“What do you want to sustain?” The IPCC report and scenarios for Climate Change
For our September 7th Climate Cafe Multifaith, we focused on the newest IPCC report and what hope we could draw from it.
“There is a scenario for how climate change may play out —and it will affect everyone in your worshiping community.”
Our guest for the Cafe was Jamie Trammell, an Associate Professor and Chair of the Environmental Science and Policy program at Southern Oregon University. He is a Landscape Ecologist and Climate Scientist, and specializes in scenario planning—a type of planning that can help forecast what changes to an area we might expect, and then help communities either prepare or change course.
Our conversation included a presentation with questions. View the presentation, then scroll for some of the questions that were asked and answered during the Cafe. Toward the end, find links with articles about the IPCC report, including statements from some faith traditions and denominations.
Key truths about where we are right now:
Scientists agree, it is ‘indisputable’ that climate change is caused by humans.
We have stark choices ahead of us and right now. Decisions made now will impact the livability of the planet.
The earth has already warmed 1.1°C with warming now accelerating, causing worsening storms, droughts and heat.
The least-bad option—keeping warming to 1.5°C—has all but passed us by. We must take bold, decisive and immediate action to avoid temperatures above 2°C.
Those least at fault for climate change will be the ones to bear the worst of the suffering and consequences.
Temperature scenarios that range from 1.5°C of warming to 8°C or more show what is at stake if we continue on this destructive path. Already there are inescapable effects.
Different areas on the planet will experience different effects. Some areas will become dryer, some warmer, some wetter. Large portions of the earth could become uninhabitable.
AND — Turn around is STILL possible!
We can learn what climate change impacts will occur where we live. This will help us better prepare, adapt, and care for ourselves and our neighbors.
“It is indisputable that human activities are causing climate change, making extreme climate events, including heat waves, heavy rainfall, and droughts, more frequent and severe.”
Let’s start with some information about climate change itself.
Warming & Human Activity:
For one thing, the recent IPCC report includes some big help when it comes to communicating to others that, yes, the earth is indeed warming and, also yes, climate warming is human caused.
Warming since the Industrial age, what this chart shows: Researchers have been able to map, chart, measure, and calculate the emissions from all possible contributors, from volcanic activity to solar activity to human activity. The above chart on the left shows the trajectory of the warming that is “unprecedented in more that 2000 years.” You can see the end of that line goes straight up. This is the warming since the industrial period. The figure on the right shows two lines, blue and brown. The blue shows the warming caused by natural factors. The brown, pushing straight up off the graph, shows the result when looking at warming and human activity. (Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Policymaker’s Summary, page 7.) The above chart is one of many charts and graphs in the new report.
Tipping Points
Question: How close (or far) are we to causing an abrupt and irreversible change to the planet’s living systems because of climate change? And, why doesn’t the IPCC report better spell those out.
First, what is a Tipping Point? “A tipping point is a critical threshold beyond which a system reorganizes, often abruptly and/or irreversibly.” (AR6 IPCC page 28) In other words, there is a point where you put enough rocks in the wheel barrow and it is going to collapse. If something important to an ecosystem gets too-little or not-enough, such as heat, or rain, or ice, the system “reorganizes.” An green river delta can become a desert with little water. The “reorganization” will include plants and animals which must now live in and be adapted for a desert ecosystem. The tipping point can happen suddenly, too fast for animals to adapt. And it can be irreversible, at least for millennia, as you cannot have a river ecosystem without a river.
Answer: Jamie Trammell explained “there are three big tipping point thresholds that we just don’t know where they are.” There are three big unknowns when it comes to tipping points. Those three things are related to the melting permafrost, the Albedo Effect, and deep ocean carbon levels. Better measurements were needed before scientists could offer answers.
Permafrost: there are now 14,000 bore holes around the state of Alaska, yet despite that, scientists don’t have measurements specific enough to model tipping points because they don’t know specifically enough what is happening within the permafrost. “It’s troubling. Because we can’t model the scale of the permafrost, we have no sense of how much methane and carbon dioxide might be trapped in there.”
The Albedo Effect: The albedo effect is becoming more knowable and measurable. The new report speaks to albedo as it can be measured, and to reversibility, but also to uncertainty. “There’s a lot of uncertainty in the clouds and the role the clouds play in the albedo…there is still no hard and fast threshold.”
The Deep Ocean: “We know there’s a tremendous amount of carbon stored there, but we lack measurements…we’ve done models and experiments with this, anyone who has lived in the midwest and has seen a lake turnover know these thermoclines are very possible and happen all the time.” Thermoclines happen in the ocean, as well. “We just can’t quite predict them, yet.”
What we can do: Jamie Trammell recommends that in part because the big picture tipping points are not yet buttoned down with measurements and modeling, getting down to the local level offers more specific models and measurements that matter for specific regional areas. Mapping your local community can help you learn what scenarios you might expect concerning soil, water, heat and other factors. “Here in the Rogue Valley (southern Oregon) we know we’ve crossed a threshold. We are beyond a tipping point…we have [forest & even agricultural] soil moisture levels that can’t recover under our best models for future precipitation. We’ve crossed that threshold. We know now that we are drier than we ever have been and we are not going to change that.” Learning our local thresholds will help us model, measure and adapt.
““People think ‘its not going to impact me.’ Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Warming Temperatures and CO2 Globally
Question: Is the best case scenario (1.5C warming) completely unrealistic?
First, how hot might Earth get? This figure, below, is one of many IPCC graphs Jamie Trammell shared during the presentation, and part of the outreach materials for the report. The figure shows several lines in different colors. Each line reflects possible trajectories/scenarios for warming. This particular graph charted CO2, but there are graphs for ocean temperatures, ice melt, sea level rise and more. The lines represent the possible scenarios all scientists see as possible for the future of Earth depending on what decisions will be made, what tipping points are reached, and what current modeling we have. As you can see, the temperature ranges go from 1.9°C to 8.5°C warming. In these many different graphs, the light green/blue line is by far the best scenario at 1.9°C. It also seems like it is falling fast out of our reach.
Answer: The blue line is the ideal. By modeling the different possible temperature scenarios, that gives community members and policy makers a better understanding of what the pathway is to actually get there. Already we are at 1.1°C and experiencing the harms to that. 1.5°C will be worse. Jamie Trammell explains that, to achieve that 1.5°C line, “to make that realistic would mean a near shutdown of emissions, or net-zero carbon emissions, from now onward…incredibly aggressive carbon mitigation, but more importantly better agriculture and more trees.”
To address the challenge, it is important to find ways to communicate about climate change with each other in order to find shared values and build consensus. “People think ‘its not going to impact me.’ Well, that couldn’t me further from the truth! So I start and I say, alright, well lets talk about weather and lets talk about climate and lets talk about it from the perspective of the Rogue Valley or Alaska and let’s talk about the thing you are most interested in. So that’s how I approach it…What do you care about. Well, chances are, I care about it, too!”
“Unless there are immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions, limiting warming to 1.5°C will be beyond reach.”
Exceeding 1.5°C - What can we learn?
Question: Are there already places that have exceeded 1.5°C? And if so, what do we know, and what can we learn about them?
First, is the arctic a hotspot? Many people don’t know that the earth is not heating evenly around the globe. There are a number of reasons for that, but a big part is heat distribution. Warming enters through the atmosphere first as sunlight. Then that sunlight is absorbed on land and oceans and converts to heat. Think of the black tar on the road heating up. Or a sun-warmed swimming pool. Because of the tilt of the earth (and reflection of polar/glacial ice), everyday sunlight makes the warmest temperatures near the equator. The warmth from the equator is then circulated by wind and ocean currents. Because the everyday temperatures are warmest at the equator, you would think that the equatorial area would warm up faster than the arctic. But that is not actually true. Factors such as this wind/ocean circulation, the loss of polar ice, and warmer oceans means while the equator is the hottest region in terms of higher temperatures, the arctic is warming up at faster at a faster rate. Here are a couple of articles from WaPo that help explain, Climate Change Hotspots, and Adrift in the Arctic.
Juno, Alaska, 2021. Photo by Zane Persaud on Unsplash
Answer: There are already places that have experienced more than 1.5°C warming, including Alaska. If you take the average from across the state, it has already warmed 3-5°F which is 1.5-3°C. It might warm a further 8-15°F in the next decades. Jamie Trammell explains, “everything in Alaska has already exceeded that 1.5°C change. We know from the past 50 to 100 year observations in Alaska how some things are going to respond. We’ve seen dramatic changes, like melting permafrost… It used to be that 1 million acres of forest used to burn in Alaska every single year, it’s now 2-2.5 to 3 million acres.” With warmer temps, also, the predictions of whole communities displaced is coming to pass. “There are Alaskan villages that are blinking out of existence either because of erosion or melting permafrost or they simply can’t live there because their entire forest has burned.”
What can we do? We can do more to study the adaptation strategies and resilience of people and places where this kind of warming is already taking place. Jamie Trammell sees the importance of local strategies, and of “doing our diligence to know how these people have adapted, and how have the ecosystems adapted, and what has that meant? … we haven’t looked at the successes of how people have adapted so far. What is working, and what could work. And so there’s tremendous potential there.” Part of the solution is to keep listening and learning, from the immediate past, but also from the deep past. For example, “The Alaska Natives have gone through massive climate change for 10,000 years and come out culturally, spiritually intact.” By looking to our places, we can find sustainable and resilient possibilities.
A word about Sustainability: The word ‘sustainability’ can mean different things to different people. When you stand and look around where you are, at your community, and Jamie Trammell suggests you might ask yourself “what do you want to sustain? What is sustainable for a place, for a culture, for a people, for a religion. What is sustainable for you, and how do you actually sustain that in the future?”
Rethinking Land, Food, Agriculture and Relationships
Question: How can we address soil health, including regeneration. How do we let go of practices of exploitation and domination as our relationship with land and make structural changes — otherwise in terms of warming we are looking at worst case scenarios.
First, what’s with climate change and agriculture? As people of faith we need to look at the issues connected with western and industrial agricultural practices. From fair wages for farm workers to the mass production of animals in factory farms, many of us were raised to understand land use alongside scriptural interpretations that we were told gave permission for ‘domination’ practices of food production (see a refutation of this idea from the Catholic Climate Movement). Years later we are learning just how destructive this interpretation is, especially when mixed with the
industrial-age. We see before our eyes now that the interpretation of ‘dominion’ runs completely contrary to the Genesis 1:22 command “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” We are realizing the harms to our agricultural practices, yet there is still financial and social incentive for big agricultural farms because around the globe cities are growing—and cities require a lot of food. An incentive for mass production is a consumer culture from street food to fast food to fine dining that causes a lot of waste. All while we now know that agribusiness is a significant emitter of CO2. Greenhouse gas emissions from food production is now at 17 billion metric tons per year. Catch up with the latest look at How Much Food Production Contributes to Climate Change in a recent article from Scientific American.
Photo by Alexandr Bormotin on Unsplash
Answer: We cannot meet the challenge of climate change without addressing farming practices, let alone stay under 2°C of warming. Healthy soils have tremendous capacity to store carbon, and healthy soil is not simply good for food production, it is also essential for food stability. Food, however, has a lot of complexity within communities. It is not just a business or a service to be harvested, packaged and delivered. Food production is deeply connected to place, people, and land. Jamie Trammell explains it this way, “The food dialogue, that’s where my mind is going these days…Food is something everyone can relate to, maybe it’s the United Methodist in me, I love a good potluck. But this relationship to food is both material and religious and philosophical and its in so many elements of life. And there’s huge potential, it’s a tremendous contributor to global warming and social inequities, and so it seems like this perfect opportunity to start to solve some of the things that we know are going wrong.” Change is happening. Even in places like Iowa there is a growing movement toward sustainable agriculture. “There’s really a lot of decent movement in Iowa—the heart of the cornbelt—to radically change and rethink how we do food. There are food co-ops and food networks showing up everywhere.”
What can we do? Jamie Tramell tells us “I think we are socially at that point where we think ‘food is not just the sum of nutrients, its much, much deeper, its this relationship with food its relationship with food and farmers and people. And really the only path to meet all those things is to break down the mega farms and go more toward locally supported and regionally relevant agriculture.” Conversations about sustainable food production can be local, and like most local efforts emphasis can be on how to solve problems within community, rather than specifically centered around climate change. Jamie has worked with farmers and in places like “in the magic valley of Idaho, where climate change is a dirty word, they are all about locally supported agriculture simply because it makes sense.”
“We can do this. We just have to make sure that we do this in a way that is fair, and just, and good for all things...and we’ll be alright.”
Resources and Reading
Link to our One-Sheet Repository to find a one-sheet on the IPCC report, as well as where to find climate impact information for your local and regional area.
Articles - News addressing the IPCC Group 1 Report in August. Here are a few:
UN News: ‘Code red’ for human driven global heating, warns UN chief. An explainer article for the IPCC report that includes a short and engaging video.
MIT Technological Review: The UN climate report pins hopes on carbon removal technologies that barely exist. Addresses solutions including carbon capture technology.
Climate Home News: Lifestyle change can cut double the emissions of Brazil by 2030. Asserts that personal, lifestyle changes can make a difference together with larger societal change.
NPR: Computer Models of Civilization Offer Routes To Ending Global Warming. This article speaks to real, transformational possibilities for change. Despite the dire warnings in the Group 1 IPCC report, there are models also for changes that will lead to a better quality of life.
From Yale Climate Connections: 1.5 or 2C of Global Warming: Does it make a Difference?
Articles - Responses from the faith community:
NCR (National Catholic Reporter) EarthBeat: Earth’s Climate Outlook Grim but not Hopeless, Faith Leaders Say. An unflinching but hopeful look at the science & solutions for renewed life and health.
Evangelical Focus: We need to see nature as a blessing from God, not as a hinderance to development.” This article features an interview with climate scientist and evangelical Katharine Hayhoe.
From Quaker United Nation’s Office (QUINO): How to be a Hero for our Children.
Buddhist Door Global: Global Systemic Crisis and Buddhism: Toward a Change of Paradigm. Addressing the potential collapse of ecosystems due to climate change from a Buddhist perspective.
The Algemeiner: Why Judaism Requires Action on Climate Change. Exploration of the concerns of the Group 1 IPCC report from a Jewish perspective, connecting to Torah.
United Methodist Insight: Young Earthkeeper, Agency Staff Urge Churches to Take Action on Climate Change. A few church leaders within UMC are interviewed addressing the report and solutions.
Data Tools.
These science-based tools offer click-able maps so that you can look more specifically at projected changes and impacts in your region and community.
USGS (United States Geological Survey) National Climate Change Viewer. This tool allows you to see data sets represented by state or region through different charts, tables and models. Click to select your region, what you want to see measured (temp, snow, soil moisture) and the projected model over the next few decades. See also (CASC) Climate Adaptation Science Centers which includes recent and searchable science news and studies.
Climate Change Maps (US and World) climate impact lab. There’s a lot to explore here including a clickable map that shows impacts depending on how high emissions will rise. In addition, there are narrative sections and links on things like agriculture, labor, health, energy…
IPCC WGI Interactive Atlas. This is a very science-y resource, especially the regional information map, but well worth looking at to see the projections for heat and other effects based on low or high emissions scenarios.
Climate Scenarios Primer. This site offers a Primer to explain the way scenarios work within climate science as it relates to different regions and how those regions might look with 1.5C degree of warming, or 2C or higher. The site also offers Learning Modules with visuals and information about land use, emissions, and impacts.
Jamie Trammell is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Environmental Science and Policy program at Southern Oregon University. He specializes in using digital maps to model, quantify, and communicate future environmental challenges so policies and decisions can be made now, and not in the future when it might be too late (scenario planning). He has taught courses on climatology, data analysis, geospatial technology (digital maps), land use planning, environmental history, capstone, and professional preparation. He has worked in a variety of environmental contexts from the deserts of the American southwest to the Northern Rivers of New South Wales in Australia, throughout Alaska and into the Canadian boreal, and most recently in the agricultural landscapes of the Magic Valley, Idaho and the Rogue River basin in Oregon. He is also a person of faith, in the tradition of United Methodist.
Farm with chickens photo by Zoe Schaeffer on Unsplash 2021
Full citation for the IPCC Policymakers Summary: IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [MassonDelmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is here for the friendship and conversations about climate, community, and connection. She organizes the Climate Cafe Multifaith as a co-leader of Faiths4Future. Find her in real life in Southern Oregon, working as Steward of Climate with the nonprofit Circle Faith Future.