I was born in 1948, when the average annual atmospheric CO2 level was about 311 ppm.
When I started writing this column in December 2014, average annual CO2 was 399 ppm. Today, it is 422 ppm.
The impacts of these heightened CO2 levels, as well as increased levels of methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases, are already glaringly obvious.
According to NASA, the global temperature is about 1.2 degrees C above the long-term average from 1951 to 1980, but about 1.4 degrees C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.
Globally, the World Meteorological Organization has reported, 2023 was the hottest year on record.
Copernicus, the European Union’s Earth Observation Programme, reported this week that this summer has been the hottest on record, while the past 13 months have all been ones “in which the global-average surface air temperature exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
The Canadian Climate Institute notes: “Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average, and Canada’s Arctic is warming nearly four times as fast.”
It goes on to note that climate change fuels heatwaves, which make wildfires worse – and that in turn causes increased illness and deaths from heat and smoke pollution.
And it’s only going to get worse. In fact, bizarrely — and unacceptably — the global commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 means that “the official plan for the planet is to keep making climate change worse well into the second half of this century,” as Chris Hatch wrote in his Zero Carbon column in Canada’s National Observer in June.
Yet as a leading climate action organization, 350.org, puts it (while acknowledging Dr. Kimberly Nicholas as the source): “It’s warming. It’s us. We’re sure. It’s bad. We can fix it.”
Fixing it means not only stopping the inexorable rise in CO2 levels (and other greenhouse gases) since the 1950s, but reversing it, bringing CO2 levels down to 350 ppm.
The name 350.org is a direct reference to the assertion by James Hansen — one of the world’s leading atmospheric scientists — and his colleagues in a 2008 paper that “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced … to at most 350 ppm.”
We passed that benchmark in 1988 and seemed destined to reach a disastrous two to three degrees of heating by the end of the century — when most of today’s infants will likely still be alive.
Which is why on Oct. 1 — Canada’s National Seniors Day and the International Day of Older Persons — I will be joining hundreds of seniors in Victoria, and hopefully tens of thousands across Canada, to call for immediate and serious action on climate change that reflects both the immediacy and the severity of the challenge we face.
The event is organised by Seniors for Climate — an alliance of six seniors’ climate organizations — Suzuki Elders, Climate Action for Lifelong Learners (CALL), Grandmothers Act to Save the Planet (GASP), Climate Legacy, Seniors for Climate Action Now! (SCAN) and For Our Grandchildren (4RG) (seniorsforclimate.org).
Their agenda is straightforward, anchored in the theme that we need action on the climate emergency now: “Later is too late.”
They want a stringent cap on emissions, followed by a phasing out of fossil fuels, a halt to the financial sector investing in fossil fuels, which accelerates climate breakdown, and a speeding up of the transition to renewable power and clean energy.
The event is a demonstration of the concern seniors have “about climate breakdown and our desire to rebuild a healthy environment for future generations.”
It is thus a reflection of the growing concern for intergenerational equity that I have been writing about in recent weeks, a concern that will be highlighted next week at the UN Summit of the Future.
The summit will be adopting a Pact for the Future and a Declaration on Future Generations
The Victoria rally is at 2 p.m. on Oct. 1 at the B.C. legislature.
If you care about our children, grandchildren and generations yet unborn, be there to lend your presence and your voice to this vitally important issue.
Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy
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