This is one of the most horrific images I’ve ever seen:
What is it? It’s just a pool of water on a polar ice cap in Greenland. Not threatening unless you fall into it, but it does represent a boundary crossed in climate change.
Whatever you believe the cause of atmospheric warming to be, the consequence of warming is more warming. If you aren’t fond of heatwaves now, you won’t at all enjoy summers 10 years from now. Our kids won’t thank us for the summers they will have 40 years from now.
This pool of water represents the end of the only period in this planet’s climate which supported farming and civilisation. Our species began developing 200 thousand years ago, but dependable weather and seasons only began 10 thousand years ago. That’s an awful lot of time our species spent battling a chaotic climate.
This pool of water represents the end of the stable climate which allowed for every system we use today for our lives. We depend upon a stable climate. Ice reflects heat and cools the environment; water absorbs heat and warms the environment.
Still unsure of the horror this pool of water represents?
How cold will the climate need to be to reverse the melting? -3ºC? -4ºC? We are on track for +5ºC by 2100. The question is not really how and who contributed the most to climate change (spoiler alert: it is industrialisation and consumerism), but how and who contributes the most to climate cooling.
This pool of water represents the end of the stable climate which supported the development of our civilisations. The rate of warming is increasing. We don’t have any more time. Reduce energy and consumption now and every day. Vote for independent representatives who reject fossil fuels.
How much effort would it take to return this pool of water to ice? This is the gravity of the climate disaster situation.