“New Undergraduate B.Sc. Major, Department of Biological Sciences!” reads the bulletin board sign. ‘Applied Coastal Ecology’ is the Major, and we are told that this is your opportunity to do great things: “Deep dive into tackling climate change and protecting our important coastal regions. This program prepares students to purse meaningful careers in coastal management, conservation, and protection.
Much of this sounds great. The management, the conservation, and the protection of the world’s coastal regions is a noble pursuit, and certainly worthy of effort as we struggle to help endangered species and preserve valuable fishing industries.
It is interesting, however, to reflect on this other part, the ‘Deep dive into tackling climate change…’? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary ‘tackle’ – the verb, as it is used here – means ‘to seize, take hold of, or grapple with, especially with the intention of stopping or subduing.’ Impressive. Students completing this Major will learn to stop climate change!
Stop climate change? Really?
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is ‘the leading international body for assessment of climate change’ and have for decades produced numerous reports on the topic. Their definition of climate change is useful:
‘Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.’
Main driver means more than 50%.
In agreement with many others, the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres, is confident that carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil, and natural gas are a grave danger – ‘we are playing Russian roulette with our planet, and we need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell…’ – and most certainly recognizes that climate change could be as extreme as 99% man-made, but must also conceded that by the UN’s own definition, a valid reality could be a world where 49% of climate change is natural, and 51% man-made.
51% to 100% anthropogenic. That is the resolution of climate change science currently. The best it can do. Where it lies between these two limits is unknown.
Almost certainly, this new Major cannot be about attempts to stop natural climate change; efforts to subvert the natural progression of nature would be anathema to most biologists and viewed with profound incredulity – as if one was tasked to stop winter coming to Canada.
That leaves, then, the human part, that slice of the climate change pie between 50% and 100% of the total.
The UN conclusion, if correct, provides a pathway where anthropogenic climate change – notionally – is amenable to human intervention. If burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and [natural] gas) – resulting in the combustion product carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere – are the cause of this part of climate change, reason would seem to conclude that their cessation or reduction should curtail the escalation of anthropogenic climate change.
To emphasize, the best available science – widely accepted as an immutable fact – has concluded a causal relationship between fossil fuel use and anthropogenic climate change. Therefore, obvious steps to mitigation must involve either a reduction in fossil fuel consumption or the formidable job of capturing the subsequent carbon dioxide emissions. Prolific efforts by governments, companies, institutions, and individuals to reach Net Zero carbon dioxide emissions reflects a commitment to such action, and a confidence that if sustained, climate change will, in the end, be tackled
With climate change now reasonably well defined, the Applied Coastal Ecology Major’s ‘Deep dive into tackling climate change…’ becomes, on reflection, a bizarre aspiration. Further study of coastal ecosystems will not offer additional insight into mechanisms that will stop (tackle!) climate change, but only add to the body of knowledge of possible signs of climate change occurring in those ecosystems. As has already been widely concluded and written about here, modern day climate change is largely thought caused by humans (main driver!) through the burning of fossil fuels. There is nothing this Major can add that isn’t already presumed about what is required to mitigate climate change: any student taking this program will have been taught – relentlessly – that fossil fuel burning is the cause of climate change, and – relentlessly – they will have been told that the only way to stop (tackle) further change is for people to stop using fossil fuels. Solution found.
I suspect that in talking about ‘tackling climate change’ the plan is about approaching the ‘tackle’ indirectly, or implicitly. And here, some confusion enters. Students enrolled in Applied Coastal Ecology will be given a task: find climate change. When climate change is found, they will assign blame – the causal agent – to climate change.
Ah, what?
Relentlessly, it seems, climate change is presented as the causal agent driving a change. The claim that climate change is causing glaciers to melt is typical of something you hear. But the melting of a glacier is not caused by climate change, it is climate change. Climate change is an effect – an outcome – not a causal agent. The UN definition is consistent: the burning of fossil fuels causes climate change. An example of that change may be a melting glacier.
To remedy this cause-and-effect confusion I always carry the truth in my brain: ‘caused by climate change’ equals ‘caused by the burning of fossil fuels’ (while also concurrently recognizing that mention of climate change almost never, these days, includes natural climate variability!).
Returning to our students. Their task will be to find climate change, or more specifically – as discussed – find the impacts from the burning of fossil fuels. Having been involved in the curriculum development for the new program, I am, sadly, confident that climate change (fossil fuel impacts) will be found everywhere.
How have I reached such a conclusion? It is written specifically in the curriculum documentation.
Here is some of the original language used to describe the Applied Coastal Ecology program.
“Coastal ecosystems are facing unprecedented environmental challenges, such as climate change and pollution.”
“This is especially important since climate change is affecting all coastal systems “
Students enrolled in this Major will know – a priori – that in studying an ecosystem, any measured spatial or temporal change is to be blamed on climate change (fossil fuels), and, almost certainly, that the challenges from such changes are to be labeled as bad. So much for critical thinking!
With every additional ‘discovery’ of climate change, evidence will mount against fossil fuels, and greater will grow the urgency to transition away from their use. This is how Applied Coastal Ecology will ‘tackle’ climate change and how the War on Energy is being fought.
Although I may seem excessively dismissive of climate change and how such changes influence ecosystems, mostly my concern is the lack of caution when linking an event to a subsequent effect. Foundationally, skepticism for me begins with a reminder of how fossil fuels are a problem. I give a summary here.
A light photon arriving here from the Sun enters, passes through the atmosphere, and subsequently strikes our planets surface. That photon warms the ground, and that warmth is re-radiated back into the atmosphere, but this time as an infrared photon (of longer wavelength than a light photon). The frequency of the infrared photon just happens to match one (or 2) of the natural resonant frequencies of a carbon dioxide molecule, where the outcome is an efficient conversion from photon to vibrating molecule. The vibration is also known as heat and is the reason why carbon dioxide is classified a greenhouse gas. In the pass 100 years (a time of aggressive industrial evolution for the human species), the concentration of carbon dioxide (by mass) in the atmosphere has changed from, approximately, 0.03% to 0.04%. This 0.01% change is attributed to our significant dependence on acquiring energy through the combustion of fossil fuels and is viewed as the Earth’s preeminent antagonist.
Regularly, now, it is reported that this resonate warming of the carbon dioxide molecule – a minor component in the atmosphere – is the explanation for a purported increase in the severity of hurricanes.
It is the danger of confidence – in ascribing a cause-and-effect relationship where one does not necessarily exist – that has shattered, in its infancy, the integrity of the Applied Coastal Ecology program.
It’s easy now, I think, to be suspicious of claims linking specific environmental alterations to fossil fuel use. Recently, CTV news ran an article titled ‘North Atlantic right whales should live past 100 years old. They're dying around 22’. Why the life span change? ‘…a reduced lifespan [lead study author Greg] Breed attributes to ship strikes, entanglements with fishing gear, and climate change.’ It would be interesting to investigate the rigor of the science used to connect this attenuated lifespan with anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Maybe climate change (fossil fuel use) is playing a role to some degree, or maybe there is only a speculation that ‘climate change is affecting all coastal systems.’