Self Test Facts About Climate Change
Originally I hoped to share this pre-test before the TCC MOOC started for 2023 so people could gauge their knowledge about CC and other issues in the MOOC. So, better late than never. Give it a try.
Source 6 Big Findings from the IPCC 2022 Report on Climate Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability | World Resources Institute (wri.org)
I add a few more : )
1. Climate impacts are already more widespread and severe than
expected.
T/F
Answer:
True.
"Climate change is already causing widespread disruption in every region in the
world with just 1.1 degrees C (2 degrees F) of warming.
Withering droughts, extreme heat and record floods already threaten food
security and livelihoods for millions of people. Since 2008, devastating floods
and storms have forced more than 20 million people from their homes each year.
Since 1961, crop productivity growth in Africa shrunk by a third due to climate
change.
Today, half the global population faces water insecurity at least one month per year. Wildfires are scorching larger areas than ever before in many regions, leading to irreversible changes to the landscape. Higher temperatures are also enabling the spread of vector-borne diseases, such as West Nile virus, Lyme disease and malaria, as well as water-borne diseases like cholera."
6 Big Findings from the IPCC 2022 Report
2. Politicians and commentators give remarkably little attention to the blue economy. We have a lot of “Green” politics, but no “Blue.”
Answer: True
"This should be rectified in any discourse on “transformation” or “great transition,” because the crises in the sea mostly reflect rapacious forms of rentier capitalism led by the interests of globalised finance. Consider a few stylised facts. The sea covers 71% of the earth’s surface, 40% of the world’s human population live near or depend on the sea for their livelihoods, it contains three-quarters of all life, and it accounts for half the oxygen we breathe. Of the 28,000 known species of fish, over a third are under acute stress, reproducing at a slower rate than they are being killed. Fish populations in many parts of the sea – characteristically called “fish stocks” (sic) – are being devastated. Imagine human populations being called human stocks.
3. We are locked into even worse impacts from climate change in
the near-term.
Answer: True
"Even
if the world rapidly decarbonizes, greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere
and current emissions trends will make some very significant climate impacts
unavoidable through 2040. The IPCC estimates that in the next decade alone,
climate change will drive 32-132 million more people into extreme poverty.
Global warming will jeopardize food security, as well as increase the incidence
of heat-related mortality, heart disease and mental health challenges."
6 Big Findings from the IPCC 2022 Report
4. Risks will escalate quickly with higher temperatures, often
causing irreversible impacts of climate change.
Answer:
True
The IPCC
report finds "that every tenth of a degree of additional warming will escalate
threats to people, species and ecosystems. Even limiting global warming to 1.5
degrees C (2.7 degrees F) — a global target in the Paris Climate Agreement — is
not safe for all.
6 Big Findings from the IPCC 2022 Report
5. Inequity, conflict and development challenges heighten vulnerability to climate risks.
Answer:
True
"Inequity, conflict and development challenges such as poverty, weak governance,
and limited access to basic services like healthcare not only heighten
sensitivity to hazards, but also constrain communities’ ability to adapt to
climatic changes. In highly vulnerable nations, for example, mortality from
droughts, storms and floods in 2010-2020 was 15 times greater than in countries
with very low vulnerability. Note well, that CC does not create these crises,
rather CC is a threat magnifier. It is local violent struggles, inequality and
uneven development that create vulnerability and make it challenging for people
to adapt or react to climate threats."
6 Big Findings from the IPCC 2022 Report
6. Adaptation is crucial. Feasible solutions already exist, but
more support must reach vulnerable communities.
T/F
Answer:
True
"At
least 170 countries’ climate policies now include adaptation, but many have yet
to move beyond planning into implementation. The IPCC finds that efforts today
are still largely incremental, reactive and small-scale, with most focusing
only on current impacts or near-term risks. A gap between current adaptation
levels and those needed persists, driven in large part by limited financial
support."
6 Big Findings from the IPCC 2022 Report
7. Replacing fossil fuels with renewable and low carbon energy
alternatives like wind, solar and hydro will allow us to make the transition to
a sustainable future.
T/F/ Maybe/ Unsure?
Answer: Critics argue that the fossil fuel - renewable energy dichotomy is a false contradiction that results in inaction based on a belief in technological solutions when large political and social changes are needed to achieve transition.
Alexander Dunlap reminds us of a material reality: “So called renewable energy infrastructures are dependent on hydrocarbons in every single phase of their existence, from their conception to decommissioning into landfills. That is why fossil fuel + is a more accurate term for “renewable energy” because every aspect of wind, solar, and hydrological infrastructures are dependent on extensive – under and unaccounted for- uses of hydrocarbons…” Dunlap, Alexander. (2022) Conclusion: A Call to Action, Towards and insurrection in energy research.” In Nadesan, MH, Pasqualwtti, MJ and Keahey, J. (eds) Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures. Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press.
8. Fifty years of Neoliberalism has in fact reduced
inequality in America and globally.
T/False/Unsure
Answer: False
“The wealth gap
between the top 5 percent and the bottom 90 percent of Americans has steadily
increased since the dawn of neoliberalism (Wolff 2017)." Gunderson provides three
statistics that capture the enormity of inequality in the US (see
Inequality.org 2020):
•Three men own as much as the bottom half of
Americans (Collins and Hoxie 2018).
•The richest 5 percent of Americans own two-thirds of
the wealth (Wolff 2017).
•The top 1 percent and top 0.1 percent of Americans have more than doubled their wealth since 1983 (in 2016 dollars) while the total debts of the bottom 40 percent now exceed their assets (“negative wealth”) (Wolff 2017).
Source: Gunderson, Ryan.
Hothouse Utopia (pp. 3-4). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle Edition.
9. French President Macron recently stated that” the age of
affluence is over?” Agree or disagree?
Answer: Agree, Disagree, Maybe, Not sure
Human industrial and social activities have begun to broach
planetary limits and threaten to undercut the basis of human life. Like others, Macron recognizes that we need
to change course, to limit the material use of nature, conserve ecosystem
services, shift to energy efficiency, reduce the intensity of material
throughput and consumption. These changes will require broad moral agreement on
what constitutes ‘enough’ for human basic needs and well-being.
Emphasizing where we need to go, many others make the case for degrowth.
“Degrowth advocates for the planned reduction of energy and material throughput to restore balance with the planet, meanwhile reducing inequality and improving human-wellbeing.” Dunlap, Alexander. (2022) Conclusion A Call to Action, toward and energy research insurrection.” In Nadesan, MH, Pasqualwtti, MJ and Keahey, J. (eds) Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures. Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press.
The Degrowth movement recognizes the acceleration of climate
change, overconsumption of material resources, the social disparity of negative
and positive climate changes, and takes strategic steps economic, societal and
ecological disruptions, not endless growth, and adapt to lessen the negative
impacts we will be facing. We will learn more about their ideas across the
MOOC.
10. Some impacts of climate change are already too severe to
adapt to. The world needs urgent action now to address losses and damages. How close is society to making
these “unprecedented” and “far-reaching” changes to combat climate change? and stay within 2 degrees warming?
We are getting closer.
Doable by 2030
Doable by 2050
Not close at all
Answer: Not Close at all.
Climate scientists Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows (2011: 41) predicted that there is “little to no chance” of even staying within 2°C, which they consider the border between “dangerous” and “extremely dangerous” climate change.
"According to Climate Analytics, a think tank that tracks the emissions and climate policies of over 32 countries that produce around 80 percent of total emissions, only two countries, Morocco and the Gambia, are on track to keeping global temperature rise within 1.5°C warming (Climate Action Tracker 2019). In fact, even if all countries achieved all of their current pledges and targets, which is highly unlikely, we can expect temperature increases of 3.5°C (Climate Action Tracker 2019). This is well-above catastrophic range."
Source: Gunderson, Ryan. Hothouse Utopia (pp.
22-23). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle Edition.
11. In this MOOC we emphasize climate change and energy realities alongside the social and political realities changemakers can expect to encounter. Then, we identify several pre-figurative alternative practices taking place worldwide that combine low carbon futures and address basic needs, and developing strategies that can, as Gunderson argues:
•Have the potential to
increase social wellbeing in a just manner while effectively decreasing carbon
emissions.
•Already exist in
pockets of the existing order “but as present only intermittently, partially,
or potentially” (Young 2001: 10).
•Can possibly overcome a major driver of climate change, which we formulate as a contradiction between capital’s need to expand production, on the one hand, and the destructive effects expansionistic production has on the climate system, on the other (the “capital-climate contradiction” …).
Source: Gunderson, Ryan. Hothouse Utopia (pp.
128-129). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Like Gunderson our MOOC calls on us all to explore “real
possibilities’ that face real realities about climate change, social
inequality, basic needs in an age of energy decline, degrowth, and post-capitalism.
Major shifts in
living will be required if we are to decrease the harm faced by future
generations.
12. An encouraging note about the future and "real
possibilities."
“real possibilities … exhibit a practical relation to the future. They are concretely linked to the hoped-for utopia. In this case utopia is no empty, merely theoretical, possibility, but a very real one. As such it is not only edifying and convincing, but – this is the crux of the matter – it also displays the ways and means for its realization. Utopia is a striving toward the ‘real possible,’ since present reality already contains the elements for its possible future changes (i.e. possibilities that do not exist in actu but are at hand in potential). Humanity’s creative capacities which are still dormant can be aroused and realized; this is implied in the idea of utopia.”
Source: Gunderson, Ryan. Hothouse Utopia (p. 125). John Hunt
Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Welcome and see you inside the MOOC as we discuss,
share peer to peer experience, and grow our collective capacity to make change.
Learn More
Read 6 Big Findings from the IPCC 2022
Report on Climate Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability | World Resources
Institute (wri.org)
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