Six Degrees by Mark Lynas was an impactful book that we were assigned to read for class. In our discussion of the book, it was quite depressing. I was apart of the group for the 6th degree, and while reading the chapter I was honestly expecting it to be a lot more dramatic. Don’t get me wrong, that chapter was pretty upsetting, but it was mostly just talking about how there would be nothing left. Once we actually came together as a group though, I realized why my chapter was not as impactful as I imagined it would be. There was so much buildup from the other chapters that once we got to the 6 degrees, it made sense why there was a lack of substance. It started with the first degree, talking about the loss of the golden toad from Costa Rica. It is disheartening to realize that we have already started losing awesome species from climate change. As we continued our discussion, things only got worse and more depressing. There will be worse climate disasters that will destroy homes, lives, and towns. This will be especially prevalent for costal areas, since they will have these effects combined with rising sea levels from the ice caps melting. The tropics will start to dry up and desertification will start spreading. The migration of people will have a large toll on cities that cannot sustain the large amount of life in the shrinking habitable areas. The lack of resources like safe drinking water and food will put a strain on government who will no longer be able to provide for their citizens. This could further cause conflict between governments, who will end up fighting over the last bits of resources. And I think we can all realize that once we reach this state, the last thing we need to be worrying about as a society is wars between countries. It is hard to think about how humans will adapt when we face these challenges, and if we will be able to evolve on such a small timescale. This is something that was talked about more in the 6th degree chapter. It focused a lot on talking about the Cretaceous Period, where the Earth faced the largest mass extinction. During this period, it is estimated that around 95 percent of species were lost. That is the closest estimate to what we could experience from this amount of warming. My chapter described how it talked about how the Hydrogen Sulfide will work as a silent killer, starting with costal residents and moving inland, slowly suffocating people. And then it described how the people who survive this will then have to endure being penetrated by the sun rays that will cause cell mutations and outbreaks of cancer in the population. It is difficult to imagine this future, and I think that was shared among everyone in the class. No one wants to envision a future where there is no biodiversity, habitat loss, and extreme suffering.
La Foresta Nature Resort was our last bit of luxury before returning to the biological stations. This place was really nice, and it was so refreshing to stay somewhere with air conditioning and a full-size bed. However, we did get caught in a storm which started to destroy the roof in the dining area, and we had to leave dinner early. Although my room was not affected, some of my fellow classmates had to evacuate their rooms due to flooding. Afterwards we discussed it as a class, and it was reminiscent of climate change itself. It kind of showed how the effects of climate change are not going to be distributed equally. There will be some people that experience the effects of climate change much worse than other people. And it is example of the fact that we are already starting to experience more frequent weather disasters due to climate change. There has been a fivefold increase in the last 50 years, with climate and water disasters accounting for 50% of all disasters from 1970-2019 (World Meteorological Organization, 2021). I feel like most people do not realize that the recent disasters are related to climate change. On page 260 of the book Dire Predictions we read, it discusses the lack of equity in climate change, and explains that it may even work in a “reverse Robin Hood” fashion (Mann & Kump, 2015). This means that the poorer nations (like developing tropical countries) are going to face the worst impacts from climate change, while places like North America and Europe will not face these same consequences. The tropics will face intense weather disasters like flooding more often and at worse levels, which will harm these people that do not always have the proper infrastructure to deal with such. This was apparent at La Foresta, which was mild compared to what we may see in the future. It made me sad to learn that the workers said they were worried about how well their homes were going to make it through the storm. It also helped me realize how fortunate I am to live in an area that has less of a concern of this. (Although I will acknowledge that a day after I originally wrote this, my parents texted me about how our shed got blown away due extreme winds in my hometown which have never really happened before – which is just ironic even though I cannot say that its climate that caused this).
The point I wanted to get out of this is a concept Dr. Libby discussed – common but differentiated responsibilities. This means that the entirety of our world has the same goal of combatting climate change, but we do not share the same responsibility for how much we need to help – since not all of us put the same impact on the Earth. We have to hold developed nations responsible for the damage they are doing. The largest carbon emitters like the US need to take the most action when it comes to combatting climate change, instead of focusing on others to take on this responsibility. It is important for corporations and the government to take large scale actions, but also us as individuals can take action too. Things as simple as using less air conditioning or energy at home can be small steps for any person to take. But on a larger scale, people can do things like consuming less meat, committing to driving less (or using public transport), and even working to make the energy in your home more efficient (like installing solar panels if you are able to). There are steps that we can take as individuals to help our planet! If interested, you can even calculate your own carbon footprint and see how your current practices may or may not be sustainable for the future.
https://www.footprintcalculator.org/home/en
Lynas, M. (2009). Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. Fourth Estate.
Mann, M. E; Kump, L. R. (2015). Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming. Pearson.
Weather-related disasters increase over past 50 years, causing more damage but fewer deaths. World
Meteorological Organization. (2021, September 9).
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