Here we look at; The History Of Mankind; Why Global Heating Matters; Mass Extinctions; The World We Know; Solutions To Sustain Life On Earth. This is part of our series on Living Sustainably.
When I left the security of a full time job and salary to do my bit to reverse climate change and global heating I heard the comment “the planet hasn’t let us down yet”.
When I said to someone close to me that I’m minimising my life by only having what is essential or meaningful, it caused a huge amount of conflict, even though I wasn’t saying how they should live their life, just how I want to live mine.
Climate change and global heating are extremely difficult subjects.
Maybe it’s because people are scared. Maybe it’s because change can seem hard. Maybe it’s because people haven’t done lots of research. Maybe it’s because people are living for themselves. Maybe it’s because there is so much information out there that it’s difficult to know what to do about such a huge topic.
After all, we’re talking about the future of ourselves, our children, and humanity.
I’ll admit that I often feel overwhelmed or frustrated or angry.
It’s why I started Nafford Junction to try and inspire others to grow, live, and eat sustainably by combining all the best information from across the internet with my own experiences at home and work to give everybody a central place to learn the reasons for climate change and global heating, and the solutions to reverse it.
But, I’m just one person, with a bit of experience, trying to do what I feel are the right things to reduce my impact on the planet for the benefit of future generations.
What if there was somebody that had lived their entire life watching, studying, and researching the natural world. Somebody that has experienced the effects of climate change and global heating, first hand.
Well, that person does exist. Somebody that has observed the World. Seen the problems. And is giving us their solutions.
That person is David Attenborough, in his documentary, A life On Our Planet.
It’s the documentary that inspired me to create this piece.
Some of what I quote is taken directly from the documentary whilst the rest comes from Bloomberg or the UN or the BBC or the WWF and many others, as well as my own opinions. I’ve included all sources at the end.
Let’s Start With The History Of Mankind
The documentary included an excellent timeline that did a great job of painting a picture of the growth of our population, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, and the amount of land that has been cleared or deforested, in a very short space of time.
Here’s the timeline:
1937:
- 2.3 billion World population
- 280 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere
- 66% remaining wilderness
1954:
- 2.7 billion World population
- 310 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere
- 64% remaining wilderness
1960:
- 3 billion World population
- 315 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere
- 62% remaining wilderness
1978:
- 4.3 billion World population
- 335 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere
- 55% remaining wilderness
1997:
- 5.9 billion World population
- 360 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere
- 46% remaining wilderness
2020:
- 7.8 billion World population
- 415 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere
- 35% remaining wilderness
On current predictions there will be 11 billion of us by the year 2100. Unless something changes…
Why Is CO2 Important?
Now, we all know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It’s not the only greenhouse gas. But it’s a major contributor to global heating because CO2, and other greenhouse gases, stop heat from escaping into space.
When people talk about CO2, you will also hear ‘parts per million’ or ‘ppm’ quoted as a way to explain the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
As of July 2021, there’s 415 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere.
How Can We Know That Global Heating Is Actually Happening?
This is an important point we should cover now.
Global heating is a fact. It’s actually a legally recognised fact, or at least that’s how I see it because of the Paris Agreement that was signed by 196 parties at COP 21 in Paris on 12th December 2015.
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. The goal of the agreement is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
Those numbers may sound small but when we talk about global heating and average temperatures, 1.5 to 2 degrees is a big increase.
Science shows that a temperature rise of 2 degrees, rather than 1.5, would affect hundreds of millions more people. Twice as many plant, and three times as many insect species will lose vast swathes of their habitat.
To put 1.5 and 2 degrees into context:
Imagine the World’s oceans.
With a temperature rise of 1.5 degrees, by 2100 there could be a sea level rise of 40cm, which could become 1.5 metres by 2300.
With a temperature rise of 2 degrees, there could be a sea level rise of 50cm, which could become 2.7 metres by 2300.
Imagine how much water it takes to raise sea levels by 40cm, 50cm, 1.5 metres, or 2.7 metres. Imagine the amount of energy needed to heat all that water.
And, when we talk about limiting global heating to 1.5 or 2 degrees, we’re not starting in 2021.
The Paris Agreement goal is an increase of well below 2, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
We’re already only 0.3 degrees away from the preferable goal of 1.5 degrees.
And, the temperature rise is very unevenly distributed around the planet. Some parts are warming up much more than others.
That’s why it’s critical for us all to do our bit, now. That’s why this decade is so important. To avoid the point of no return.
Why Does Global Heating Matter?
Global heating matters because all life on Earth is connected.
The loss of one species or some coral might seem insignificant but life on our planet has developed in an intricate way where one species is dependent on another.
When there’s a collapse of one species then the natural cycle also collapses.
- The predator eats the prey
- The prey eats the plants
- The plants produce the oxygen
- All dependent on the other
- All creating a perfect place to live
That’s why planet Earth is called the goldilocks planet: not too hot, not too cold, just right. Everything in balance. Nothing wasted. Everything recycled.
But that changed when humans started agriculture around 10,000 years ago then released huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere in the last 200 years, starting from the industrial revolution, as well as creating products and waste that can’t easily be recycled.
Mass Extinctions And Greenhouses Gases
There have been five mass extinctions in Earth’s history. The last one was the end of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.
75% of all species were wiped out. Wiped out because of climate change and global heating.
CO2 from volcanoes. Sulphur that was stored underground and released when an asteroid hit what is now the Gulf of Mexico. Creating challenging conditions on Earth where the majority of plants and animals could not live.
This is another good reminder that everything on Earth is connected. It’s not nature that draws boundaries. It’s people.
Now, if you’re in climate denial, you might be thinking that if climate change has happened in the past, without people, why is it our fault now.
The difference between previous mass extinctions and now is that it took up to 1 million years for volcanoes to release enough CO2 to heat up the planet beyond livable conditions.
We’ve released a similar amount of CO2 in just 200 years… Something that took nature 1 million years, has been done by humans in 200.
Since the last mass extinction, life has been reconstructing to give us the World we know today.
The World We Know
For the last 10,000 years, a time called the Holocene, we’ve lived through one of the most stable periods in Earth’s history.
Temperatures had not changed by more than 1 degree Celsius. This stability came through a rich and thriving diversity of life.
Trees locking away carbon.
Phytoplankton, Diatoms, and other organisms making up the sea food web, supporting sea life, capturing CO2 and producing at least half of Earth’s oxygen.
Great herds of animals grazing, fertilising the soil, then being moved on regularly by natural predators, giving plants the time to regrow and store carbon and nutrients in the soil, before those same animals repeat the cycle again, such as the more than 30 million bison that were in North America when the first European settlers arrived.
Mangroves and coral reefs harbouring nurseries of fish that migrate into open waters, supplying food for larger sea life.
Tropical rainforests capturing energy from the sun, regulating moisture and oxygen to the global air currents.
Rivers carrying nutrients into the seas and oceans, feeding the Phytoplankton that are needed to sustain the sea food web and produce the oxygen that we rely on to breathe.
Polar ice caps reflecting sunlight, helping to cool the Earth.
Because of the stability of the natural world we learnt how to farm and exploit food crops.
Then We Started Taking Too Much
Every species on Earth, other than humans, reaches a maximum over time based on the amount that can be sustained on the natural resources available. There has been nothing to restrict humans.
The recent history of mankind includes many examples of taking and taking and taking, until nothing is left.
There are plenty of documentaries about communities, towns, and villages that were built because of mining or fishing or hunting that are now ghost towns because everything was taken without any thought for what would happen when there’s nothing left.
There are too many examples to list here so let’s cover the ones that David Attenborough talks about in his documentary.
Let’s Start With Forests
We cut down over 50 billion trees each year. In total, we’ve cut down around 3 trillion trees across the World.
In just 10 years, half of the rainforest in Borneo was cut down. Half of the World’s rainforests have been cleared. A lot of the rainforests have been cleared to make space for monocultures like oil palm.
By purchasing products that use sustainably sourced ingredients we can be part of reversing climate change.
These new plantations are dead in comparison to the original rainforests and areas of biodiversity.
My feeling is that it’s not as simple as accusing developing countries. Sometimes it is just pure greed. Sometimes it’s just people, trying to make a living, trying to survive. Doing what we in developed countries have done in the past.
Developed countries should be paying enough money to stop and reverse deforestation, paying enough money for the valuable carbon that is captured and stored, and the oxygen that is produced. Paying enough money for developing countries to regenerate then preserve the valuable natural resources that we all rely on. Paying enough money so that clearing forests is uneconomical.
Now Let’s Look At The Land
Wild animal populations have more than halved since the 1950s.
1/2 of the fertile land on Earth is farmland, which is why industrialised farming with artificial fertilisers, dangerous chemicals, intensive ploughing, and grain fed intensively farmed livestock has such a negative impact on climate change and global heating.
And Finally The Seas And Oceans
Fishing fleets have removed 90% of all the large fish in the sea. We’ve overfished 30% of fish stocks to critical levels. We’ve reduced the size of freshwater populations by 80%.
Think back to those amazing Phytoplankton. They’re amazing when there’s balance, when there are predators to control numbers. But when there are too many Phytoplankton they can be responsible for ‘algae blooms’, and the associated fish kills, oceanic dead zones, and negative ecological effects.
Another example of the importance of a healthy food web from microorganisms to large animals.
There is a brilliant graphic at Earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Phytoplankton, produced by Illustration © 2010 Gulf of Maine Research Institute that shows the sea food web:
So we’ve done a lot to deplete Earth’s natural resources, in a very short time.
In a previous piece I talked about Why I Left My Job To Help Inspire Sustainability and the fact we’ve been living in a bubble that existed since the 1970s. A bubble where we’ve been getting on with living and not appreciating the gravity of the warnings about climate change and global heating.
That may be because the climate seemed stable until the 1990s but that was only because the oceans had absorbed a lot of the CO2 that we had released into the atmosphere.
But, the oceans have a limit to the amount of CO2 they can absorb because CO2 increases the acidity of water. In the 200-plus years since the industrial revolution began, surface ocean waters have become approximately 30% more acidic.
If you’ve ever kept fish or tried to grow food, you’ll know that many animals and plants can’t live in an acidic environment.
If you’ve ever tried putting a dirty copper coin into some Coca Cola (or any fizzy drink) you’ll know that it comes out clean. It’s the acidity of the CO2 that has eaten the dirt. Imagine trying to live in that environment…
Those are all the reasons why we are where we are, the causes, the problems. However, I started Nafford Junction to be positive and inspirational, so…
Here Are Some Solutions
We Need To Restore Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the thing that we’ve removed. We need to rewild the World.
This will remove CO2 from the atmosphere. And store it, long-term, in the soil. It will put CO2 back where it came from.
Restoring biodiversity also makes plants stronger and more resilient.
We Need To Help Raise People Out Of Poverty
This is one way to improve life but also to reduce the burden of a large and growing population. When people are raised out of poverty the birth rate drops.
We can do this by giving everybody good healthcare.
By helping girls to stay in school for longer.
By doing this we can make our population numbers peak sooner and at a lower level. It’s about raising our standard of living without increasing our impact on the World.
We Need To Phase Out Fossil Fuels
Banks and pensions invest in fossil fuels. That has to change.
We, every one of us who is lucky enough to have a bank account, money, savings, or a pension, we personally can change where our money is invested.
You can change to a bank that only uses your money ethically, such as Triodos*.
If you have a pension, you can change to a sustainable fund, such as the fund offered by Standard Life.
If you use gas or electricity, you can switch to a green deal, such as with Together Energy.
By voting with our money we can make banks, individuals, and companies move away from fossil fuels and invest in green and renewable energy.
If we #VoteWithOurMoney we can reverse climate change and global heating.
Energy that will be more affordable. Our cities will be cleaner. Using energy that will never run out.
We Need To Restore And Protect Our Oceans
The living World can’t operate without the oceans.
The more diverse the oceans, the better. The healthier the marine habitat then the more fish there will be. There will be an abundance of fish as long as we fish in the right way.
Palau in the Pacific is one example of an area that has saved fish when they were declining, now they’re thriving. No fish zones have allowed the fishermen to increase their catches.
No fish zones over a third of our coastal seas would be sufficient to provide us with all the fish we ever need.
In international waters the UN is attempting to create the biggest no fish zone of all. This would transform the open ocean from a place exhausted by subsidised fishing fleets to a wilderness that would benefit us all. The World’s greatest wildlife reserve.
We Need To Regenerate The Land
We must radically reduce the area where we farm to allow a return to wilderness. To do this we have to change our diet.
When we over-consume meat we are unwittingly demanding a huge expanse of space. For example, on the Serengeti, for every predator there are 100 prey. The planet can’t support billions of people eating meat, all the time.
If we all had a largely plant-based diet we would need only half the land that we use at the moment.
Livestock that are pasture-fed on Biodynamic and Organic farms that practice holistic planned grazing are still an important part of a healthy and regenerative ecosystem.
What we have to stop is conventional farming with overcrowded animals fed on grain as that not only adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and destroys the soil but also requires huge amounts of land to grow the grain.
Dutch farmers are one example of raising plants and getting the most out of every hectare in an increasingly sustainable way:
- Raising yields tenfold in two generations
- Reducing pesticides
- Reducing fertiliser
- Reducing water
- Emitting less carbon
Despite its size, the Netherlands is now the world’s second largest exporter of food.
We Need To Immediately Stop Deforestation
Forests are an absolutely critical part of our planet’s recovery. They are the best technology nature has for locking away carbon. They are incredible for biodiversity. The wilder and more diverse they are, the better they are at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.
We must only grow things like oil palm and soya in areas that have previously been deforested long ago.
Over a century ago, three quarters of Costa Rica used to be forest. By the 1980s, unregulated logging reduced it to one quarter. The government offered grants to landowners to replant native trees. In just 25 years the forest has returned to cover half of Costa Rica!
Imagine if we could do this on a global scale. The return of the trees would absorb 2/3 of the carbon that’s been pumped into the atmosphere by our activities to date.
Some Final Words From The Documentary
Nature is our biggest ally and our greatest inspiration. We just have to do what nature has always done.
We have to stop simply growing. We have to find a balance with nature, as part of nature, to start to thrive. We need to move from being apart from nature to being a part of nature once again.
Think of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 where the nuclear power station exploded. 30 years since the evacuation of Chernobyl, the wild has reclaimed the space. The forest has taken over the city. It’s a sanctuary for wild animals that are very rare elsewhere.
The planet will survive with or without us. It’s ourselves that won’t be able to cope.
HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO
- Share this with others
- Talk to your friends and colleagues
- Watch A Life On Our Planet with David Attenborough at attenboroughfilm.com
- Start noticing what you buy, consume, and waste
- Read the label on the products you buy. Are they sustainable, healthy?
- Be inspired. Know that we can reverse climate change if we do something about it
Where Next?
There is so much inspiring information to give you ideas of how to help climate change by growing, eating, and living sustainably, you can:
- Read Our Articles
- Sign-Up to Our Free Email Newsletter
- Get Started and Vote with Your Money
- Try the Sustainability Roadmap
- Use the Company Directory
- Support Nafford Junction
Help Us Inspire Others
If you are passionate about helping climate change, please consider supporting Nafford Junction, you can:
- Become a Patron to Give Regular Contributions
- Buy Me a Coffee to Make a One-Off Contribution
- Create for Us and Publish Thought Provoking Content
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- Go to NaffordJunction.co.uk/support
SOURCES USED TO CREATE THIS
- Why 350? | mn350.org
- This Is How Much Carbon Dioxide Is in Earth’s Atmosphere | bloomberg.com
- UNFCCC The Paris Agreement | unfccc.int
- One Strange Rock: There’s No Place Like Home | onestrangerock.com
- The great American bison | pbs.org
- The Air You’re Breathing? A Diatom Made That | livescience.com
- Dinosaur asteroid’s trajectory was ‘perfect storm’ | bbc.co.uk
- Global Warming Caused by Volcanoes Helped Kill the Dinosaurs | nationalgeographic.com
- How much oxygen comes from the ocean? (NOAA) | oceanservice.noaa.gov
- 8 things to know about palm oil | wwf.org.uk
- What Role Do Plankton Play in the Oxygen Cycle? | greentumble.com
- What are Phytoplankton? | Earthobservatory.nasa.gov
- Why I Left My Job To Help Inspire Sustainability | naffordjunction.co.uk
- Carbon Dioxide and Carbonic Acid | ion.chem.usu.edu
- Ocean acidification | noaa.gov
- Ethical banking* | Triodos Bank
- Sustainable Investing | Standard Life
- Green Energy | Together Energy
- What Would a Global Warming Increase of 1.5 Degrees Be Like? | e360.yale.edu
- Speech: Pick the planet | gov.uk
- The State of the Global Climate 2020 | World Meteorological Organization | public.wmo.int
Production Notes
This was produced by me, James Walters, as a personal project to help stop climate change by inspiring others to grow, eat, and live sustainably.
Any advice given is the opinion of those involved and does not constitute medical, financial, or legal advice.
* We include links we think you will find useful. If you buy through those links, we may earn a small commission. It’s one way to support our work and to inspire as many people as possible.