Cool Kids For A Cool Climate

 

Climate Change: the world can’t wait (written in 2001)
by Paul Hudson (BBC Look North weatherman)

Paul Hudson & Sarah

Climate Change is a term we have all heard, but very few of us seem to take note of the severity the situation behind the term brings with it.

As the weatherman for BBC Look North, I have access to weather statistics that give me the proof I need to tell you that global climate change is the single biggest environmental threat facing the planet and our everyday lives in the UK today. There is much that can be done to stop catastrophic climate change, but decisive action is needed not only from governments and industry, but from every single one of us NOW.

In the UK, one quarter of all carbon dioxide – the most important climate change gas – comes from the electricity, coal, oil and gas we use to run our homes. £6.5 billion worth of energy is wasted annually in the UK and tonnes of carbon dioxide are needlessly pumped into the atmosphere as a result. This waste is polluting the environment and slowly destroying it for our children and our children’s children.

Over the past decade abnormal weather conditions have made headline news in many parts of the world. Storms of unusual ferocity, prolonged periods of drought and devastating floods all provide strong evidence that climate change is underway. Yet most of us fail to take any real notice until something happens to affect our own lives. This time there is no escaping the fact that there is a serious problem – climate change is taking its toll in our own backyards.

The climate on our shores is getting wetter – there’s no doubt about it. It’s a myth (and one that needs to be dismissed) that climate is going to transform our country into a tropical winegrower’s paradise. The truth is the exact opposite – in fact I’ve been shocked by the number of freak weather occurrences I have had to report in forecasts over recent years.

Last year York experienced its worst flooding for over 400 years and it was, for me, one of the most memorable examples of the way extreme weather affected our country as a whole last year. In November, the River Ouse was 10 metres above normal levels – the highest it had been for over 376 years, and levels in June were the highest ever recorded in that month. For both of these to happen within a year is extraordinary and ominous.

Rainy days are certainly no longer exclusive to bank holidays, Wimbledon Tennis or the summer music festivals. They are spread across the year and we are breaking all past records.

Last year’s Met Office figures show the most rainfall measured in England and Wales since 1872. Autumn stands out as being particularly damp – the wettest season since records began over 270 years ago. Indeed, the number of records broken in 2000 when it came to rainfall was actually a record in itself!

But don’t just take my word for it. Climate Change 2001, published in July, is the third report into the science of climate change to be produced by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Coming five years on from its predecessor, the report delivers an apocalyptic warning about the problems our climate is facing. In fact the report reveals that the problem is worse than we had previously thought. Scientists have now concluded that the world’s average temperature will rise by up to 6°C by 2100 – faster than originally thought – with sea levels rising by an average of up to 88 centimetres. In high latitudes, such as Europe, the temperature increase is likely to be even higher.

Water supplies, agriculture, human health, wildlife, coastal cities, towns and villages and even whole national economies are all likely to be knocked off balance by climate change, the report predicts. Billions of people will be affected directly and although some societies may be able to adapt, poor developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific have a grim future to look forward to.
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