Positive Health Online

The Problem

Climate change is a rather different problem for our well-being from those customarily addressed in Positive Health.  It begins as a physical change to our environment rather than a personal consequence of body function, psychology and the accidents of our individual lives, not even as an intentional outcome of human activity.  Britain has had no massive disasters as yet, which influences many here.  And globally, some dispute continues about the basic questions: Is it happening? -  If yes, will it be harmful? - If yes, is there hope?

 It is a problem about 200  years in the making, a mere blip in geological time, but long enough to blur in our short lives.  Interestingly, the relevant science has a similar timespan and both began slowly but accelerated.  Fourier estimated Earth to be warmer than likely and suggested that our enveloping atmosphere might be the explanation.  Experiments (Tyndall) and calculations (Arrhenius) followed, the term ‘greenhouse’ was used in the early 1900s with mild caution about the distant future (Bell), temperature change evidence was collected (Callendar), and in 1959 Teller made explicit the urgency of the situation (nothing much done except denial led by the fossil fuel industry – recall phosphorus, radium, tobacco, leaded petrol, CFCs etc.).

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Change_in_Average_Temperature_With_Fahrenheit.svg

Surface air temperature change over the past 50 years

Author: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, Key and Title by uploader (Eric Fisk)

Dismissive remarks (‘It’s just nature’) about long ago climate episodes are irrelevant – present humanity did not exist (though some religious once more expect a divine ending of this creation with their personal salvation beyond pain).  But the past does show the multiple extremes and extinctions that can occur.  Following the Industrial Revolution begun in Britain, the global population has increased a massive 8x  to 8,200M, though the pace of fertility slows, and average individual energy use, based very largely on burning carbon, near 5x.

What happens in the atmosphere is simple but should be summarized.  Earth is daily heated by the Sun as 1.4 kW arrive per square metre of space.  This radiation may be impeded by clouds but otherwise passes easily through the atmosphere and warms the multiple surfaces (light to dark – ice, sand, grassland, forest, ocean).  These then emit radiation at much lower intensity in the infrared.  As it passes through the air this encounters molecules that accept the wavelength and capture the energy.  Much is taken by water vapour (which we can do nothing about), and an increasing amount by carbon dioxide (atmospheric CO₂ up about 50% over our period, largely emitted by the developed world especially the USA).  Some ensuing changes seem slow (sea level rise), some quite fast (ice melt), some now rapid (extremes of weather). 

Restraint

Reducing the damage that we do has much additional benefit to justify it.  Extracting and burning fossil fuels brings obvious harm to environments and to ourselves, for example city air (the London smog of 1952 unrepeated because restraint was imposed).  Electricity from non-carbon energy sources  (hydropower and nuclear are familiar, fusion an ample but uncertain prospect) is increasingly available and sharing (High Voltage Direct Current [HVDC] over long distances) can iron out demand  peaks and reduce the energy storage problem.  Somewhere the Sun shines and winds blow, tides and currents reliably flow, geothermal is continuous, and the entire environment has energy from which it is possible to separate warmth (rather as refrigerators select cold).

Also obvious is our excess consumption demand, from travel to screen-watching to the over-eating that reduces our health and activity and requires huge agricultural resources (by a prudent diet the inevitable population increase, to perhaps 12,000M, can largely be provided for).  The economics of profit also promote buying on credit and continuous change with forced obsolescence that can bring financial anxiety and disempowerment.  Actually a more even distribution of wealth (about a dozen ultra-rich individuals financially equal the poor half of the world) would enable all a decent standard of life with health and education  and in greater harmony.  The rating of countries by general happiness suggests equality, and while wealth and power are clearly a strong drive for some individuals they are weapons too easily deployed, and it is not clear that they bring personal happiness or merit of any kind.

There are many ways to live well and do better, and proposals abound (books such as 39 Ways to Save the Planet, Not the End of the World).  As individuals we can favour public transport over cars, limit red meat, be conscientious with heating, recycle diligently, and support local action.  Incidental gains are to thought and awareness plus a sense of  doing the plainly right.  Sustaining the natural world that, by evolution, we are adapted to and familiar with is of course also beneficial to our well-being, a restorative environment.

Threat

The great BUT is that we now live in the greenhouse we have created over 200 years.  The vast tonnage of gases is far beyond any swift solution, though a small start might encourage (the net zero target; perhaps promoting marine biomass – sargassum [a genus of brown macroalgae (seaweed)], phytoplankton – that sinks to the ocean floor).  Even if we stopped all emissions tomorrow, warming is likely to continue with its associated effects (possible developments include greenhouse methane release from cold deposits), all dangerously increasing by inevitable feedback processes (e.g. warmer air takes up more water vapour, reflective ice is replaced by darker land and ocean, fires add CO₂).

When feeling threatened – by ill-health, circumstances and events local or global – most of us become anxious, some aggressive, many disturbed from useful behaviours into uncertain action: all this damages well-being.  Nuclear war hovers as a risk capable of immense fatality (the radioactivity, especially from fission bombs, likely to be global).  An unfortunate consequence of climate change is political and commercial conflict for resources.  A simple example is fresh water, already highly contentious in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, and elsewhere (as USA) aquifers are being drained: English water supply is largely foreign owned (Thatcher sale 1989).  Enough water to drink can usually be obtained (wells, distillation, desalination) but agriculture and sustainability demand far more.  The pollution of our environment including water includes much human and industrial waste with biological effects  (note the rise of autism, gender dysphoria, and other strange neurodiversities – oestrogens certainly affect fish).

We cannot be protected from climate change by local action alone, the process is global in effect: basic wind and storm patterns become unstable and sea level rise affects all coasts (UK Fenland inundation via The Wash illustrates a plausible  catastrophe – combine high tide, depression, storm surge with onshore wind – where local precautions are possible).  Refugees will arrive, even if unwelcome, from lands ruined by climate or domicidal war.  Along with the general warming  comes, as predicted, a sharp increase in extreme and unexpected events that bring death and disaster (search USA ”billion dollar weather disasters” for example – severity and cost, inflation adjusted, both up about 10x since 1980, the rate now increasing).  Panic is the worst response, sharing and cooperation essential.

Solution

Plainly we need to pause the process of warming  (‘geo-engineering’ is a term much used to frighten away action – but we daily add 100M tonnes CO₂ to the atmosphere!).  We must reduce the energy which we receive from the Sun – even a small fractional diminution will suffice.  Earth does reflect away some solar energy, about 30%, the measure called albedo.  Other solar system bodies also shine by reflection (bright Venus 70%, but its surface temperature is about 460⁰C due to an atmosphere very largely of carbon dioxide creating a huge greenhouse effect).   Earth benefits from daytime clouds (albedo about 50% – compare oceans 5%) and clear nights that cool. 

One possibility is a partial screening situated in space between Earth and Sun (there is a point at which gravitational pulls balance), but this would be a huge one-off effort, unique and uncertain.  Easier to control are our atmosphere and surface.  Might we cover some of the dark ocean with white reflective surfacing (perhaps at the edges of polar sea ice for its protection)?  Some land surfaces might be whitened (relieving city heat  where most live).  Effective paints and plenty of waste plastic are available.  There exists a plausible suggestion of creating suitable maritime clouds by automatic boats generating a fine seeding spray.

We know with certainty many past instances when increased cloudiness due to volcanic action has temporarily reduced temperature (hugely transforming was the cold darkness following the ‘dinosaur end’ asteroid strike of 66M years ago).  For example, in 1815 the Tambora eruption (Indonesia) brought some cold years (here generating a snowy tradition preserved in Christmas cards and Dicken’s Christmas Carol).

Probably the best idea is simple and can be simply put.  It is the release of small amounts of reflective dust into the high atmosphere: chalk is a familiar safe mineral and when it drifted down would aid ecosystems by reducing ocean acidity and benefiting shelled organisms.  Very importantly, this proposal meets safety tests also often useful (as are similar proverbs) in planning our lives.  These are: 1 being gradual (the first dispersal could be miniscule); 2 measurable in effect (we would continually monitor for change and soon know if beneficial or not); and 3 reversible (naturally ceasing quite quickly).  Trial by a geographically well-situated nation can be unhesitating.

Some self-interests, financial and national (profit while others bother), resist action.  A facile combination of reassurance, spurious data presentation, and absurd ‘scientific conspiracy’ allegations are themselves a conspiracy of smug and uncaring wealth.  But the sooner we act the less likely irretrievable damage, global and personal.  Happening, harmful, but with hope to inspire a collective purpose.