Trawlers and aviation release the same amount of carbon

Mar 18, 2021

Just a few more days until spring. For a few days, I hear birds sing when I wake up. The snow is melting, and the sun shines. The long, cold, slippery, and dark winter of Ottawa gave me plenty of excuses not to go for a run. Today I had none left. I enjoyed the run until the last part, where I had to choose between muddy pools of meltwater, knee-deep melting snow, or a very long route back. Those shoes are drying now.

The snow is melting in Ottawa (seen during my run today)

This was a mild winter after a warm 2020. NOAA, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organisation, it is 'virtually certain' (96,5%) that 2021 will be a top-10 year, based on data since 1880. That sounds more optimistic than anyone intended; this is not a top-of-the-charts show. No overall warmth-record was broken, and that has, unlike some may have expected, hardly anything to do with last year's step back in emissions during the pandemic. The cooling by a La Niña event in the Eastern Pacific was more relevant.

Camels in the snow

But what about the winter scenes in Texas that looked so much worse than here up north in Ottawa? It is a good illustration of what to expect from climate change. While 2020 has that top-ten ranking as a warm year, the weather extremes will increase, which sometimes means extreme winter weather. Remember the picture of camels in the snow in Saudi-Arabia that went viral last month?

The insurance experts are still calculating, but the cost of the U.S. winter-freeze may well become the world's most costly winter weather disaster ever. Climate change is expensive, costs lives, creates more suffering than anyone can describe, it is man-made, and we have the knowledge and means to fight it. Stay tuned to this newsletter; this will not be the last time that I mention this.

Expect longer summers and shorter winters

My excuses for not running in winter will become even less valid in the future. Last month, a study was published that concluded that by 2100 the summer in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes will last nearly six months. The winter will be reduced to only two months. Between 1952 and 2011, the summer increased from 78 to 95 days, and these changes are expected to increase further in the future.

Climate change is now an accepted subject for conversation amongst friends. You hear it in a cafe or between the people sitting next to you on the train. I believe I never overheard a casual conversation about our planet's changes more than five years ago. Perhaps more than the news of climate-related disasters that we see on social media, I expect the changes we experience in our everyday lives to play a role. Climate change is no longer something you hear or read about; it is something that you see all around you. Flowers are blooming earlier, and so does the first singing of birds in springtime. You may have had deliberations at home about buying airconditioning to get through those increasingly hot summers. It makes this a study that people can relate to, which can be used in climate communication. I can imagine referring in a speech to disease-carrying mosquitoes moving into your region during those long hot summers. And then there is the impact on water, food, energy, and so much more.

Natural disasters displaced 10 million people

Those mosquitoes and your worry about energy-wasting air-conditioners should be the least of our climate worries when reading the ICRC report that was just published. It estimates that 10 million people have been displaced in the past six months due to disasters triggered by natural events. Most of these are related to climate change and extreme weather. Only a small number is related to other natural causes like earthquakes. About 60 percent of these displacements happened in the Asia-Pacific region. I will write how unjust climate change is in future newsletters, and this report confirms that again. Climate change hits the most impoverished communities hardest, and these are the least in a position to prepare themselves or return to their everyday lives after a disaster. Add to this situation the challenges posed by the pandemic, and this paints a very somber picture. Climate change is expensive: it costs lives, money, and dreams for a better future for many families.

Protecting the ocean

Today's main climate news was all about the study in Nature on protecting the global ocean for biodiversity, food, and climate. This is the first study about how much trawling contributes to releasing carbon dioxide from the seabed. Those emissions in the ocean are about equal to all the worldwide emissions of aviation. The report calls for better protection of the ocean, starting by identifying specific regions to prioritize. That is not only good for the planet; it also supports fishing. Protecting the right areas at sea gives fishes a nursery that will overall result in higher catches. This brings me to another issue to come back to in future newsletters: the food we eat. Sufficient to remind you now that if you eat less fish, we have less of a problem. Stay tuned to The Planet newsletter for more on what we eat, health, animal rights, and plant-based food.

Trawlers drag nets across the seafloor, for instance, to catch shrimp. This is a small one that I saw last summer. I was sitting in the evening sun on one of the dikes that protect the island of Schouwen-Duiveland. It was fascinating to follow the fisherman's patterns to be most efficient in getting their catch. And that island may be another reason to stay tuned. There will be more about Schouwen-Duiveland and islands in general. I will try not to let this interfere with the more severe issues. But I have been reading about islands all my life, and now that climate change and islands are often mentioned in one sentence, I feel that I shouldn't leave this theme out of the stories to tell.

What future archeologists may find

Let's briefly go back to that first run in the melting snow this afternoon. I noticed how much trash popped up, gloves, soda cans, and the trend of this year: masks. Since we are at themes that I may cover in the future, let's add pollution. If someday in the far future, thousands of years from now, archeologists start digging, they may date their findings above and below the 2020 mask layer. I can't understand why there are so many. You can lose one from your pocket, but I wonder how many people throw these out their car window.

Talking about digging back in the past. A recent study of a long-lost ice core from northwestern Greenland showed an unwelcome surprise. Instead of ice and stones, the researchers found leaves and twigs. This indicates that Greenland has had a kind of tundra landscape, perhaps a million years ago or 400,000 years ago when it was warmer. And we are now heating the planet. This is worrying; these leaves were under a mile of ice. If all the ice in Greenland melts, which doesn't exactly happen overnight, the sea-level will rise about seven meters. And if Greenland melts, don't expect Antarctica to stay in shape. All the land-ice of Antarctica will add another 61 meters to the sea level.

These are frightening numbers, but really far away. I will write more about sea-level rise in the future but then focussed on the expected impact that we may see this century, or perhaps the next. That may be more realistic, but it isn't a reason to relax about the climate urgency. Remember that I come from the low-countries. The Dutch take this seriously; we worked out how to protect ourselves for the foreseeable future. But elsewhere, entire nations are now at risk of disappearing. Did I mention my fascination for islands? Stay tuned.

The Planet