A Little Book About Climate Change by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

The Challenges

The challenges that face us can be broadly grouped under three headings: 1. Global warming leading to climate change.

This is mainly as a result of the burning of fossil fuels. Another factor is our agricultural practices (especially, ploughing and meat and dairy production). Also, there are feedback loops from other environmental changes, such as warming temperatures leading to melting permafrost, which in turn leads to Methane (a 9

A Little Book about Climate Change very potent greenhouse gas) escaping into the atmosphere.

2. Over-use of finite resources. In particular,

‘peak oil’ — meaning that the supply of oil and eventually other fossil fuels will reach a maximum production level and then inevitably supplies will start to run out. What remains before it is all gone will become more and more difficult to access, process and use. (We should note

however

that

exploitation

of

non—

conventional oil reserves — such as via fracking

— offers a greatly expanded reserve of fossil fuel. There may be as much as 1,400 times that of conventional resources — although very much more difficult to exploit.) 3. Loss of bio-diversity and loss of habitat for other species as a result of human activities and the expansion of human territory.