Transcript climate change - International Presentation Association

CLIMATE CHANGE
and
Our Responsibility
To Sustain God’s Earth
How this presentation came about …
In November 2005 I was given the opportunity to attend a
conference in Canberra Climate Change – our responsibility to
protect God’s Earth.
The conference was organised by Catholic Earthcare Australia, the
national ecological agency of the Australian Catholic Bishops
mandated to promote the ‘ecological conversion’ called for by Pope
John Paul II.
It is not possible to recall/record everything that one hears at a
conference! The following presentation is my attempt to share with
others what I found compelling. It includes updates as I continue to
read in this area of Climate Change.
Annette Shears pbvm
REFLECTION
on
God’s Earth
PSALM 104
adapted
Praise the Lord, my soul
My God, how great you are
You are clothed with majesty
and light
You have spread out
the heavens
like a tent
You use the clouds
as your chariot
and ride on the wings
of the wind
You placed the ocean
over the earth
like a robe
You make springs flow
in the valleys
And rivers run
between the hills
They provide water for the wild animals
In the trees nearby
the birds
make their nests
and sing
From the sky
you send rain
on the hills
and the earth is
filled with your
blessings
You make grass grow
for the cattle
and plants
for us to use
So that we can grow our
crops and produce wine
to make us happy
and olive oil to make us
cheerful
and bread to give us
strength
You created the moon
to mark the months
You made the night
and the darkness
The sun knows the time
to set
There is the ocean, large and wide,
where countless creatures live,
large and small alike
All of them depend on you
to give them food when they need it.
Lord, may your glory last forever
I will sing to the Lord all my life.
As long as I live
I will sing praises to my God
May God be pleased with my song.
Global Warming
What are
some of the changes/effects
that we can see
as a result
of
Global Warming?
A report
commissioned by the Australian Government
points out that some regions are highly vulnerable
to climate change:
• Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef
• The Murray Darling Basin
• SW Western Australia
Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis
Some effects
DUE TO RISING TEMPERATURES:
• Land ice sheets are melting
e.g. Greenland, Polar Ice Caps
• Glaciers are shrinking
Greenland ice sheets are breaking off faster than
previously believed –
in the last 10 years,
twice as fast.
As the ice sheets in the Arctic
recede, polar bears
have difficulty finding food.
• Krill, whale food, is
not as plentiful
Krill, whale food,
is in short supply.
Because of the melting of
the polar ice caps, the
Inuit people, whose whole
livelihood depends on the
environment and the
cycle of change in the
Arctic region, are losing
their habitat, food source,
way of life, culture.
Sea levels are rising
(Bangladesh marked above)
A 1 metre rise in sea level
would flood rice fields
in Bangladesh, Vietnam,
Thailand, India and China,
and force many millions from
their homes.
Loss of land, crops, freshwater
supplies in Pacific Island States
e.g. Tuvalu, Kiribati, Marshall
Islands, the Carterets in PNG,
Bangladesh
People have had to relocate,
leaving whole islands empty
and, in the process of
relocating, losing their culture.
NZ has agreed to accept climate
change refugees from Tuvalu.
Canada is funding relocation of parts
of Vanuatu.
Australia has so far refused to accept
any residents from Tuvalu who
appealed for relocation.
Other effects of global warming:
Increase in water temperature
in areas where hurricanes form
is already resulting
in more intense
and more devastating hurricanes
e.g. Hurricane Katerina that devastated
New Orleans in 2005.
Areas affected by the
Tsunami experienced
greater damage and loss
in places where mangroves
had been removed.
Monsoons failing –
some areas in Thailand
can no longer grow rice.
The Australian Scene
SPECIES EXTINCTION
We could be facing
20 to 50% of species
becoming extinct
over this century.
Shearwaters on Heron
Island have to fly too far to
find food for their young.
When the temperature
rises, the amount of food the
birds bring back goes down.
As the heat affects the
plankton, the schools of
small fish thin out.
The tipping point of water
temperature is 29o and the
margins of survival are only
1 or 2 degrees.
Mountain Nursery Frog
Mt Lewis, North Queensland
(Picture is from clipart – it is not the actual
Mountain Nursery Frog)
At 1200m, the forest is
shrouded in mist. It is moist
enough for the frogs to lay
eggs on leaves. As the
forest warms, the mist goes
further up the mountain,
so the frog’s habitat gets
higher up. Eventually,
there will be no part high
enough for the frogs to go
as the mist will be above
the mountain, not over it.
Mountain Pygmy Possum
Snowy Mountains
When the snow falls
on the boulders,
it creates a blanket
like a doona
that keeps the hibernating
possums
warm underneath.
(Picture is from clipart,
it is not the actual possom)
If the snow melts too frequently during the winter,
or melts early in the spring,
the possums lose their insulating environment.
They wake up and use up their own body fat –
and then there is no food to find.
With 1o rise in annual average temperature,
the snowline will creep
almost to the top of the mountain.
If the Mountain Pygmy Possum
loses its environment,
it will become extinct.
The Earth’s Rainforests
The loss of the rainforests
has a great effect
on Global Warming
AND
encapsulates
many other ecological issues.
Effects of Loss of Rainforests
Land degradation
Increase in CO² and methane (greenhouse
gases)
Contributes to the breakdown of the ozone
shield
Changes rainfall patterns
Aids the extinction of species
Aids the destruction of human beings
Loss of biodiversity
will mean
a radical impoverishment
of biological life
and a drastic loss
of the Earth’s capacity
for biological adaptivity.
Effects on Health
• Increased incidence of infectious diseases
and their movement into ‘new’ regions
e.g. malaria in some parts of world,
tick-born encephalitis in Sweden.
• Older persons are susceptible to thermal stress.
One effect is increase in deaths due to heat
e.g. in Paris in recent years.
Prof Tony McMichael
What causes Global Warming?
What causes global warming?
Effects
of
Solar
Radiation
Composition
of Earth’s Atmosphere
The earth’s
atmosphere
is made up of:
Dividing the 1% on the left into
100 parts gives:
78% Nitrogen
21% Oxygen
1% other gases
76% Carbon Dioxide
13% Methane
6% Nitrous Oxide
5% Fluorocarbons
and small amounts of ‘rare’ gases
Which gases contribute most
to Global Warming?
Carbon Dioxide
Methane
Nitrous Oxide
Fluorocarbons
Major contributors to
high levels
of Carbon Dioxide
in the atmosphere:






Power plants
Cars and trucks
Major Transportation
Factories
Home Heating Systems
Deforestation
Methane Emissions
• during production and
transport of coal, natural
gas and oil
• decomposition of organic
waste
• rice cultivation
• raising livestock (in 1 day,
a cow can emit 250gm
methane – 1.3 billion
cattle burp several
times/minute)
Nitrous Oxide
Emitted during
• Industrial activities
e.g. nitrogen fertilizers
• Automobile exhaust
• Disposing of human
and animal waste in
sewage treatment
plants
Greenhouse gases
are not naturally occurring
and contribute to Global Warming
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
(used in air conditioners and refrigerators - don’t
harm ozone layer BUT trap heat)
Perfluorcarbons (PFCs)
Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)
(generated in a variety of industrial processes)
Australians are the highest emitters of greenhouse gases
in the world.
We are one of the big causes of the problem
yet we have been unwilling to accept the consequences
of our lifestyle.
Climate Change refugees who are suffering as a result of
our lifestyle have been refused entry to Australia by our
Government.
One way our lifestyle worsens the situation:
FOOD
The average food item travels over 2,000 km
to arrive at our table.
If we eat 10 or so items a day, in a year’s time
our food will have conquered 8 million km
by land, sea and air.
Adapted from Small Wonder, Barbara Kingsolver
Picture a truck loaded with apples and oranges and
iceberg lettuce rumbling to the moon and back ten
times a year, all just for you.
Multiply that by the number of Australians who like
to eat – picture that flotilla of 21 million trucks on
their way to the moon and ask yourself the question:
Isn’t it time we revised that scenario?
• The amount of fuel used to transport our food to
where we buy it …
• The effect of the emissions from this fuel as it burns
to propel the vehicle …
This is just ONE contributer to global warming!
Names of Presenters
whose ideas I drew on for this presentation:
• Fr Bill Stoeger SJ – cosmologist and astrophysicist
from the Vatican Observatory and University of
Arizona
• Dr Janette Lindsay – senior lecturer in climatology,
climate variability and change at Australian
National University. She also holds the position of
Education Manager for the Cooperative Research
Centre for Greenhouse Accounting.
• Professor Tony McMichael MBBS (Univ Adelaide), PhD
(Monash Univ), FAFPHM, FTSE – biomedical scientist
and Director of the National Centre for Epidemiology
and Population Health ANU. Tony has recently
coordinated the Assessment of Health Impacts project
for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
• Fr Sean McDonagh SSC – Christian Ecologist, lecturer,
author of many books in the area of religion and the
environment, missionary priest with the Columban
Fathers
• Brendan Mackey – has a PhD in plant ecology from
the Australian National University. He has worked as a
research scientist with the CSIRO and the Canadian
Forest Service.
• Fr Denis Edwards MA Fordham, STD, CUA – senior
lecturer in systematic theology in the School of
Theology of Flinders University. He teaches for Catholic
Theological College within the ecumenical consortium
of the Adelaide College of Divinity.
• Fr Michael Mackenzie – a Catholic priest from the
Pacific Island nation of Kirabati
http://www.catholicearthcareoz.net/conference.html#content
Acknowledgements
Pictures used are from clipart, with the exception of the following
slides:
1,3,6,18 C O’Keeffe pbvm
32-36 c/f ABC TV Catalyst, 25 May 2006, ‘Tipping Point’
50, 51 adapted from Small Wonder, Barbara Kingsolver, SMALL
WONDER New York: HarperCollins Publishers, April 2002,
http://www.kingsolver.com/about/about.asp