Welcome to Climate Matters, a weekly-ish newsletter on climate crisis written by me, Neelima Vallangi, a person who loves living on a beautiful and habitable planet.

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Today on the newsletter, no long spiel on climate crisis.

A simple reiteration of the basics because that itself is still pretty horrifying. Brush up your basics and/or spread the word so others can also learn the foundations of this crisis. We might as well because climate change is only going to be more and more relevant all through our lifetime.

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(this was actually a presentation I had prepared for a session on introduction to climate change for college students at Symbiosis Pune, but I think it should be pretty useful for others too. feel free to share/reuse for your outreach purposes)

Introduction to Climate Change/Crisis/Emergency/Breakdown:

Read more here: Overview of Greenhouse Gases

Actually, we’re now at 420ppm and it is the highest CO2 concentration not just in the last 800,000 years but in all of the last 4,000,000 years!

Read more here: 420ppm - Halfway to Hell

Holocene, which is about 12000 years ago, is when human civilisation began, we learned agriculture and settled in communities, shifting away from hunter gatherer existence. And in the last 100 years, we’ve shot past the stable climate temperature range that allowed us to thrive. The earth surface is 1.2 °C above average now and we’re seeing the climate system responding to this drastic increase slowly.

We want to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C by 2100 but at the current pace, we’ll probably see 1.5°C temperature rise by 2037 and 2°C by 2063!!

That’s the only reason the earth’s surface hasn’t warmed drastically and we don’t see full impacts of global heating and climate change yet. The ocean is currently acting as a buffer and taking up almost all the heat. But even with the 10% heat that is being absorbed by the land, we’re seeing significant changes to our climate and natural systems. So can you imagine what would happen when the ocean gives up?

Read more here: Oceans Are Absorbing Almost All of the Globe’s Excess Heat | NYTimes

50 year temperature rise over baseline. Source: NASA

The temperature rise is not even across the globe. So you can see some countries warming much more than others but you can see all countries are warming regardless.

And a lot more, but this is pretty much where it all starts.

Read more here: The Effects of Climate Change | NASA

Also read, on impacts:
People of the tropical belt, brace yourself!
Monsoon Flooding and Climate Change, is there a link?
2020 could actually be one of the best years this century!

Read more here: Five years since historic Paris Agreement, how are we doing?

Source: Emissions by sector | Our World in Data

Source: Which countries have emitted the most CO2? | Carbon Brief Video

Source: The Carbon Inequality Era | Oxfam

So the responsibility to change and support the rest of the world adapt to climate impacts is distributed accordingly. Not everyone is responsible for climate crisis and not everyone is equally impacts by climate crisis either. Knowing this is important to achieve equitable solutions.

Read more here: Who is causing climate change, who is being short-changed and who has to fix it?

Read more here: Sustainable Living and Climate Action go hand in hand. But one is not a substitute for the other.

Yes, this seems overly simplistic and counterintuitive even, given the scale of this crisis. But this is really effective because once the problem is widely recognised, everyone can get working based on their skills, resources, issues and locations. Not all of us have to work on shifting global energy source from fossil fuels to renewables but we all have a part to play in making that massive societal shift happen.

Read more here: Do something important on Climate - Talk about it

Also read:
Essential Climate Change Jargon/Buzzwords you need to be aware of
Inflection Point: The Crucial Decade for Climate Action begins

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