Extract from The Guardian
Scorched earth … wildfire smoke fills the sky in Quebec on 18 July as nearly 900 wildfires burn across Canada in its worst fire season on record.
‘I am stunned by the ferocity’
What is playing out all over the world right now is entirely consistent with what scientists expect. No one wants to be right about this. But if I’m honest, I am stunned by the ferocity of the impacts we are currently experiencing. I am really dreading the devastation I know this El Niño will bring. As the situation deteriorates, it makes me wonder how I can be most helpful at a time like this. Do I keep trying to pursue my research career or devote even more of my time to warning the public? The pressure and anxiety of working through an escalating crisis is taking its toll on many of us.
Dr Joëlle Gergis, senior lecturer in climate science Fenner School of Environment and Society, associate investigator ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes at the Australian National University.
‘Even 1.2C of global warming isn’t safe’
We knew by the mid-1990s that lurking in the tails of our climate model projections were monsters: monstrous heatwaves, catastrophic extreme rainfall and floods, subcontinental-scale wildfires, rapid ice sheet collapse raising sea level metres within a century. We knew – just like we know gravity – that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef could be one of the earliest victims of uncontained global warming.
But as today’s monstrous, deadly heatwaves overtake large parts of Asia, Europe and North America with temperatures the likes of which we have never experienced, we find even 1.2C of global warming isn’t safe.
Driving all this is the fossil fuel industry. Enabling it are political leaders unwilling to bring this industry under control and who promote policies such as offsetting and massive gas expansion that simply enable this industry to continue.
Bill Hare, physicist and climate scientist and chief executive of Climate Analytics
It’s as if the human race has received a terminal medical diagnosis and knows there is a cure, but has consciously decided not to save itself.
‘What other choice do we have?’
This is what climate change looks like now. And this is what climate change looks like in the future, though it will likely continue to get worse.
I don’t know how many more warnings the world needs. It’s as if the human race has received a terminal medical diagnosis and knows there is a cure, but has consciously decided not to save itself.
But those of us who understand, and who care, just have to keep trying – after all, what other choice do we have?
Prof Lesley Hughes, distinguished professor of biology at Macquarie University is a former federal climate commissioner and former lead author in the IPCC’s 4th and 5th assessment report
‘History will judge them very harshly’
I still recall reading the 1985 Villach conference report, alerting the scientific community to the possible link between greenhouse gas production and climate change. In 1988, I directed the Australian Commission for the Future and worked with CSIRO’s Graeme Pearman on Greenhouse ‘88, a program to draw public attention to what the science was showing.
Now all the projected changes are happening, so I reflect on how much needless environmental damage and human suffering will result from the work of those politicians, business leaders and public figures who have prevented concerted action. History will judge them very harshly.
Prof Ian Lowe, emeritus professor in the School of Science at Griffith University and president of the Australian Conservation Foundation
‘Only time will tell’
While we’ve been saying for decades now that this is what to expect, it’s still very confronting to see these climate extremes play out with such ferocity and with such global reach. It’s going to be Australia’s turn this summer, no doubt about it.
It makes me feel deeply frustrated to watch the slow pace of policy action – it’s bewildering to see new fossil fuel extraction projects still getting the go-ahead here in Australia. And with this comes deep resentment for those who have lobbied for ongoing fossil fuel use despite the clear climate physics that have been known about for almost half a century.
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself wondering is this finally going to be the year when any doubts about the climate change crisis are blown away by a spate of costly climate extremes. That could be one benefit of 2023 being off the charts like this. Only time will tell.
Prof Matthew England, scientia professor and deputy director of the ARC Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS), University of New South Wales
‘What we are living through now is just the beginning’
I spent the last four weeks at a German research institute in the middle of the current heatwave. Travelling to my hometown, Berlin, on weekends to see my elderly and sick dad, trying to keep him cool in his city flat and convincing him that drinking water might be a good idea (not always successfully). I also bragged to colleagues and friends complaining about the heat, “This is nothing; try to live through a heatwave in Australia!” Australia is great for bragging. There are always bigger, more extreme and more venomous examples down under.I felt a mild scientific curiosity to see materialise what we have been forecasting for years.
Was I surprised by this heatwave? Of course I was not. If anything I felt a mild scientific curiosity to see materialise what we have been forecasting for years. I also felt sad. We know that what we are living through now is just the beginning of much worse conditions to come. What this will do to our ecosystems, water availability, human health, infrastructure and supply chains? We know the answer. But I can also see signs of change. More than once, I was almost run over by a bike; I was not used to the busy bike lanes in Germany. I also spent many hours on trains and saw a real change in the landscape flying by. I travelled through large solar and windfarms and I listened in on conversations between co-travellers, which more often than not revolved around climate change. In one of them someone mentioned that all these sunny countries, like Australia, are likely 100% on renewable energy by now. I smiled silently; there are still some things we cannot brag about in Australia (yet).
Prof Katrin Meissner, director of the Climate Change Research Centre, University of NSW
‘This should cause us concern’
Worryingly, it is clear that future extremes will again break records and cause even greater damage. In particular, this is because the damage in many cases is nonlinear – it rises more and more quickly for each increment of climate change. This should cause us concern. It rationally should cause us to step back and assess what is in our economic, social and environmental interests. The IPCC has done this and the assessment is clear: it is in our interest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions rapidly, substantially and in a sustained way.
It is also in our interest to put in place large and integrated programs for climate adaptation to deal with the climate change impacts we can’t avoid. Taking action to reduce emissions and to adapt to climate change will give us hope. Do we really want the alternative?
Professor Mark Howden, director of the Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University
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