Last time we talked about the energy crisis, why our energy costs are rising so quickly and going so high. We also mentioned some of the effects this may have on society and people’s health. The one thing that is important to remember in all of this is that is that there is a link that runs through any debate surrounding energy and its use, and that is Climate Change. You will note that I use the term Climate Change and not Global Warming and may be asking why. The reason is very simple, Climate Change is the disease and Global Warming is a symptom along with glacial melting and extremes of weather.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The term Climate Change was unheard of until an amateur scientist named Guy Callendar in 1938 used the term after his calculations showed that humans were putting enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to increase the World's average temperature. Others had made similar claims in previous years but they had been dismissed. Callendar, however, had the advantage of recent data and decades of new data and a model which he was allowed to present to the British Meteorological Society.

The changes from the influence of human beings (anthropogenic) on nature, that were beginning to be understood or at least investigated are still with us today. Although we are more knowledgeable about the cause and effects, we, as a species, still pump carbon dioxide and other gas pollutants into the atmosphere. The result is that the climate continues to warm and the effects of that have been only too visible over the last couple of years. Increasing drought, extremes of heat, some extremely cold winters, flooding and wild fires.

The statistics’ available for the area of forest burned and wildland fires for Europe in 2022 makes for some sobering reading. For the UK, to August 2022, 20,423 hectares had been burned. The average per year between 2006 and 2021 was 6,100 hectares. This will come as no surprise when we have experienced one of the warmest and driest years on record so far. Ukraine have been badly affected with 413,394 hectares burned in 2022, the average previously was 17,674 hectares. Several other countries have been very badly affected, Spain, Romania and Portugal to name just a few. Will this happen every year? No-one can say for certain but for decades extremes of weather and the resulting consequences have been spoken and written about. One important thing to remember is that every single tree and plant that has been turned to ash has released the carbon dioxide stored within it while growing adding it back to the atmosphere.

At the time of writing in Pakistan there is untold suffering and death from the flooding that has inundated some areas of that nation. The unprecedented monsoon rains have caused flooding of the Indus river. Starting in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, spreading South through Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh. They have affected 18 million people and so far, 1,985 people have lost their lives. The number of homes lost or destroyed stands at 12 million and 2,2 million hectares of crops have been lost. Homes alone have not been destroyed and it is estimated that 10,000 schools have been damaged or destroyed. Many households own or keep animals and an estimated 450, 000 livestock have been lost. The floods in Pakistan show how climate change can affect one of the poorest nations in the World with some of the most dramatic and horrific devastation that we can witness.

There are still people around the World that do not believe climate change is a thing. The evidence on show this year with the extreme weather events and the devastation, loss of life and destruction should tell them otherwise. Switching from fossil fuels to greener alternatives is a must or we will continue to see and experience events such as those this year and probably worse.