The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami devastated numerous countries, most notably Indonesia and Sri Lanka, with a total death toll of 225,000 people, and 1.75 million displaced. According to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the threat of climate change and heating of the planet will most likely have an impact on the intensity of massive weather events such as cyclones and tsunamis as ocean surface temperatures increase.

As the glaciers melt and polar ice caps disintegrate over time, the sea level will also continue to rise. Projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2013 estimate under a business as usual scenario that sea levels will rise between 28 and 98 centimeters by 2100, enough to swamp most of the Eastern coast cities of the United States. Dire estimates where the warming of the planet quickens from lack of action to stop it and the Greenland ice sheet completely melts put the level rise to seven meters, enough to submerge London.

Droughts and wildfires are already increasing both in frequency and intensity in many places around the world. The 2012 droughts of the U.S. were the most expansive in the country’s history per the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with 71 per cent of the entire country under at least ‘Severe Drought’ monitoring measure for more than eight weeks in a row. While drought and wildfire historical records were beaten in 2012, they were again broken in 2015. The number of acres burnt those years were each triple the average from 1985-1995. Other arid areas around the world are experiencing similar trends, such as in Australia, where wildfires are also beating historical records in area burnt and starting earlier than ever in the year. Chile, whom in January experienced wildfires of scales they had never experienced before, needed the help of the U.S. to contain and eliminate the devastating blaze. While countries like the U.S. and Australia may be ready to contain these wildfires, and find solutions to droughts, it is hard to imagine other nations being equally prepared.

War, environmental change and low standards of living are likely to be interconnected together to make people choose to take refuge in a different country. A 2015 study from Columbia University and University of California Santa Barbara concluded that increasingly severe droughts in parts of Syria is likely to have contributed to the rebel uprising and public discontent with Assad’s government. According to their research, many farmers lost their jobs when their land was no longer growing crops due to the drought, and moved to the urban areas to compensate. The government’s lack of response to the 2011 Syrian drought crisis was not the only trigger to the original protests but played a substantial part, per another study from 2014 on the topic from the journal Middle Eastern Studies.

Diminishing resources, low standard of living and a changing environment seems to create a common theme as a similar situation took place around the Lake Chad Basin in Nigeria, which also borders Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The Lake provides water supply for thirty million people yet has decreased in size by 95 per cent from 1963 to 1998 and is continuing to shorten due to decrease in rainfall. The Nigerian side of the lake is where the insurgence of Boko Haram terrorists, who pledged allegiance to Daesh, drove millions of people away from the area for the resources provided by the lake.

If similar situations of such as ongoing drought and a lack of capabilities from authorities to help continue, many more people will choose to migrate. While the majority of refugees worldwide are hosted in Africa and other Middle Eastern countries, many also attempt the journey to Europe, and unfortunately it is not always legal. In 2016, 170,000 illegal immigrants were recorded to have arrived to Italy by boat from Libya, an enormous increase compared to 42,000 in 2013. Increased periods of drought will surely not slow down illegal immigration, especially since the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention does not include environmental refugees in its outlined protocols. With a lack of legal status and support from the U.N., many people trapped in worsening environmental conditions on small islands coastal to Australia and New Zealand cannot apply for refugee status. The UNHCR has stated that it worries opening new discussions on refugee convention reforms with the security council nations could backfire and let countries take the option to back out altogether. A report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre in 2015 concludes that 19 million people around the world were obligated to flee their homes from worsening environmental conditions. A World Bank report from 2015 estimates that a hundred million people will go back into poverty from climate change by 2030. While climate change is gradual and people may possibly escape increasingly inhospitable conditions by migrating, there seems to be not many solutions available to efficiently relocate all of these people properly.

Great new initiatives such as the Platform on Disaster Displacement, previously known as the Nansen Initiative, whom are consultants to the U.N. on policy reform to facilitate relocation and cross-border interactions displaced people, are taking root to eventually find a long-term solutions to this problem. Unlike some previous refugee crises, climates will not simply go back down to their original levels anytime soon, not if we can’t both stabilize carbon dioxide emissions and lower annual temperature average increase. That is of course the long-term goal that would avoid such a crisis, yet it is impossible to know today how much we will be able to curb the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and how quickly. Some world leaders and military advisors are at least taking note of the potential risks of climate change and its inevitable refugee crisis.

Last year, a U.S. coalition of military and national security experts, which included advisors to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, sent a report to the Pentagon under their non-partisan Center for Climate and Security to outline the importance of a changing world climate to national security. The Pentagon adopted the same view and the Department of Defense started seriously considering climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’ which could potentially warrant the need for greater humanitarian aid or additional military intervention.

Former military advisor to the Bangladeshi President Munir Muniruzzaman, now chair to the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change, has publicly stated that climate change is the greatest security threat of the 21st century, not terrorism. It is easier to understand that point of view when the reality kicks in that Bangladesh is already trying to plan the relocation of twenty million citizens due to climate change and have asked countries like the U.K. for help doing so. Brigadier General Stephen Cheney, a member of the U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs has publicly supported the notion that climate change increased conflict risks and is an accelerant of instability, citing the Arab Spring, Syrian War and Boko Haram’s previous control over Lake Chad.

Unfortunately, the U.S. President Donald Trump does not believe climate change is real, let alone human caused, as he recently purged the United States Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies from even the mere mention of the term, essentially censoring science. It comes as quite ironic when his own appointed Secretary of Defense James Mattis gave a statement this month describing the potential dangers of climate change as a driver of instability in places with U.S. troops.

While it may not be immediately obvious that a refugee crisis between Northern Africa and Europe would have deep implications on the United States and Canada, we should also step up in taking more refugees, no matter where they are from. While some would argue that bringing instability into our borders is an unwise decision, as some public backlash from Justin Trudeau’s policy on accepting refugees has iterated, I would argue that Canada has some of the lowest population density in the world, and that we have ample space for refugees. Figuring out how to facilitate cultural, religious and linguistic transition will ultimately be key to not increase tensions and divisions, and admittedly Trudeau’s policies have shown to be lackluster in that department. The U.N. also won’t be able to be everywhere at the same time for humanitarian efforts, and countries who will be certainly affected by climate change should plan to minimize problems in the future, such as commencing dialogues right now with neighboring countries. Nature does not care for human made borders, and we know there have been five previous mass extinction events of life previously — we would be foolish to not attempt to slow down the sixth, which has already begun.

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Apparently not everyone evolved

The theory of human evolution though widely accepted today, illustrated the modern conflict between science and religion, or theory versus belief. While On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin was published in 1859, southern states of the U.S. such as Tennessee and Arkansas passed state legislature to forbid teaching the theory of evolution until a Supreme Court decision in 1968 which held that states could not require curricula to align with a specific religion. Religious leaders tried to combat this supreme court ruling by changing their tactic and advancing creationism as a viable scientific theory of origin, and states such as Louisiana passed legislature that any textbook which includes the theory of evolution must also teach the alternative theory of creationism along with it. Another court case in 1987 attempted to prevent states from requiring the teaching of creationism, with lawyers being successful in proving that creationism was in fact, not a scientific theory, and had no place in a textbook. Even in 2005, school districts, such as the Dover Area district of Pennsylvania are sued because they required teaching “Intelligent Design” in their schools, which is another pseudonym of creationism. In 2006 public school biology textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia, were being distributed with a sticker included which read “Evolution is a theory, not a fact, concerning the origin of living things.” According to a poll from the Pew Research Center in 2013 with 2,000 participants, sixty per cent of Americans believe in evolution while thirty per cent reject the idea. The study also included political party in their responses, and Republicans only had 43 per cent who accepted the theory compared to 67 per cent from Democrats.

The climate is in fact changing

In recent years, the public skepticism and denial of science has advanced beyond religion and into identity politics. While the U.S. federal space agency NASA has been recording satellite data to support the validity of climate change and itself agrees it is anthropological, which means affected by human activity and behaviour, the country is split in their acceptance of the scientific consensus. A 2016 study from the Pew Research Center finds that only 48 per cent of American adults believe that climate change is caused by human related activities, 31 per cent believe it is due to natural causes and twenty per cent think there is no evidence for climate change. The skepticism seems to stem from a lack of faith in the scientists and science themselves, as only 33 per cent of all participants agreed with the statement ‘Climate change scientists understand very well whether climate change is occurring.’

The American public also seems to think there is no consensus among scientists on the topic, as only 27 per cent agreed that there is a complete scientific consensus that climate change is human caused. These beliefs are quite concerning, because if we are to have a lack of trust in science or think our scientists are incompetent, then who exactly is competent on the subject and where should we receive our information from? There is a sort of contradiction going on here as from the same study, 39 per cent of participants of the survey say they trust climate scientists ‘a lot’ to give full and accurate information about the causes of climate change yet the news media, energy industry leaders and elected officials are down at seven, seven and four per cent respectively for the same category. Similarly to the case of evolution, there is also a political identity issue going on here, as 69 per cent of Democrats agree that climate change is human based while only 23 per cent of Republicans agree, per the same study. A similar trend is also present in factoring in scientific consensus, as more than half the Republican correspondents believe there is no consensus whatsoever among scientists.

In Canada, a 2016 study from Université de Montreal polled over 5,000 Canadians from across the country on climate change, and 61 per cent of the participants believe the Earth is getting warmer partly or mostly due to human causes. A 2016 study from the Pew Research Center compared carbon emissions to concern over climate change, and concluded that the highest countries as measured by emissions per capita such as the U.S., Canada and Australia were the least concerned with effects from climate change. Latin America, Europe and Africa were the regions most concerned with the effects of climate change.

The most astonishing part of all this data is the suggestion that there is no scientific consensus on climate change from climate scientists. All polls conducted on climate scientists show the complete opposite. A 2014 study from Verheggen et al. surveyed 1,850 climate scientists, of which ninety per cent of them with at least ten peer reviewed studies published agreed that greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause of global warming. A 2013 study from Power et al. conducted a meta-analysis of 13,950 articles published on global warming from 1991 to 2012 and found that only 24 of these rejected that climate change is caused by human activities. All other studies and polls among climate researchers demonstrate the same general result, which makes you wonder where people are getting their information from that there is no scientific consensus.

Politics and belief are intertwined

The main reason one would think that there is such a wide gap between perception and reality, especially among Americans, would be a lack of scientific literacy or knowledge. However, a 2012 Yale study by Dan Kahan attempted to find such a correlation between lack of scientific literacy and perception on climate change risks, and could not find one. The more scientifically literate their participants of the survey were, the more polarized they were in their concern over climate change, demonstrating that lack of scientific literacy did not result in less concern. Instead, the researchers attributed the polarization in public opinion to a much deeper distinction: whether or not participants followed a more egalitarian set of ethics, asking questions about concern over income, sexual and racial inequality, or a more individualistic and hierarchical approach, such as desiring less government regulation. The results were clear – those aligning as an egalitarian had more concern for climate change, while those that care more for their personal interest had less concern. The same research group conducted a similar study in 2010 in an attempt to answer the following question: why do people say they believe in science but simultaneously refute scientific consensus and facts? In order to understand why, the study showed participants images of various experts and researchers on gun control, nuclear waste and climate change and polled people on their responses based on their political party. For the gun control example, Republicans were more likely to believe research which indicated a state with a concealed carry license for guns would have less violence, while Democrats were more likely to believe the opposite. When research is presented that points the opposite of their views, participants from both parties viewed the research as ‘untrustworthy,’ showing the real reason why people simultaneously claim they believe in science but deny the reality of climate change cause. The researchers attributed this to a cultural cognition and identity protection risk, where people process new information based on its consistency with their prior knowledge.

Climate change, and whether its cause is anthropological or not, has become a political identity issue to most people, not a scientific one. When a political candidate tweets statements such as ‘The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese to make the U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,’ as per Donald Trump, it’s difficult to tell yourself he may be right, or he may be wrong, depending on whichever position you agree with.

The problem here is this is not a social issue, whatever you believe has no relevance on the matter, it is not an “I believe” issue, there is only one position which is correct and which matters: the scientific consensus. It can be difficult to understand this, especially considering that newly appointed Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt denies that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to climate change. Yet a series of publicly released emails show that indeed he had a lengthy relationship with fossil fuel companies and lobbying groups such as Devon Energy as Oklahoma’s Attorney General, objecting to regulations on fracking and methane gas emissions. There is a form of cognitive dissonance at play here where many people are unable to separate their political party from who they are, and holding their party to a standard of absolute truth.

The belief of an individual should not carry more weight than the scientific consensus of the entire world, yet with political agendas we have ended up with half of partisan Western countries discrediting science. The transition from religious identity to political identity as a source of rejection to science is deeply troubling for the future. We must each eventually hold ourselves accountable to place science on a higher pedestal than belief, especially when the room for error could very well mean dire consequences on the lives and wellbeing of millions of people around the globe.

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Unfortunately, the complex network of safety nets such as welfare, unemployment benefits and minimum wage currently in place may not be enough to counteract the increasing inequalities in income and wealth. In U.S. states and metropolitan areas where minimum wage has been increased to $15 an hour, such as Washington, New York City, San Francisco and others, McDonalds is replacing cashiers and workers with automated systems so customers can make orders by kiosk or on the phone and have their meal brought over to them. The math behind the change demonstrates why: an employee with a wage of $15 per hour costs the company $38,500 a year including social security and insurance, while a machine costs only $35,000, making back its worth in a year and being ready to use 24/7.

Automation is here
The fast food service industry is not the only market where automation will continue to take people’s jobs. It only makes sense that as the population of the world grows, we will need more efficient ways to mass manufacture, transport and distribute goods; produce and transfer energy; and distribute our food supply. Today, robots and automated systems are starting to complete complex tasks, such as self-driving cars that use sensors and cameras to gather data about their surroundings, and self-learning artificial intelligence such as Google’s AlphaGo, which recently defeated the world’s best player of the board game Go, which is widely considered to be the most complex board game in the world. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, one third of the entire world food production is lost or wasted, and we could easily feed every malnourished person on the Earth if none of it was wasted – all the way up to 10 billion people, the projected population of the Earth by 2050. If we can already feed that many people today, automation would enable us to achieve solving what we right now cannot, world hunger and poverty.

In the manufacturing market, automation has been increasingly present for decades, such as in the assembly of cars and the mass production of commercial goods. The manufacturing industry in the U.S. has been growing, namely by 17.6 per cent from 2006 to 2013, yet per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, five million jobs have been lost in the sector since 2000. While today’s global automation in manufacturing accounts for an average ten per cent of all tasks, research from the Boston Consulting Group indicates it may well be 25 per cent by 2025. While political figures such as Donald Trump claim that these manufacturing jobs are being lost to trade, a 2015 report from Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research found that 87 per cent of manufacturing job losses are due to automation while only 13 per cent are due to trade deals. These changes are not unique to the U.S.. A factory in Dongguan, China, which manufactures mobile phone parts, cut down their workforce from 650 employees to just sixty at the end of last year with the addition of new automated machines, elevating their production by 250 per cent within a few months time. To combat the rising cost of human labour for making shoes by hand in China due to their flourishing economy, Adidas is about to open a factory in Germany that is completely automated and 3D-prints shoes, which they hope will revolutionize the sportswear industry by shortening the supply chain and time needed between a new design and released product.

Automation is affecting more than the manufacture of goods. The mobile taxi company Uber has already begun rolling out self-driving cars in certain U.S states such as San Francisco and Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, a few commercial Tesla car models have come equipped with an Autopilot mode, which is currently mostly being used to record and aggregate data, improving the artificial intelligence of the software. Even though drivers are instructed and warned to keep their hands on the wheel at all times during autopilot mode in case of an emergency or life threatening situation, the first fatal accident happened in May 2016 from a Tesla car on this driver assist mode. There have been a few other cases of Google self-driving cars also getting into accidents, although non life threatening, yet representatives claim these are due to human error and not the software itself. The technology is definitely not perfected yet, and automated cars do need to drive in actual real life conditions to be tested for commercial use and for the AI to improve itself faster. Comparing overall crash rates between automated and human drivers has been difficult so far due to lack of data, as a 2016 study from Virginia Institute of Technology claims self-driving cars have much lower crash rates than humans, while a 2015 study from University of Michigan Ann Arbor claims the opposite. A 2013 study from the Eno Center for Transportation in Washington, D.C. estimates that if ten per cent of cars were self-driving, 211,000 accidents could be avoided and 1,100 lives saved while for ninety per cent, 4.2 million accidents and 21,700 lives would be spared per year. Nevertheless, while some people may prefer the company of a cab driver and a human visage to interact with to a self driving vehicle, others may eventually see all human drivers as unnecessary risks in their daily commutes.

Universal basic income is needed
Dystopian novels may paint a picture of the future overrun by self-aware artificial intelligence and robots that turn against their makers, yet nothing will prevent automation and technology from surrounding us. To combat an insurmountable wage gap and companies that choose to replace workers instead of adapting to rising minimum wage laws, we must eventually create employment in areas where automation cannot replace and undermine. CEO of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX Elon Musk, previous CEO of Microsoft Bill Gates and many economic and technological leaders agree that there is a solution: Universal Basic Income (UBI), where everyone of employment age is guaranteed a basic income (even without proving they are looking for employment). It would be a social policy to replace all other safety nets currently available. Robots are eventually all we will need to fulfill jobs, and they will do it for cheaper. Workers can instead dedicate themselves to occupations where automation cannot replace human interaction, such as teaching, business, scientific research and entertainment.

Various countries around the world are already starting pilot projects to test the effects of UBI. One of the first UBI tests ever conducted was in Manitoba, Canada in the 1970s, where providing families living under the poverty line with a basic income enabled their children to finish high school, increasing rates of high school graduation. General health increased as a statistically significant decrease in doctor appointments, hospital visits and psychiatry treatment was recorded. While there was concern for disabling incentive for work and labour, only nine per cent of the test subjects worked less hours than they did before, and post-analysis of the data suggests that this was due to the opportunity cost of spending more time with family. The researchers followed up with the families after the study was over when they no longer received the set incomes, and their income security and mental health were still maintained at a higher level than before the study. Hugh Segal, a former Canadian senator and now advisor to the Ontario provincial government has just started a three year UBI pilot project giving out $1,320 per month in additional income to the homeless and those under the poverty line.

Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar is funding a million dollars to one of the biggest UBI projects in history via the charity organization GiveDirectly in Kenya, giving 6,000 Kenyans a livable wage for 12 years. Finland has also just started its national UBI test which just began in January, offering 560 Euros every month to 2,000 unemployed Finns aged 25 to 58, eliminating their other social and unemployment benefits, and will not cease to offer the money even if they find employment. Other cities and municipal authorities in the Netherlands, California, and Italy are also conducting their own UBI research, which will provide researchers and policymakers worldwide much-needed data to really understand if the concept works for the long-term and what effects it might have on the labour market.

There are many complications and questions to answer if we are to move toward a UBI. For instance, how will the government be able to afford it, how much will it raise taxes by, and will it disincentive work? Bill Gates has a solution to the funding needed to make this work on a national scale: tax the robots for their labour just like people. Elon Musk has more personal questions, such as: how will people find meaning in their lives if automation takes what they love to do away from them? I personally think that people will always want more than they currently have and to enjoy new experiences. Making more than the basic income to do recreational activities such as travelling will remain an incentive for labour. Keeping in a steady and healthy social environment is also equally important, and having a job is essential to social status. UBIs could become a bipartisan solution where left wing and right wing politics could unite behind the removal of loopholes and red tape in social benefits, instead providing a single streamlined system for everyone. There is a 1980 quote from the renowned evolutionary biologist Stephen Ray Jould which rings quite true, in my eyes, relatable to UBI: “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convulsions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

Cédric Parages is a U3 student in Wildlife Biology. To contact the author, please email cedricparages@gmail.com

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Investors are strengthening clean energy by investing capital worth over one billion dollars in a global innovation fund, with these investors’ total cumulative net worth currently at 170 billion dollars. Major countries, such as China, are devoting much more public funding toward renewable energy, with 350 billion dollars to be invested by 2020. The question is no longer whether or not clean energy is a worthy investment, as big oil and coal industry lobbyists have been attempting to argue against for years, but how fast all of these accelerating investments can be put to the best possible use. Many countries like Costa Rica, the Netherlands and the United States are innovating and experimenting with new clean energy technologies, such as electric powered transportation, hydroelectricity and upgrading their power grids. By doing so, they are inspiring newly found optimism for climate change researchers and innovating start-up companies around the world.

A newly published study from the Environmental Defense Fund’s Climate Corps program in the U.S. has found that renewable energy is creating new jobs twelve times faster than the rest of the U.S. economy. Solar and wind jobs are growing by 20 per cent annually, and sustainable energy related jobs have grown from 3.4 million in 2011 to 4.5 million jobs today. These jobs do not only originate from clean energy production but also consumption, such as making home and industrial appliances energy efficient and transitioning transportation systems from using fossil fuel to electric.

While cars like Tesla are at the forefront of the electric transportation market, other companies are also designing and building electric buses and trains around the world. In the U.S., some New York and Chicago districts have already started to implement electric school buses. Not only are these school buses tremendous for cutting down on carbon emissions, they are also safer for not carrying a giant tank of combustible gasoline. According to the U.S. National Fire Protection Agency, an average of six buses, which includes school buses, caught fire every day from 1999 to 2003.

Electric powered trains are already being used in countries such as in the Netherlands. The Dutch government announced in 2015 that all of its electric trains would run completely on wind power alone by 2018. The program was so successful that it was completed much ahead of schedule, and on January 1 of this year, the Dutch government announced they have now one hundred per cent efficiency from wind power for these trains. Not all of this wind energy comes from the Netherlands alone however, with wind farms in Belgium and Finland also contributing, demonstrating that the European power grid is adapting to transporting and conserving clean energy.

The innovation needed to eventually make commercial aircrafts run entirely on electricity is also much closer than we think. The Solar Impulse is a one seater airplane designed by Swiss engineers and entrepreneurs Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard that has been prototyped and developed since 2009. This aircraft not only runs on electric energy, but is also completely self-sustainable thanks to the solar power cells completely covering its outer sphere.

In August of 2016, the Solar Impulse II finished the first ever flight around the entire globe without using any fuel, taking a year to do so and touching ground in 16 different countries. The flight over the Pacific took five days and shattered the world record of the longest air flight duration by one pilot. Despite its great achievements and promises, there is still a long way to go for similar planes to be developed commercially as the flight speed is slow. Yet, it definitely demonstrates that such possibilities are within our very near future.

Many European countries are in the process of completely phasing out coal from their energy consumption. The first country in Europe estimated completely phase out from coal is Finland, which in 2015 only had eight per cent of its total energy powered from it. Not only will they be the quickest to phase out coal, but they are also passing legislation to completely ban the burning of coal in the entire country by 2030. Similarly, French president Francois Hollande announced in November of 2016 that France will also completely phase out coal from their energy use by 2023. France is one of the biggest manufacturers of nuclear power in the world, even selling it to neighbouring countries.

However, France is also currently undergoing a minor crisis due to its nuclear power, as many of the plants are outdated with old steel, have parts prone to fracture, and concerns of forged and falsified past quality reports about critical components. Addressing these concerns, Hollande has claimed that the time window of six years will enable France to fully address these issues and meet their goal of phasing out coal.

Similarly, the U.K. plans to phase out their coal consumption by 2025, with fifty per cent of electric consumption being powered by clean energy, representing an increase from twenty per cent in 2010. Beyond electricity consumption, Germany is dedicated to phasing out 95 per cent of unclean energy from the country by 2050 to shortly after become completely carbon neutral. It seems the most important first steps for accomplishing carbon neutrality are phasing out coal from electricity consumption, transitioning modes of transportation to electric power, mass manufacturing clean sources of energy, and upgrading power grids to transport and store this energy.

The most ambitious country in the world to achieve carbon neutrality is Costa Rica, which famously achieved 75 days in a row in 2015 powering their electricity entirely from clean sources. After this achievement however, many analysts doubted their ability to continue this performance in the long-term as the main electric production source of Costa Rica is hydroelectric and dependence on rainfall. In 2014, Costa Rica endured a major drought which was the worst in fifty years, and researchers are concerned that climate change will make these droughts more frequent in the future.

Nevertheless, Costa Rica disproved these concerns in 2016 by having 250 full days of the year running entirely on its clean energy, with 98 per cent of the whole year’s energy being from clean energy. Costa Rica is planning to achieve total carbon neutrality by 2021 and may even achieve that ahead of schedule. This precedence of a small country achieving a worldwide goal is a tremendous achievement and demonstrates to other countries around the world that they can dedicate themselves to clean energy, and profit from the current spike in international investment and innovation. Planning to do just that, forty seven nations have signed agreements into the Paris Climate Accord at the November Climate Vulnerable Forum to cut out all their unclean energy sources between 2030 to 2050. Many of these countries have pledged to update their domestic energy policies by 2020, a great achievement for the worldwide battle against carbon emissions.

Many of these achievements at the end of last year have been grossly overshadowed by the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, who famously claimed climate change is not caused by humans, but is instead “a Chinese hoax.” His vehement disregard for the clean energy industry and research from federal scientists and agencies like NASA has put the country into a strange identity crisis, as states like California are innovating and transitioning quickly toward clean energy, and state departments have tweeted out facts about climate change in defiance to the president. While Trump can try to shut down their twitter accounts and their voices, there is actually little he can do to stop states from continuing on as they were before. He will attempt to cripple the Environment Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan introduced by Obama in accordance with the Paris Climate Accord, and remove U.S. funding from the Accord altogether, but all this will do is scare away foreign investment into great new American technologies such as Tesla, and slow down the creation of jobs into one of the fastest growing industries in the country.

While Trump may want to help the 200,000 or so coal workers in the country by subsidizing coal more than ever before to keep it profitable, research into coal efficiency and cost of production demonstrates that coal will simply not keep up with natural gas and clean energy at all. In contrast, there were 770,000 clean energy production jobs in the United States in 2015, according to a report by the International Renewable Energy Agency. Some states, such as Massachusetts, are already introducing legislation to phase out all non renewables by 2035 and all fossil fuels by 2050.

Meanwhile, China is building three football fields of solar panels per hour with government money, and they have proposed a 50 trillion-dollar plan for a global power grid for clean energy by 2050. While it is impossible to know exactly how much of the world’s carbon gas emissions we will be able to slow down by these timelines, the amount of innovation, dedication and production for clean energy sources right now are simply astounding. The Paris Climate Accord and countries like Costa Rica are showing the world that it is possible for a globalized world to functionally work together to achieve concrete goals and change domestic economic policies successfully.

Cédric Parages is a U3 in Wildlife Biology student. To contact the author, please email cedricparages@gmail.com

The post The road to carbon neutrality appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The air pollution looming over the heads of the 1.35 billion people of China contains particulate matter (P.M.) at 2.5 micrometers, which is a diameter size small enough that enables being absorbed by the lungs and into the bloodstream. The most common sources of P.M. 2.5 are coal combustion, vehicle exhaust, and general burning of wood materials. These particles are more likely to congregate in areas where there is low surface wind speed, something China is particularly prone to. The highest amounts of smog are present during the winter, as more and more coal is combusted to heat people’s homes. In 2008, before Chinese officials had publicly acknowledged the dangers of the air pollution, the U.S. Embassy in China started measuring the air quality index and posting the results on their Twitter account.

Their measurements were generally way above expectations (51-100 being considered ‘good’), leading to a public outcry and pressure on Chinese officials. Knowing very well that this could not be swept under the rug any further, the Chinese government introduced legislation to begin taking measurements all around the country in its Five Year Plans, from just a few major cities in 2013 to almost every city in 2015. Previously, out of the ten most polluted cities in the world, seven are found in China, according to an analysis published by Tsinghua University and the Asian Development Bank in 2013. To date, cities in India such as New Dehli, and Saudi Arabia, have overtaken Beijing as the top most polluted cities in the world, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report from 2016.

To understand the severity of the air pollution during winter in China, we must compare concentration of P.M. 2.5 (in micrograms per cubic meter area) to see just how stark the difference is between North American and Chinese cities. In 2010, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing measured a reading of over 500 micrograms, and strongly advised U.S. citizens abroad to stay indoors, while Chinese authorities remained nonchalant. By January 2013, the average daily P.M. concentration in Beijing was over 300, and measurements up to 700 and 755 were taken on different occasions. In October 2013, a record shattering measurement of 1000 was taken in the city of Harbin, forty times the amount the WHO deems safe. Meanwhile, in the same time frame, the average concentration of New York City P.M. 2.5 hovers around 10 micrograms, with relatively extreme days reaching 15. To put it into perspective how it feels to breathe this much densely polluted air, a study by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention tested the P.M. 2.5 level of the average airport smoking lounge, which they finalized to be around 166.5 micrograms per cubic meter, making the Beijing average twice as hazardous to inhale in comparison (without taking into account other carcinogens). The air is becoming so polluted that clean mountain air from Alberta is currently being sold to China, and is reported to be selling out during red alert periods.

The amount of pollution currently over China’s skies is unparalleled today, yet it is difficult to actually blame them for their current disposition. While China is the world’s number one leader in total greenhouse gas emissions and coal combustion, it is not even in the top five for emissions per capita. An analysis from the World Resources Institute in 2014 finds that not only do Canada and the United States occupy the first two positions for top emissions per capita, China ranks in the seventh slot, barely above the world average. China has to endure obscene levels of air pollution because of their total pollution and population density, which are much higher than those of the United States and Canada. Many countries’ dependence on China for cheap exports, manufacturing and labour also prevent them from making policy changes too quickly, as economic development is still rising in many parts of the country. While China can be used as a case study for the consequences of lowered standards of living brought by high air, water and soil pollution, it is by no means a country which we should demonize as they are non-arguably becoming a world leader in clean energy transitioning, means of production and investing.

Health

General short-term symptoms of exposure to high levels of P.M. 2.5 include shortness of breath, irritated eyes and lungs, sneezing, coughing, and it can worsen medical conditions such as asthma and heart disease. However, this pales in comparison to what we now know about the risks and effects of long-term exposure. Long-term exposure has been documented to account for much higher rates of chronic bronchitis, lung disease, heart and lung cancer. A new study published in 2016 in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology led by Chinese researchers has also identified much higher rates of damage and disorders of the kidneys which correlated with higher particulate matter in urban areas. One particular disease, membranous nephropathy, which includes symptoms such as inflamed blood vessels in the kidney and can often lead to kidney failure, has doubled in frequency over the past ten years in China per capita, following rising trends in air pollution levels.

A 2016 study published by the American Heart Association compared data between the United States and China looking at the number of strokes per year compared to particulate matter in the atmosphere. They came to the conclusion that the number of strokes per capita rises 11.9 per cent for every 100 micrograms of particulate matter in the air. In 2013, an eight-year-old girl in Nanjing was diagnosed with lung cancer, the youngest age ever recorded in China. The doctors were deeply troubled with the diagnosis, as most cases of lung cancer are caused by cigarette smoking. Even more worrisome, is the finding that in China, twenty to fourty year olds are the fastest growing group of cancer patients, cases that are less easily related to cigarette smoking. Long-term exposure to P.M. 2.5 particles not only increases the rate of lung cancer from the airborne carcinogens they contain, but also increases the risk of mortality.

We cannot yet know the full extent of how many more people will be affected by diseases from air pollution in the future, but we do know approximately how many are dying each year from it. The WHO has detailed data about deaths directly related to P.M. 2.5 in each country per year, and China leads at one million people per year dying from air pollution, followed by 600,000 per year in India. Another study from University California Berkeley in 2015 estimated 1.6 million deaths in China every year, with 4,000 deaths every day from diseases related to and caused by high air pollution. In general, air pollution lowers life expectancy significantly according to a new Massachusetts Institute of Technology study published in 2013, providing an estimate that every additional 100 micrograms of particulate matter in the atmosphere lowers life expectancy by three years at birth, effectively shortening life span by nine years for those born in area with an average of 300 micrograms such as Beijing.

Pregnancy can also be affected by severe air pollution. As the fine particles from the air are absorbed from the lungs into the bloodstream, and are shared with the fetus through the placenta. David Rich et al., from the University of Rochester Medical Center published a study in 2015, where they compared birth weight between babies born during the Beijing Olympic Games of 2008 and those born before and after. The reasoning for the comparison is that China undertook many policies to reduce carbon emissions in the weeks leading to the Olympic Games in order to clean up the air, such as shutting down factories, stopping construction, seeding clouds to increase rainfall by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky, and restricting traffic. The results suggest that babies born in 2008 during that time were on average 24 grams heavier than babies born in 2007 and 2009. The final stages of pregnancy are incredibly important to the development of the baby, and these results suggest that air pollution may impede fetal growth, nutrient delivery and alter placental function. Air pollution also increases the risk of babies being born with asthma, as a study from the University of British Columbia demonstrated by comparing average asthma rates between mothers living close to, and far away from highways. Those closer to highways had a 25 per cent higher chance of developing asthma before the age of five.

Air pollution also increases the risk of babies being born with asthma, as a study from the University of British Columbia demonstrated by comparing average asthma rates between mothers living close to, and far away from highways. Those closer to highways had a 25 per cent higher chance of developing asthma before the age of five. A different study from Columbia University in established a dose-dependent relationship between prenatal air pollution and reductions in white matter development in the brain (seen later in childhood), important for learning and communication between different brain regions. Slower processing of information, attention-deficit disorders and behavioral conduct disorders were more common in those exposed to higher rates of air pollution. A study by Columbia study conducted in China confirmed these findings, as they compared childhood development in a town where a coal plant shut down in 2004 over a period of ten years and reached the same conclusion that as the air pollution lessened, the rate of brain development in young children rose.

Energy Policy

On New Year’s day 2017, China issued a red alert for air pollution in Beijing and neighbouring cities, the most serious alert that can be issued to the general population. Seven hundred businesses shut down production, all intercity buses stopped, more than four hundred flights were cancelled, schools were closed and all traffic was restricted. The red alert generally lasts for four to five days, and is only issued in the worst of circumstances. The last red alert before this one was on December 21st, 2016, and the one before on December 8th, 2015. Even during these periods, many people go on with their daily lives and go outside, a lot of them without masks. The majority of those who are wearing masks, are not wearing properly effective masks, according to a physician from Beijing United Family Healthcare, who is trying to test over two hundred different masks. Saint Cyr, a doctor based in Beijing, is quoted as saying: ìIt disturbs me that people are walking around thinking wearing these things are safe, but they almost certainly are not.” The biggest problems with masks, he mentions, are material, fitting and the presence of an actual functioning filter. Creating the illusion that you are safe while actively harming yourself should be taken seriously by health officials.

To compensate for their children’s health and futures, many private schools and universities are now building and using air lock doors and air filtration systems, especially for sports and recreational buildings. The Principal of the British School of Beijing commented on the school’s new sports and recreational dome saying “We are delighted that the dome has come to fruition, meaning that students can now play in safe, healthy air, whatever the conditions outside.” However, not every school can afford new technology and to build these new structures. Many public schools have old and decaying infrastructure that can not support these additions. These kinds of short term solutions, while preventing health hazards, also promotes a mentality that we can continue to live in comfort and ignore the source of real long-term problems. Individuals instead need to focus their attention on what they can do to lower polluting emissions and increase pressure on their governing officials to provide new legislation.

In June 2012, the P.M. 2.5 readings by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the Chinese Observatory diverged greatly, and the U.S. Embassy declared the air as “very unhealthy” depicting 199 micrograms. The Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau on the other hand refuted the data and said they had measured good levels between 51 and 79 micrograms, and asked the embassy to stop publishing inaccurate and unlawful data. However, the Chinese government has come around to begin transitioning to clean energy and investment in new technologies. In September 2016, China signed and ratified the Paris Agreement, a climate change accord which sets out to lower global emissions and contain rising temperature levels to 1.5 degrees Celsius to prevent melting of the ice caps and possibly devastating changes to global weather patterns. Xi Jinping, China’s president, spoke of the agreement stating: “I have said many times that green mountains and clear water are as good as mountains of gold and silver. To protect the environment is to protect productivity and to improve the environment is to boost productivity. We will unwaveringly pursue sustainable development and stay committed to green, low-carbon […]and to China’s fundamental policy of conserving resources and protecting the environment. In promoting green development, we also aim to address climate change […] We will make China a beautiful country with a blue sky, green vegetation and clear rivers so that our people can enjoy their lives in a liveable environment with the ecological benefits created by economic development.”

To accomplish the goals of capping global mean temperature deviation at 1.5 degrees Celsius and plateau global carbon emissions set out by the U.N., China needs to cut carbon emissions by sixty to sixty five per cent per unit of GDP by 2030 and allocate twenty per cent of its energy consumption from clean energies. China’s relatively new stance on clean energy follows suit from revisions on the country’s environmental regulations in 2014, which were the first changes to its legislation in 25 years, and president Jinping’s bold claim that he has declared war on pollution. The most notable changes from the revisions were ways to make businesses and individuals accountable for violating environmental laws by substantially increasing the fines for breaking them. Previously, fines were cheap enough that paying them off was much cheaper than actually complying with the laws set in place.

By 2020, China has planned to spend 350 billion dollars in clean energy, creating thirteen million jobs, mostly in mass scale solar plants. Even though China’s energy mostly comes from unclean coal and oil at the moment, it is still the world’s largest generator of solar energy, and broke the world record for most solar power capacity installed in one year. In 2015, they added one and half football fields of solar panels every hour for the whole year. In 2016, they doubled that to three football fields per hour of solar panels. The rest of the spending will be allocated to wind farms, hydro power, tidal and geothermal energy sources. Their goal is to establish 15 per cent of total energy consumption from clean renewable energy by 2020, and even if that seems like a small percentage, they will have built the foundation and paved the way to transition quickly at a larger scale than any other country in the world. Most importantly, coal consumption is slowly falling every year, and there is now official recognition that the energy potential of coal is not only less important to the Chinese economy model anymore, but that China officials also recognize the energy output potential of clean energy will eventually be more efficient and cheaper than unclean energy. From the current statistics of the speed at which China is installing solar panels, they could very well go beyond the 15 per cent target of 2020 and may even reach 17 per cent according to Greenpeace representatives in Beijing and research from The New Climate Economy Report in 2016. In comparison, United States clean energy accounted for 13.5 per cent of total energy consumption in 2015, while Canada’s clean energy accounts for nineteen per cent.

As it stands, the future is looking brighter than ever before for China’s development of clean energy. While the U.S. and China were both supposed to invest into new clean technology and transition their energy consumption sources, the U.S. will be looking to back out of the Paris Agreement following Trump’s U.S. Presidential victory, given his climate change denying Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Department appointees, as well as the Republican majority in the House and Senate. Donald Trump will most likely succeed at rejecting the legislation and ratifications that Barack Obama just signed as they have not been voted on yet. What this means for China is that they have a golden opportunity to overtake the U.S. not only in economic growth and sustainability, but also as the global innovator in new, efficient, clean energy and as an leader in experimenting with pro-environmental legislation at a very large scale, only rivaled by California. Five of the six largest solar module manufacturing firms globally are Chinese, and the costs of production for the panels have decreased thirty per cent in 2016. In 2015, China already overtook the U.S. as the largest market for electric vehicles and have automobile companies striving to challenge the likes of Tesla in the industry.

However, the current importance and dependence on coal, still producing sixty per cent of the country’s electricity, imposes challenges on Chinese clean energy and its efforts to create the foundation to eliminate its air pollution challenges. There are documented cases of coal energy taking priority over clean energy creating surpluses which are wasted. In the first half of 2016, 21 per cent of wind power and 12.1 per cent of solar power went unused and could not be stored in Northern China, while coal had no problem finding its way to people’s homes. The good news is that the Chinese government is already hard at work to make sure this does not happen in the future by introducing legislative changes to the functionality of the power grid and its technology. The federal government has completely halted projects to expand coal power construction in 13 provinces, has delayed approving new ones in 15 others, and has demanded provincial and local jurisdictions to suspend all approval of these projects. They have also set out a minimum purchase guarantee for wind and solar energy creation, ensuring that any new clean energy infrastructure production is monetarily covered and subsidized by the government and given priority. Continuing their work at the local and provincial level, they have various detailed goals and targets for each province to meet minimum clean energy consumption and generation as incentives to create more. Other incentives include tax breaks on businesses switching to clean energy.

Environment

Besides P.M. 2.5, there are also aerosols in the atmosphere above China, which together along with the haze has been blocking sunlight from breaking through and decreasing sunlight radiation. The most notable effect of decreased sunlight is that it lowers efficiency and rate of photosynthesis in plants, a serious problem for agriculture if the concentration of air pollution continues to increase over time. Following potential future problems with agriculture in China, a 2009 study from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory also discusses the links between air pollution and light rainfall. The research describes a 23 per cent decrease in light rainfall over the last fifty years caused by air pollution, and a high frequency of contaminated acid rain. Light rain is essential to agriculture and crops in comparison to heavy rainfall, which can cause flooding. Air pollution is also linked to lower amounts of photosynthetic chlorophyll pigments in plants, and slower growth from seedlings, according to He Dongxian, associate professor of China Agricultural university, whose research is yet to be published.

Even though the smog covering a vast swath of the country, which can prevent sunlight from getting through, a new study suggests that it can also trap heat from getting out. As solar radiation hits the earth’s crust, some is reflected and some is absorbed by the surface. A 2016 study from Yale School of Forestry and Environment measured urban cities in China as warmer than their rural metropolitan areas due to the amount of haze in cities that trap the heat in. The warming from the trapped heat currently results in a net warming of one degree Celsius compared to rural averages, which can become more as the global average deviation temperature from anthropological climate change increases. The amount of air pollution does not only affect China, as the pollution has been observed to blow over the Pacific all the way to the Western coast of the United States. According to research from University of California, Irvine and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Los Angeles in California experiences one extra day a year of smog pollution exceeding federal pollution limits directly from China. Another 2010 study from the journal of Environmental Science & Technology has estimated that around 29 per cent of air pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area are also of Asian origin, most likely from China. Japan and South Korea, whom for the most part enjoy very clean air and very low levels of pollution, have started to notice changes and are also becoming concerned about Chinese pollution leaking over. In 2013, unusual smog covered Japanese cities of Ichihara and Tokyo, while South Korean sales of filtered masks jumped 481 per cent in sales over a one-week period.

China’s air is not its only polluted natural resource, as just in the last two years, officials have started opening up about both groundwater and soil pollution and contamination. According to state media reports, close to sixty per cent of groundwater systems across the whole country are unfit for drinking and are polluted, with only three per cent classified as clean. This is hugely problematic in conjunction with air pollution as one third of China’s resources rely on groundwater while most people especially in urban areas depend on either bottled water or boiling their water, which is ineffective at removing non-natural contaminants and pollutants. An example of such a contaminant would be the carcinogen benzene, which was part of a 2014 chemical spill in Lanzhou, a city of two million people. From a 2014 nationwide governmental survey, 16 per cent of soils tested in populated areas tested positive for other contaminants such as cadmium, mercury and arsenic. While this synergy of polluted air, water and soil will have untold negative effects on the health of many Chinese people, it must still be considered a step forward that federal powers are now releasing this information to the public.

China has a very long road ahead of them to clean their environment. The widespread contamination of the air, water and soil systems will continue to snowball down a very dangerous path that will prove fatal to humans, plants and wildlife alike. Wildlife and insects have lungs, gills and tracheal systems that also absorb these pollutants into their bodies and bloodstreams. Organic life with lower mass than human beings has the potential to be more greatly affected by the same concentration of pollutants as it is less diluted in their bodies. The only difference between plants, wildlife and us is that, they don’t have short term solutions such as air filtration systems and filtration masks. There’s no doubt that the Chinese government is finally taking a position that will enable them to slow the rate of increase of air pollution and emissions in the future. The real question that every Chinese official and citizen must ask themselves is: Will it be enough? Can we do better than lowering dependence on coal by only a few percentages every five years? Will future generations live in a world worse off than the world we currently enjoy? These are burdening questions that are not only pertinent to China, but that we must all face on an individual level in the face of climate change and a quickly deteriorating planet. My personal opinion on the matter is, the jobs of people in outdated unclean energy and damaging agricultural practices do not outweigh the survival of our planet nor the health of tens of millions of people.

The post China’s air pollution crisis appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Paris Agreement was signed into force at the beginning of this month, with the United States, China, and the European Union all pledging to introduce the necessary policies to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2025. Their end-goal is avoiding a global average warming increase of two degrees Celsius. But despite the success in introducing the agreement quickly, there are immense obstacles that it will face to turn its promises into reality. For one, there’s no binding enforcement mechanism to measure or limit emissions. But even if countries do follow through, the United Nations Environment Program has warned that the Agreement’s targets to cut emissions will still result in three degrees Celsius of warming.

In another blow to environmental protections, Donald Trump, a vehement climate change denier, was elected as the next President of the U.S., the country with the second highest greenhouse gas emissions in the world. He has promised to cancel the United States’ plan to follow through with the Paris Agreement. His appointed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) leader will be Myron Ebell, another climate change denier, and his Department of Energy leader will be Mike McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist. Trump has plans to block Obama’s newly introduced Clean Power Plan, remove regulations on protecting streams from coal mining, and remove wetland protection policies.

This isn’t the first time a U.S. president has stuck his fingers in his ears and hummed loudly when faced with climate change science. Ronald Reagan, U.S. President from 1981 to 1989, was a critic of environmental movements of the time and denied the possibility of climate change, despite NASA scientists already predicting the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on global temperatures from 1981 onwards. As soon as he was elected, he over-rode most of the Carter executory environmental agenda, purposefully delayed and interfered with EPA assessments, and excluded liberal or environmentalist scientists from federal scientific advisory panels – all of which led to a mass resignation of EPA officials in 1983. His denial of the threat of climate change lulled many in the U.S. into a false sense of security, and funding for environmental research suffered. The echoes of his arguments can still be heard today throughout the Republican party. Following in Reagan’s footsteps, a Trump presidency will reinforce public skepticism of climate change science and be a tremendous barrier to clearheaded environmental policy and transitioning to clean energy.

In light of Trump’s election, it’s more important than ever to present the facts on climate change – not just as abstract degrees or emissions volumes, but in terms of concrete implications. Climate change will, and does, impact all of us, but before we understand how it impacts humans, we need to take a look at how it impacts our environment – from honey bees to ocean currents. I talked to five McGill professors whose research intersects with climate change studies about the Paris Agreement, their visions for a more environmentally responsible future, and the effects of climate change on our atmosphere, oceans, and wildlife.

Jaye Ellis is an Associate Professor at McGill University in the Faculty of Environment and the Faculty of Law. Her current research focuses on social systems and transnational policy-making regarding environmental degradation. 

The McGill Daily (MD): Do you consider the Paris Agreement an achievement for environmental lawmakers and agencies around the world? How effective do you think the U.N. will be at ensuring countries like China can successfully push laws to curb their emissions?

Jaye Ellis (JE): It is an achievement, yes. The process moved remarkably quickly, particularly compared to the experience with the Kyoto Protocol. Of course, significant compromises were made in order for us to get here. The quick response may be due at least in part to a sense on the part of many states that these obligations will not have much bite, but it could also be partly due to a growing sense of urgency.

I believe that the U.N. has some tools that it can use to push for implementation of climate laws and policies, but my attention is focused on other entities: civil society organizations, local (provincial, municipal) governments, and firms and industry associations. I believe that real progress will be achieved through the efforts of these actors more than [by] international organizations and national governments.

MD: Do you think the threats of climate change is being taken more seriously by the public and lawmakers? Will we see changes under Trudeau to Canadian environmental policy, like higher carbon taxes and subsidizing clean energy?

JE: Climate change denial is firmly behind us at the level of public discourse in this country. That battle has been won. What remains is to convince members of the population, first, that meaningful change can be brought about, and second, that vulnerable segments of the population will not have to bear a disproportionate burden either from climate change itself or from measures to reduce emissions and enhance [carbon] sinks. As I see it, Trudeau has no choice but to take climate change seriously and to forge ahead with measures to combat it. His government needs to create the conditions for a range of experiments in law and policy, which is not going to be easy, as it will involve taking risks and making bold moves – something that Canadians are not known for.

MD: How can countries like India comply with the Paris accord without limiting their means of economic development and expansion? Is it really possible to lower gas emissions worldwide while at the same time having to accommodate a growing standard of living for an exponential human population growth?

JE: Countries like India will need to see that a sustainable path to development is available. […] It is possible, but it will require decisive action. We will need to be able to have difficult conversations about genetically modified crops, nuclear energy, economic incentive structures, public-private partnerships and adaptations. And actors around the world are going to need to come to those conversations with open minds, prepared to change their opinions. None of this is easy, but it is necessary, so we are going to have to find a way to do it.

MD: How do environmental lawmakers and agencies deal with situations where science on which the environmental laws and regulations are founded upon are questioned or denied by executive branches of government – such as in the case of a Trump presidency?

JE: National governments are, by and large, followers, not leaders, on this issue. As distressing as the prospect of a Trump presidency is, in every possible respect, he would have little capacity to draw policy experiments in jurisdictions like California to a halt. Regardless of who our political leaders are, we cannot wait for them to get their acts together, and increasingly, other actors are recognizing this. Given the scope, scale, and complexity of the problem, it is difficult to think of a societal institution, public or private, that does not have something to contribute.

Atmosphere and oceans

250 million years ago, the Earth experienced the greatest mass extinction event known to us: The Great Dying. 95 per cent of marine species and 70 per cent of all life on Earth perished during this period, largely due to great volcanic eruptions in Siberia which, for about a million years on and off, released massive amounts of carbon dioxide and sulfur into the air. The chemicals acidified and dissolved into the oceans, decreasing the surface pH of oceans by 0.1 for an estimated 10,000 years.

In comparison, studies show that the oceans today have also fallen by 0.1 in pH since the Industrial Revolution – which was only 100 years ago. The lead author behind the study, Matthew Clarkson, said that the comparable pH drop was a “massive warning and a worst case scenario, if we carry on with fossil fuels. Diversity didn’t recover for 5 million years.”

In the last century, ocean levels have risen by twenty centimetres, chalked up to melting glaciers and thermal expansion of existing bodies of water. In the Antarctic, ice shelves the size of small countries are rupturing and disintegrating. If greenhouse emissions continue at their present rate, sea levels will eventually rise by 25 meters over the next 500 to 1,000 years, submerging coasts and displacing what would today be 1.2 to 1.5 billion people. Other ‘business as usual’ models are predicting that by 2100, sea levels will rise between one and two meters, flooding U.S. coastal cities like Boston, Miami, New Orleans, and New York City. Other more ‘pessimistic’ estimates, where greenhouse gases continue to increase at a higher rate than today, predict a five to seven metre rise – enough to submerge London by 2100.

Lawrence Mysak is director of the Earth System Modelling Group in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. His research focuses on modeling carbon cycles and oceanic current oscillations of past time periods to better understand long term climate variability and change.

MD: Is limiting the global temperature average increase to two degrees or lower by 2030 really possible?

Lawrence Mysak (LM): It’s going to be very difficult, especially with countries [which] have really high rates of population growth and are striving for economic development and reach high standards of living. I’m not optimistic about achieving the set goal but I’m hoping for the best. The fastest we can transition our sources of energy and forms of transport the better it’s going to be.

MD: Are there any possible innovations to curb gas emissions that you think would work? Any that you are not a fan of?

LM: Geothermal power is very promising; it circulates water from about 200 metres below the Earth’s surface, where there is quite a bit of heat, and you can use it for both heating and cooling. The initial investment is not cheap, but once you get it going it’s really efficient and clean in the long run for energy consumption. Windmills can be noisy and affect some local ecosystems and take a lot of space. Another problem with windmill and solar power is storing the energy and transmitting it: a surplus of energy is great but storing and transporting it is not as easy as it sounds. […] Using aerosol particles in the atmosphere to reflect radiation has potential but can damage the ozone layer. Iron fertilization enabling algal blooms to absorb carbon dioxide into the ocean is interesting but ultimately could have very negative effects on ocean wildlife and carbon cycles.

MD: Is there any specific part of your research that you are excited about or find really important?

LM: I’m writing a chapter about the Thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic Ocean for a book. Thermohaline circulations are the current natural water flow patterns which transport heat through the oceans. Currently, we have warming flows in the Atlantic coming up from the tropics upwards past North America to the poles. When the warm water reaches the poles, it releases warmth into the air and cools, becoming denser and sinks. This creates an overturning circulation where cooling water also travels the same general path as the warm water in the opposite direction. This circulation brings heat to Eastern North America and Western Europe. If the Greenland ice sheet melts, which is what is happening right now, the circulation would slow down and eventually stop entirely. Those areas I just mentioned which are being warmed by the circulation would then become much colder, but it would not contribute to the overall average temperature of the Earth. This circulation has not always existed, and when it did not, the oceans were five degrees colder than today.

Pollinators & honey bees

During the winter of 2008, 60 per cent of honey bee hives were lost to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) – and the scariest part is that we still don’t know exactly why it’s happening. Many factors are believed combine to contribute to CCD, climate change being one of them. Honey bees are not the only species experiencing this – wild bumblebees are also being decimated for unknown reasons. Honey bees are not only necessary for human food security and large-scale agriculture, they’re also essential for the vast majority of plant life, providing us with breathable oxygen and food for herbivores and omnivores.

To compound an already-dire situation, many entomologists and plant scientists are predicting that increased global temperatures will alter the timing of environmental cues for both pollination and flowering. An offset synchronization could spell disaster for non-insect pollinators like hummingbirds, who also depend on precise timing to migrate and feed in particular areas.

Christopher Buddle is an entomologist in the Faculty of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill’s MacDonald campus and is also the Associate Dean of Student Affairs. His research focuses on community ecology, food webs, and biodiversity of arthropods in the Arctic.

MD: Multiple factors, including climate change, are believed to provoke CCD. Has any other pollinator acted this way in the past or in the present? How serious is the situation going forward into the next decade?

Christopher Buddle (CB): Indeed, my understanding is that multiple factors are implicated. […] To me, there needs to be more focus on the conservation of wild bees, and attention to preservation of habitats that these species need is critically important to pollination. It’s hard to predict the next decades, but I will state that conservation of insects needs to be a higher priority, notably for species that are involved in key ecosystem services: pollinators, but also (for example) species that are important predators for pest species.

MD: Is it possible that, because of climate change, plants could start to flower out of sync with some of their pollinators? Is there any evidence from past natural warmings or coolings of the planet that pollinators are well-suited to adapt to these changes in cues?

CB: I can’t speak on time scales of thousands of years; however, we can look to shorter-term changes in response to changing climates. […] There is a study published this year that describes temporal overlap between plant flowering and pollination are shrinking in the Arctic as it warms. This work points to the need for careful ecological monitoring in our most fragile ecosystems so that we can properly assess thresholds of change, and implications for critical ecosystem functions.

MD: Insects make up the majority of terrestrial biomass and biodiversity of the planet. What would happen, were insects to lose an immense amount of their biodiversity through a mass extinction event?

CB: To put it bluntly: arthropods (insects, spiders and their relatives) are critical to our very survival, and mass extinction would mean collapse of critical ecosystem functions upon which we depend. Now, that being said, arthropods have been around for millions of years, and are highly adaptable, so I don’t predict ‘mass extinctions’ as much as I might predict a homogenization of the fauna (e.g., increases in invasive/introduced species at the expense of native fauna), or major shifts in distributions of some species. This has obvious implications for us in the realm of human health and wellbeing, and pointing to insects as vectors of disease is one of many examples.

Ecology and biodiversity loss

Many wildlife population ecologists believe that we have now entered the sixth mass extinction event on planet Earth. A new study from Stanford has found that species are going extinct as quickly now as they were when most dinosaurs died out, 66 million years ago.

The biggest culprits are land clearing and habitat fragmentation for agriculture and urban expansion, introduction of invasive species, ocean acidification, and chemical toxins that are poisoning ecosystems and waterways. Many of the mammal species under threat, like gorillas, elephants, rhinos, tigers, wolves, and bears, are “keystone species.” Removing keystone species will create chain reactions known as extinction cascades, resulting in the extinction of other species.

Andrew Gonzalez is a professor in the Department of Biology and is the Canada Research Chair and the Director of the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science. His research focuses on ecosystem ecology and specializes in causes and impacts of biodiversity loss.

MD: What areas of the world do you think will have the hardest time combating loss of biodiversity and extinction cascades?

Andrew Gonzalez (AG): Threats to biodiversity, such as climate change or habitat loss, are not evenly distributed across the world. Some places are experiencing faster rates of warming or more extreme weather events (fluctuations) than others. Similarly, some parts of the world are experiencing very high rates of habitat loss. Those locations where multiple threats exist simultaneously will have the hardest time combating the loss of biodiversity. Areas most at risk include the tropics, especially South America and Central Africa where rates of habitat loss have been high. […] Species inhabiting highly human-transformed landscapes often have little remaining habitat and so habitat fragmentation affects their ability to move from habitat to habitat to evade threats and shift their ranges poleward under climate change. It seems that many northern species may be struggling to shift their ranges northward (see recent example [of] bumblebees in Canada).

The bottom line is that the threats occur worldwide and they vary in their form and intensity. Biodiversity is expected to change dramatically over the coming century both because of extinctions and the human-caused introductions of exotic species. Combating species loss requires urgent action, whilst we still have a window of opportunity. This must involve curbing climate change, but also mitigating the impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation. It is the cocktail of threats that is deadliest.

MD: Studies are concluding that the rate of extinction worldwide is close to the rate of extinction faced by the dinosaurs during the last mass extinction event. Are we essentially entering the sixth mass extinction event?

AG: Estimates of global rates of species extinction are indeed ten to a hundred times the ‘normal’ background rate observed in the fossil record. These elevated rates are consistent with a mass extinction event, but we have not yet lost the number of species consistent with past mass extinctions in which over 60 per cent of species went extinct. Since 1600, an estimated 906 species have gone extinct globally […] which is roughly 0.01 per cent, assuming ten million species on Earth (note we don’t know exactly how many species there are on Earth). We talk of a sixth mass extinction because if currently high rates of extinction continue for the next few centuries then we will reach those very high levels of species extinction seen in past mass extinction events. Conservation biologists are calling for action now to curb these extinction rates. We have a window of opportunity before climate change compounds the negative impacts of other human causes of extinction.

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