It's starting the Copenhagen conference on climate change and the hope is that the world will be able to reach an agreement to stop global warming. Although the U.S. and China have already expressed their intentions to reduce emissions but without binding commitments immediately, in the world there are increasing efforts to push world leaders to do something. On december 7, 56 newspapers published in 45 different countries have published the same editorial to ask for concrete initiatives.
The campaign TckTckTck, which takes its name from the sound of the clock, indicating that the time to do something continues to decrease, will hold vigils and events between Friday 11 December and Saturday 12. The campaign Hopenhagen has an active online petition. As the Onu campaign Seal the deal, trying to push politicians to sign a binding agreement to reduce emissions in Copenhagen, or at least a minimal, but concrete, commitment.
Italian government, however, as unfortunately the previous ones, has done little or nothing to stop climate change and is probably the only one left in Europe where still survive denialist positions. Ideas in these days have received new impetus from some data stolen from a research center in England, that according to the deniers prove that the data on climate change have been manipulated. In fact now the entire world scientific community has reached a nearly universal consensus about human responsibility in increasing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and consequent global warming. But of course around the main culprits, gas, oil and coal, there are enormous interests that seek to deny the evidence for their own benefit and to the detriment of the future of the planet. And the United States there is a tough political battle between the Obama administration, which would approve a package of emission reductions by January, and the Republican opposition. Even if the data of a single research center had been manipulated to reinforce the evidence of global warming, that does not mean anything because there are thousands of groups of researchers around the world who for years found new evidence of climate change, every day.
For example, one study telling us that the Earth is much more sensitive to the increase of carbon dioxide than we previously thought, or the fact that the extinction of plants and animals favors the spread of human diseases, and that the South Pole is melting faster than forecasted, or the unexpected effect of carbon dioxide on the seas, which causes increased acidity of the water with consequent release of methane from the ocean floor and the worsening of global warming.
It's obvious that no scientific data creates absolute certainty, but the situation may actually be slightly better or even much worse than expected. In the latter case, we could quickly find itself in a scenario similar to that of the inhabitants of the Earth 252 million years ago. The Permian extinction killed 96% of marine life, 70% of animals and insects. Probably our direct ancestor, a precursor of mammals, survived taking refuge at the South Pole, where temperatures were still tolerable. What had caused this terrible disaster? According to the most accepted theory a supervolcano in Siberia caused the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The global temperature, then already two or three degrees higher than today, increases by another 4 or 5 degrees, causing a devastating ripple effect with the release of methane from the ocean floor.
It's what will happens to us if we continue to increase carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: 6 degrees warmer in the global temperature will not just cause the destruction of all the coastal cities by rising sea levels, but unpredictable effects, making life impossible in most of the planet. After the Permian extinction, the worst in history, the ecosystem of the Earth took 10 million years to recover fully.
The danger is very serious and very real. Already it is expected that climate disasters will triple over the next two decades, with a dramatic impact on the lives of millions of people. It is hoped that the politicians in Copenhagen are able to understand it beyond individual, small-minded selfishness. We all live in the same Earth, which is only a small blue dot in a vast, dark and empty universe. We cannot take risks for the economic benefit of a few, because we have no other place to go.
Francesco Defferrari
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