Nine perspectives on the future of Planet Earth
The biggest difficulty of climate change is that the challenges and choices are complicated. Where’s the simple clear way to look at things that will make the decisions easy? Well, maybe there isn’t just one way to see things, and maybe that’s ok.
Planet Earth is a beautiful, rich and complex system, and it’s also our life support system in space. There are so many facets of our lives and our planet that it’s hard to hold them all in your head at the same time. To chart a course to a more sustainable future, the key is to understand that there are multiple perspectives, multiple points of view, and that they all have a role to play. Each perspective offers different insights into how we live as one species amongst many on our planet.
We (Chris Jackson, Helen Czerski & Tara Shine) have had lots of opportunities to think about this as we prepare our Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for 2020. We all feel that being able to understand multiple complementary perspectives is critical, and so we have each picked three to help you consider our present and our future on Planet Earth.
Tara
Leader of an island nation: Can you imagine having to plan for the relocation of your entire country because sea level rise is making your island home unliveable? This is the reality facing the leaders of small island nations every day. They have to find a country that will host not just a few migrants but a nation of people with their own identity. And leaving home means leaving everything, cultural ties to ancestors, memories and valuable fishing grounds. These leaders have to find the courage to lead with hope despite the threats, adapting to rising waters and increased storminess to stay at home as long as possible. Their countries are responsible for very few of the emissions that cause climate change, yet they are determined to play their part in the global effort to stabilise the climate and to ensure their safety. Their voices are amongst the most urgent calling for action on climate change.
A pair of jeans: Jeans are the most popular item of clothing in the industrialised world. About 70 million pairs are sold in the UK every year – and chances are most of us have more than one pair in our wardrobe. So what have jeans got to do with understanding the planet? Well they impact on several different systems – the water cycle for one. It takes between 2000 and 8000 litres of water to make a pair of jeans – from irrigation and processing to dyeing and washing. The waste water from some factories contaminates rivers and as do the fertilisers used to grow the cotton. And what about the carbon cycle? The carbon footprint of a pair of jeans is approximately 33kg CO2e, equivalent to driving about 80 miles in a car. And surprisingly about 37% of that footprint comes from their use, so washing and drying them! So do yourself and the planet a favour and wash your jeans every 10 wears.
Peat bog: Peat bogs cover just 3 per cent of the Earth’s surface yet they hold one third of the earth’s soil carbon. Peat bogs tend to bring to mind wet damp places of little economic value. That is why we have been draining them for years to use for agriculture or tree planting. We even dig them up to make peat compost for our gardens. Yet this misses the true value of peat. A 50 cm thick layer of peat holds the same amount of carbon per ha as a tropical rainforest. When we drain it, its dries out releasing carbon that has been stored for hundreds or thousands of years into the atmosphere, and this causes climate change. But if we keep peatbogs intact or rewet them and allow them to regenerate, they can hold carbon and peatland plants can start to remove CO2 from the atmosphere again.
Helen
Innovator/inventor: We’re a creative and practical species. The simple phrase “tool use” doesn’t even begin to capture the delight that engineers find in thinking up new solutions to problems. Although climate change is a serious problem, it’s also a fantastic invitation to invention. How about reducing the need to travel by having hologram calls instead of Skype or Zoom? Or harvesting energy from spin studios and installing windows that also act as solar panels? Maybe we could connect the root systems of all the trees in our cities, making both the trees and the cities healthier. We could re-design our towns so they’re built around people instead of cars, and create new shared transport networks that don’t pump out pollution. But perhaps the most fun of all would be to examine the intricate details of our beautiful planet, and engineer ways to make ourselves and our society part of Earth’s system, rather than setting ourselves apart.
Guitar: Covid has made us all examine what really matters in life. For many people, what has emerged is that human relationships are the real treasure, not jewellery or flash cars or the latest phone. The question of what really matters to us is tied right in to the question of our climate – maybe we can have everything we want and need if the priority list is focussed on humans rather than objects. One guitar can bring joy to an individual, to a group, or to a whole arena. But the joy isn’t just in the the guitar itself. The music, the musician’s skill and the delight of sharing the experience with others are the threads that tie us together as humans. In a more sustainable world, maybe we’ll value those threads more consciously, and so guitars, and other objects that bring us together, will become the real prize.
Jellyfish: We are living through a global mass extinction event, as our influence weighs heavily on even the most robust ecosystems. Many species will lose their ecological niche and become a footnote in Earth’s history. But the cycle of life won’t stop turning. Some species will take advantage of the lack of competition and thrive, and it looks as though some of the biggest winners in our oceans will be the jellyfish. Jellyfish can thrive in the warmer waters that kill corals, and humans aren’t interested in eating them so they’re not over-fished. These are opportunists, which will sting and digest anything they can get their tentacles on. They can survive in low-oxygen conditions, especially when their predators have been removed by human activity. Their numbers are already increasing, but an ocean ruled by jellyfish will cause other organisms to suffer. The future may look bright for the jellyfish, but at a high price for everything else.
Chris
Human: For some, 2020 has warped our sense of time. Days feel like weeks, and weeks like months. Comprehending the geological timescale is even more challenging, spanning as it does approximately 4.6 billion years. But comprehend it we must if we are to understand how and why climate has changed on Earth, and how this has impacted life. So, for context, if we converted all of the geological record into a 100 m marathon, all of human life would fit on the width of a single human hair. And it’s during the last few steps of this sprint, during the time we humans have put our indelible mark on the natural record, that we’ve witnessed rises in atmospheric CO2 and global temperature that are almost unparalleled since the Earth formed. Should we be impressed at what we’ve achieved? Or daunted?
Rock: Although commonly viewed as static lumps of rock, it seems odd to call volcanoes inanimate objects; these geological powerhouse can be incredibly dynamic, having been responsible for some of the most dramatic natural events in history. For example, the eruption of Tambora in 1815 led to “The Year Without a Summer” and food shortages in the northern hemisphere. Beyond the bangs, volcanoes are critical to the longer-term regulation of the Earth’s climate by influencing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), a key greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere. The lava and gases they expel are generated deep below them, by the melting of carbon-rich rocks within the Earth’s mantle. This carbon would be trapped, and in fact the Earth may dramatically and dangerously cool, if its volcanoes didn’t continuously act, through gentle puffing or catastrophic bangs, as critical release valves.
Foraminifera: The oceans, a key cog in the Earth Engine, are teeming with life. And it is the large, big-ticket critters that get all the attention, like whales and sharks. But in terms of the climate changes in the geological past, and in our present and future, some of the animals that really matter are almost invisible to the naked eye; foraminifera. These single-celled organisms build shells to protect themselves; these shells are made from calcium carbonate (CaCO3), a key element of which is carbon (C). This carbon is initially sourced from and therefore reduces the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. But life does not last forever, with the really important process happening when foraminifera die; they, along with the carbon in their shells, are buried in the deep oceans beneath layers of sediment, eventually being returned to and trapped within the Earth.