Global Warming, Climate Change and Sustainability

1 JRIThe John Ray Initiative Connecting environment, science and ChristianityBriefing Paper 14, fourth edition 2011 Global warming , Climate ChangeandSustainabilityChallenge to Scientists, Policy Makers and ChristiansJohn HoughtonPRESIDENT, THE JOHN RAY INITIATIVE2 Global warming , Climate Changeand Sustainability -Challenge to Scientists, Policymakers andChristiansJohn HoughtonIn this paper, I first list some of the growingthreats to the environment and introduce theimportant concept of Sustainability . I then explain thethreat arising from human induced Climate Change ,summarising its scientific basis and the most significantimpacts.

2 I proceed to outline the action that is necessaryto halt Climate Change especially in the energy , I emphasise the moral imperative for action andsuggest how Christians in particular should respond tothe care for the Environment?It has always been important to look after our localenvironment if only so that we can pass on to ourchildren and grandchildren an environment at least asgood as we have enjoyed. Today, however, it is not justthe local environment that is at risk but the globalenvironment. Small amounts of pollution for which eachof us is responsible are affecting everyone in the instance, very small quantities of chlorofluoro-carbons (CFCs) emitted to the atmosphere from leakingrefrigerators or some industrial processes have resulted indegradation of the ozone layer.

3 Of greater importance isthe carbon dioxide that enters the atmosphere from theburning of fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas, which is leadingto damaging Climate Change . Pressures from rapidlyincreasing world population and from over-use of theEarth s resources are making such problems much moreacute and exacerbating the damage both to the naturalworld and to human communities. The perils of humaninduced Climate Change are now recognised much morewidely. It is frequently described by responsible scientistsand politicians as probably the greatest problem theworld faces and as a weapon of mass destruction.

4 Global pollution demands Global arrive at Global solutions it is necessary toaddress human attitudes very broadly, for instance thoseconcerned with resource use, lifestyle, wealth andpoverty. They must also involve human society at alllevels of aggregation - international organisations, nationswith their national and local governments, large andsmall industry and businesses, non-governmentalorganisations ( churches) and individuals. To take intoaccount the breadth of concern, a modern term that isemployed to describe such environmental care is Sustainability .

5 What is Sustainability ?Imagine you are a member of the crew of a largespace ship on a voyage to visit a distant planet. Yourjourney there and back will take many years. An adequate,high quality source of energy is readily available in theradiation from the sun. Otherwise, resources for thejourney are limited. The crew on the spacecraft areengaged for much of the time in managing the resourcesas carefully as possible. A local biosphere is created in thespacecraft where plants are grown for food andeverything is recycled.

6 Careful accounts are kept of allresources, with especial emphasis on non-replaceablecomponents. That the resources be sustainable at leastfor the duration of the voyage, both there and back, isclearly Earth is enormously larger than the spaceshipI have just been describing. The crew of Spaceship Earthat billion, and rising, is also enormously larger. Theprinciple of Sustainability should be applied to SpaceshipEarth as rigorously as it has to be applied to the muchsmaller vehicle on its interplanetary journey.

7 In apublication in 1966, Professor Kenneth Boulding, adistinguished American economist, employed the imageof Spaceship Earth. He contrasted an open or cowboy economy (as he called an unconstrained economy) with a spaceship economy in which Sustainability is an idea that can be applied toactivities and communities as well as to physicalresources. Environmental Sustainability is strongly linkedto social Sustainability - that is, creating sustainablecommunities - and sustainable economics. SustainableDevelopment provides an all-embracing term.

8 TheBrundtland Report, Our Common Future of 1987provides a milestone review of sustainable have been many definitions of simplest I know is not cheating on our children ; tothat may be added, not cheating on our neighbours and not cheating on the rest of creation . In other words, notpassing on to our children or any future generation, anEarth that is degraded compared to the one we inherited,and also sharing common resources as necessary with ourneighbours in the rest of the world and caring properlyfor the non-human of SustainabilityThe human activities of an increasing worldpopulation together with the accompanying rapidindustrial development, are leading to degradation of theenvironment on a very large scale.

9 Notwithstanding,some deny that degradation is happening; others thatdegradation matters. Scientists have an important role inensuring the availability of accurate information aboutdegradation and also in pointing to how humans canbegin to solve the problems. Many things are happeningin our modern world that are just not sustainable . In fact,we are all guilty of cheating in the three respects I of the most important causes ofunsustainability are: Human induced Climate Change ,Deforestation and Land Use Change , over Consumptionof Resources, over generation of Waste and over these increasingly impact human communities andecosystems, in particular, they threaten food and watersupplies and lead to large scale loss of Biodiversityand loss of these issues present enormous challenges.

10 Formuch of the rest of this paper I will address in somedetail the world s most serious environmental andsustainability issue one with which I have beenparticularly concerned that of Global warming andclimate Change , explaining the essential roles of bothscience and faith in getting to grips with warming and Climate Change : the BasicScienceI begin with a quick summary of the basic absorbing infra-red or heat radiation from the earth ssurface, greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere,such as water vapour and carbon dioxide, act as blanketsover the earth s surface, keeping it on average 20 or 30 Cwarmer than it would otherwise be.