us, we can all see a new pattern emerging: freaky weather, unusual temperatures, ice sheets crashing into the sea, migrating birds turning up ahead of schedule, plants flowering early…
From the UK and Europe to Australia and the Americas, this chapter offers some snapshots of the way our planet is changing around – and because of – us.
The graph below shows the global temperature for each year from 1850 to 2006. Climate experts use 14 °C as a reference point. The wavy line reveals the unmistakeable trend – that the world has been getting hotter over the past 150 years.
As surely as the Wimbledon tennis tournament brings rain, fresh strawberries say lazy summer sunshine. But in 2007 you were more likely to be eating strawberries at Easter than in June. A bizarrely hot spring meant they were ripe and ready to pick by April. Too early for Wimbledon. Too early for the students who normally pick them. And too early for the strawberry farmers who employ the students.
The last time April in England was as warm as in 2007 Abraham Lincoln was still alive and Lewis Carroll was polishing
Global warming: the hard data
off Alice in Wonderland. It followed an unusually mild January, February and March. Frogspawn thrived in garden ponds in February, and insects like peacock butterflies, bumblebees and ladybirds appeared earlier than usual. Then came what looked like being the wettest summer in the UK since the outbreak of the First World War.
As England basked in its April sunshine Spain was doused in unseasonal rain, with disastrous consequences as salad crops were flooded, leading to soaring tomato prices. And then, while the UK saw flooding, Europe flipped into yet another heat wave.
Of course our weather is changeable – it always has been. One hot day doesn’t make a summer, and a few record temperatures don’t necessarily prove that the world’s climate is in the throes of fundamental change. But average temperatures are definitely rising – as worldwide records clearly show. And we are now seeing the very kinds of changes to weather patterns and the Earth’s natural systems, habitats and wildlife that scientists have for years been predicting will flow from global warming.
weird UK weather facts
| fact | Brogdale in Kent holds the record for the hottest-ever recorded temperature in the UK: 38.5 °C on 10 August 2003. |
| fact | In June 2004 the wind blew across Northern Ireland at 126 miles per hour, leaving 8,000 homes without electricity. |
| fact | Summer 2003 broke UK records for the hottest weather – with fatal results for more than 2,000 people. In mainland Europe the death toll topped 35,000. |
| fact | July 2006 was the hottest month on record in the UK. |
| fact | In April 2007 the average monthly temperature in Central England reached 11.6 °C, the highest for the month since records began in 1659. |
three need-to-know terms
Greenhouse effect: How the Earth keeps warm. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap heat from the sun, raising the temperature down here. Without greenhouse gases, our planet would be too cold to support most life.
Global warming: The way the average temperature on the Earth’s surface is increasing. Scientific evidence clearly shows an increase of greenhouse gases is largely to blame.
Man-made warming: Greenhouse gases – the main ones are carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and water vapour – are naturally present in the Earth’s atmosphere. The amount of greenhouse gases has remained relatively stable for thousands of years, but in the past century they have increased sharply. This is largely as a result of burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas, which produces carbon dioxide.
five myths about climate change
‘The Earth is so big that human beings cannot possibly affect it.’ Fact: While the Earth has for millions of years been capable of balancing emissions of carbon dioxide – with plants, soil and sea soaking up the carbon dioxide emitted by nature – the extra carbon dioxide that humans have put into the system has upset the balance. The atmosphere is surprisingly thin: if the Earth were the size of a football the atmosphere would be no thicker than a coat of varnish.
‘Scientists don’t agree that climate change is caused by humans.’ Fact: A 2004 study of 900 published papers on climate change found they all agreed that climate change was happening and was caused by human activity. There are some sceptics – but the fiercest arguments today tend to focus on the scale of the problem and the best way to tackle it rather than whether or not climate change is happening at all.
‘We have to choose between the economy and saving the planet.’ Fact: There is no such choice – in the long term, without a stable climate there will be no economy to save: the impacts on society of runaway climate change would be catastrophic. Keeping climate change in check will involve developing new technologies and industries and this will have economic benefits; and although investing in such opportunities has a cost, the cost of not dealing with climate change will be higher.