Climate Change Revised Edition: A Groundwork Guide

By Shelley Tanaka

Revised and updated edition

Scientists have been warning the world about global warming for almost three decades. But the rest of us are only now starting to get the message. The planet is warming at an unusually rapid rate, and this warming is largely being caused by human activity. Shrinking glaciers, thawing permafrost, erratic weather and threatened freshwater supplies are already affecting the lives of people around the globe, and the worst is yet to come.

The crisis is real, but there is little consensus about how to confront the problem, not only because the science is complex, but because the economic, political and social implications of taking action are vast, far-reaching and unsettling. And despite the urgency, climate change deniers seem to be more vocal than ever.

This revised and updated edition includes the most recent scientific findings while addressing the main issues. What is happening, and how did we get here? What is the basic science behind climate change? What is going to happen in the future? And, most important, why is it so hard for us to accept what is going on, and what can we do about it?

Charts, maps, a glossary, an index and suggestions for further reading accompany the text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Groundwood Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781554982042

Shelley Tanaka

SHELLEY TANAKA is an award-winning author, translator and editor who has written and translated more than thirty books for children and young adults. She teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts in the MFA Program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Shelley lives in Kingston, Ontario.

Book preview

Praise for Climate Change

If a library can only afford one book on the subject, this title in the Groundwork Guides series is a terrific choice. With its small trim size and Tanaka’s concise and lucid prose, this provides an excellent overview of what is happening and why, and what needs to be done on an individual and global scale. — Booklist

This exploration of global warming is clear, concise, and well organized. — Horn Book

An excellent addition to science libraries. It is clearly written about a complex issue. — Resource Links

Tanaka considers the impact of global warming on the planet today and persuasively argues that the worst is yet to come. Maps and fact boxes break up the text in this compact, highly readable book.

— School Library Journal

Clearly written . . . the book serves as a good introduction to the subject and will be useful for students doing projects on climate change . . . Recommended. — CM Magazine

Shelley Tanaka provides the cold, hard, well-researched facts in this accessible and valuable guide. — Brandon Sun

Each of the . . . well-written and engaging books in this valuable series provides a foundation for understanding an important subject relevant to current world stability and peace . . . Recommended.

— Library Media Connection

Groundwork Guides

Slavery Today

Kevin Bales & Becky Cornell

The Betrayal of Africa

Gerald Caplan

Sex for Guys

Manne Forssberg

Technology

Wayne Grady

Hip Hop World

Dalton Higgins

Democracy

James Laxer

Empire

James Laxer

Oil

James Laxer

Cities

John Lorinc

Pornography

Debbie Nathan

Being Muslim

Haroon Siddiqui

Genocide

Jane Springer

The News

Peter Steven

Gangs

Richard Swift

Climate Change

Shelley Tanaka

The Force of Law

Mariana Valverde

Series Editor

Jane Springer

Copyright © 2006, 2012 by Shelley Tanaka

Revised edition published in Canada and the USA in 2012 by

Groundwood Books

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press

128 Sterling Road, Lower Level, Toronto, Ontario M6R 2B7

or c/o Publishers Group West

1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley CA 94710

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Ontario Arts Council.

Logos: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Tanaka, Shelley

Climate change : a groundwork guide / Shelley Tanaka. — Rev. ed.

(Groundwork guides)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-55498-159-5

1. Climatic changes—Environmental aspects. 2. Global warming.

3. Global warming—Prevention. 4. Greenhouse effect, Atmospheric.

I. Title. II. Series: Groundwork guides

QC981.8.C5T35 2012 363.738’74 C2011-905395-0

Design by Michael Solomon

It is never too late to give up our prejudices…

What old people say you cannot do, you try

and find that you can. Old deeds for old

people, and new deeds for new.

— Henry David Thoreau

Contents

Chapter 1 Climate Change Is Here, and It’s Real

Chapter 2 How We Got Here

Chapter 3 How the Climate System Works

Chapter 4 The Effects of Climate Change

Chapter 5 The Frightening Numbers

Chapter 6 The Tough Questions

Chapter 7 Facing the Music

Glossary

For Further Information

Acknowledgments

Index

Chapter 1

Climate Change Is Here, and It’s Real

There is an ecological time-bomb ticking away...

— Stephen Byers¹

You’ve probably noticed that the weather has been big news lately.

In 2010, Russia had its hottest July in 130 years (since records have been kept). High temperatures and drought triggered widespread wildfires, and at least 15,000 people died. Pakistan suffered record rainfall and its worst flooding in the country’s history. At one point one-fifth of the country was under water, leaving 2 million people homeless.

That same year Los Angeles hit a record 45°C (113°F), and record high temperatures were recorded in seventeen countries around the world.² Meanwhile, New Orleans is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, which caused devastating floods and record damage in 2005. Some climatologists believe that wetter, more intense tropical storm seasons may well be due to global warming.

Global Temperature Record³

A graph of the global temperature measured over time.Click for extended description

Average global temperatures have risen about 1°C (1.8°F) in the past 150 years (the horizontal line represents the average temperature from 1961 to 1990). In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said most of the warming since 1950 is very likely due to an increase in greenhouse gases caused by human activity.

But perhaps the most eerie news is coming from the isolated wilderness of western Siberia, where researchers report that a gigantic expanse of permafrost — an area the size of France and Germany combined — has begun to melt for the first time since it was formed at the end of the last ice age. Icy ground that has been frozen for 11,000 years is now, in just a few years, turning into a landscape of mud and lakes, threatening to release huge amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Soggy northlands, heat-related deaths, water shortages, wilting crops, heavy precipitation, power blackouts.

Is this the wave of the future?

Many experts are saying Yes.

---

Scientists have been warning us about global warming for more than three decades. But many of us are only starting to get the message.

The planet is getting warmer, and the warming is largely being caused by human activity. More important, this warming is happening at an alarmingly rapid rate. The earth’s surface temperature, which has not changed much in 10,000 years, has become significantly warmer during the past 150 years. If the current trend continues, many species, including humans, will not be able to adapt quickly enough to avoid severe hardship.

In the past hundred years, average global temperatures have risen at least 0.8°C (1.4°F), and three-quarters of this increase has occurred in the past thirty years. It doesn’t sound like much, but consider this. At the depth of the last ice age 20,000 years ago — a time when ice covered most of Europe, and the island of Manhattan lay under a blanket of ice half a mile thick — the average global temperature was only 5°C (9°F) colder than it is now. And in the 100,000 years that humans have been around, the planet has never been more than a degree or two warmer than it is today.

Warmest Years

on Record⁴

1 2010 / 2005

2 2009

3 1998

4 2002

5 2003

Besides, 0.8°C is just the average warming. The northern hemisphere is warming faster than the southern hemisphere. More dramatic change is taking place at the poles and in mountainous areas.

In 2002, on the eastern side of the Antarctic peninsula, a giant, floating mass of ice larger than the country of Luxembourg shattered and separated from the continent, disintegrating in just thirty-five days.⁵

At the other end of the globe, an area of Arctic sea ice one and a half times the size of Wales is lost each year, and an area of permanent sea ice the size of Arizona and Texas combined has disappeared since 1979. The Greenland ice sheet, up to 3 kilometers (2 miles) thick and just a little smaller than Mexico, is suddenly melting and sliding into the ocean much faster than scientists thought it would.

In fact, the World Glacier Monitoring Service says most of the world’s glaciers are retreating. If the warming trend continues as expected, by 2050, Iceland will be virtually glacier free for the first time in at least 2 million years, polar bears could be extinct, and the Himalayan glaciers, which provide 500 million people with water, will drastically shrink.

The world’s fresh water is also at risk elsewhere, as lakes and rivers dry up, and as evaporation and seepage from rising sea levels leave higher concentrations of salt and pollutants in existing supplies. In the American Southwest, Lake Powell and Lake Mead have been drying up, threatening the water supply needed to run the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams.⁶

Who Says the Planet Is Getting Warmer?

When scientists began noticing that the world seemed to be warming at a remarkable rate, the first task was to establish the accuracy of the science. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The IPCC is an international body of more than two thousand experts from more than 130 countries representing a wide range of scientific disciplines. The panel studies the science