Last night I went to teach my English speaking lesson at the
‘Georgian-Scottish-House’ in Tbilisi. Recently I have had another
gear-change with regards to my thinking on how I can do my bit to help
reduce the now widely accepted human-induced climate change that is
happening.
A main aim of Ride Earth is to observe and document the effects of
climate change and to promote bicycle use. My time in Tbilisi is
allowing me to realign how I approach achieving these things. I have
been researching climate change on the internet and did a search for
climate change documentaries.
I found ‘Are We Changing Planet Earth’, a BBC documentary which is
basically the equivalent of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, but is presented
by the irrefutable David Attenborough which really hits the message
home.
If you don’t know who David Attenborough is, then you’ve probably
never watched a nature documentary. He is one of the world’s most
acclaimed broadcasters and naturalists. He has been the face of British
natural history programmes for the last 50 years.
I got hold of the documentary and took it to my lesson. One activity
of the lesson, was to make a list of what the students liked and
disliked about Georgia. On the ‘like’ side included Khachapuri (cheesy
pizza), and on the dislike side, I included driving and wreckless
overtaking. Some more things were added and ‘beautiful countryside’ was
added to ‘Like’ and disrespect for the environment to ‘Dislike’.
It’s easy to think that for a country like Georgia they have to
follow the same path of development to reach the stage of ‘western
development’ before progressing further. This is not true. In the west,
we made the mistakes first, and now we have the technology to solve the
problems of human-accelerated climate change. This technology must be
shared globally to ensure that other developing countries won’t make
the same mistakes.
My students are very engaged in the issues of climate change. 10
minutes before the end of the lesson they sat and watched the entire
documentary for additional hour, completely engaged by it’s content.
They can see the reality of the problem and are scared about it’s
affect on their future.
They saw the effects of climate change such as the increase in
extreme weather conditions and that there is now more carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere than in the last 600, 000 years.
They watched computer generated images of carbon dioxide as plume of
black cubes being transmitted into the atmosphere and the greenhouse
gas building up to thicken the blanket in our planet’s atmosphere.
And that every year we contribute an extra 25 billion tonnes to the
atmosphere. That in the year 2050 38 degrees will be a normal
temperature for London.
“We would all like to know for certain what will happen to our
climate in the future whether we will be sweltering in a heatwave, or
inundated by floods, but scientists can only give us a range of
possiblities, and what they’re telling us is that our world will warm
anywhere between 1.4 and 5.8 degree celcius.
To put it another way, the impact of global warming will be somewhere between severe and catastrophic.”
When you hear David Attenborough say that you know everyone, including your grandma, is going to take notice.
A visit is paid to the Hadley Centre in the MET office where they
are using one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe which can
do 10 billion calculations every second, a ‘flight simulator’ for the
climate. It is predicting a bumpy ride. There are many climate models
across the world. They all agree greenhouse gases will warm the system
by similar amounts. No models dispute climate change.
The range of temperatures are between 2 and 6 degrees over 100
years. A change of 6 degrees would be so rapid as to cause irreparable
damage. The forecast for the next 25 years is widely agreed on as being
accurate and we can’t do much about the inertia of the change because
it’s based on what we’ve already emitted in the past - a warming of 1-2
degrees across the UK, for example.
The students saw the footage of the ‘Boscastle Floods’ with streets
underwater and cars being swept down the road like a river. They sat
and watched intently as the film showed forest fires in Australia, and
the effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Half of carbon dioxide from mankind comes from domestic activities
and the ‘Carbon Family’ is a fictional ‘average-suburban’ family in the
film. The family looks like a typical UK or American family, using the
microwave, kettle, cooker, owning 2 big cars, and using air travel.
I like the way the documentary makes the connection between the
everyday appliances in the home directly to the power plant and to the
collapsing ice shelf in the Arctic. In the Antarctic there was the
complete disintegration of the Larson B ice shelf in 2002, indicating a
‘tipping point’, where more dark ocean is exposed to the sun and more
heat is absorbed causing a feedback loop of warming.
The film covers species migration. It is difficult for species to
migrate fast enough as the climate in their habitat changes so rapidly
and that in 100 years over half the world’s species could be under
threat of extinction.
I was aware that I was running well beyond the length of the lesson
but everyone seemed very interested. The film goes back to the ‘Carbon
Family’ and the emissions caused by buying food which is imported over
a long distance.
Then they watched the changing situation in China where an average
family currently uses 1/7 energy of a western family, but things are
changing. China intends to build a coal fired power station every week
for the next 7 years to the fuel the increasingly energy intensive
lifestyle.
They saw the drought in the Amazon and the destruction of the forest
which is the most biodiversity rich area on the planet containing many
undiscovered species. The forest is considered ‘the lungs of the
planet’ converting a huge amount of carbon dioxide in oxygen and water
vapour which has a cooling effect.
The thing I was really glad to show them as they seemed to look
increasingly worried and concerned, was the piece at the end on how we
solve the problem.
The scientist Steve Bacala explains we have the technology to halt
the rise of carbon emissions during this generation with his ‘7 slice
model’. Each slice represents a method to cut out a contributor of
greenhouse gas.
The first to cut is domestic use.
- Turn down the thermostat 3 degrees to reduce 1 tonne of carbon into the atmosphere.
- Turn gadgets/appliances/television off (not on standby) to save 10% of domestic energy use.
- Use energy saving light bulbs.
- Compost organic rubbish.
- Use a gas hob.
- Get better and more insulation in your house.
- Clean your fridge to save 200 kg of greenhouse gas.
- Buy locally grown produce.
The second is to drive differently.
The students, looked happier and relieved as they sat and watched
the ‘Carbon Family’ switch to a nice shiny Toyota Prius instead of a
gas guzzling 4×4. Get an energy efficient car (that does at least 60
miles to the gallon).
The 3rd slice goes if we use public transport.
The 4th goes on using alternative power (including controversial
Nuclear). A solar power farm in China and gigantic wind turbines off
the coast of the UK with their football pitch diameter turbine blades.
The 5th is the astonishing method of pumping carbon dioxide back underground on huge rigs in the sea (Geosequestration).
There is a general sigh of relief as their are more solutions put
forward such as tree-planting in China, fuel cell cars, solar heaters
and domestically living in an efficient and sustainable way.
Before we left I had to show them the part on how to make ‘an efficient cup of tea’! (don’t put more water than you need).
At the end the documentary hits you with the possibility of the
complete destruction of the Greenland ice shelf causing sea levels to
rise by as much as 7 metres over the next centuries condemning future
generations to this disaster.
Something as simple as showing a documentary such as this to
friends, school classes, or work colleagues is surely a good way to
spread awareness about the major issues of climate change.
Click here for more information about the ‘Climate Chaos’ series of BBC programmes
Click here for 10 ways to reduce your carbon emissions
Interesting article on how much fuel in a car actually goes on transporting you and why bikes are great
Another good list of ways to cut back on emissions including ‘conference calling’ instead of driving for business
Bit late: Giving up carbon for lent
