A Warmer World

Photo credit: Scientific Visualization Studio, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center This MODIS image acquired over the Indian sub-continent on March 2, 2000 shows the high concentration of aerosol particles in the atmosphere (brownish pixels just south of the Himalayas) associated with a dense population and industrial emissions.

I am more convinced than ever that it's something we should be worried about. After seeing An Inconvenient Truth last week, I thought about what I could do to be more environmentally-conscious. Some of my friends have decided not to fly (the impact of emissions from planes is incredibly huge) but that's hard for me to commit to.

One of my biggest beefs is packaging - I can't believe how excessively packaged everything in grocery stores are. Even vegetables are shrink-wrapped, then handed to you in a plastic bag. I have a huge accumulation of plastic bags at home, and although we do use some as garbage bags, we never really use that many. So I've decided to carry one plastic bag with me instead of acquiring new ones each time I go shopping.

Who knows if that will have any impact? It's a huge, global problem that requires governments to change policy and look at large-scale solutions. Even so, it's hard to know if it's too late. If we are already feeling the consequences, do we still have a chance to slow down the damage?

Earlier this month, Frances Cairncross, the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science said that people had to accept climate change and start preparing for a hotter and drier climate. She thinks that the U.K. should make preparations like developing drought-resistant crops, thinking of how to protect part of the country from flooding and maybe even not allowing people to live very close to the sea.

It seems obvious that our lives will have to change in some way. Although humans are good at creating problems (like this one!) we are also good at finding solutions and hopefully people will put their heads together and make sure our world is still a liveable place.

For more info:

BBC Weather Centre - Climate Change
http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/

New Scientist - Climate Change
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change