Is climate change currently a nuisance?
The apocalyptic consequences of climate change seemed far off, and if we are honest with ourselves, hard to believe, when former US Vice President and Presidential Candidate Al Gore started presenting his dire prediction of climate evolution (the subject of the 2006 film An Inconvenient The truth).
Since we’ve been experiencing extreme weather events over the past few months, that has altered for many people in the UK and Europe, including this writer. Many, I’m sure, would laugh at the naivete; let me clarify that, while I don’t deny climate change, sometimes it takes something bad happening to you for it to become more of a reality. The lion in front of you is usually scarier than the tiger around the corner, despite the fact that humans are excellent theorists and thinkers due to our evolutionary features. That lion arrived in the shape of two oppressively hot days, one of which saw the UK experience temperatures above 40°C.
Did we overestimate the situation?
Another thought occurred to me as I was sitting at home, frantically attempting to stay cool in an unairconditioned apartment that felt more like it belonged in Dubai than South London. Those destitute farmers. For the time being, staying in the UK (albeit you could easily apply this tale leaving the soil parched and the people who till it anxious for their harvests.
In addition to varying harvests, one must take into account the extreme difficulty of working outside in the recent high temperatures – particularly for farmers who are unfamiliar with the conditions or lack the necessary tools. There is a genuine chance that machinery may break down or even catch fire, with disastrous results.
Comparing these occurrences to others in other regions of the world has dominated a significant portion of the conversation. Some will say, “We have wildfires in Australia and California.” They do, but they also possess the means to address them. It seems possible that, despite their bravery and good intentions, French or UK firefighters lack the equipment or experience necessary to tackle massive forest and field fires on a yearly basis.
Though the images of the earth physically on fire are undoubtedly upsetting, the longer-term concern is what will happen to the crops that are destroyed and the land that will be unusable for farming for some time. We can’t afford to make the global food problem worse since it already exists.
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Take immediate action.
What do I mean by this? The penny that dropped and burned a hole in the earth in July 2022 will, I assume, be the lasting memory of those two baking days. When it comes to climate targets, 2030 and 2050 are frequently mentioned, but in actuality, climate change is already occurring.
Yorkshire farmer Paul Temple told New Food that the current weather “shows that the pace of innovation needed to help farmers mitigate these extremes in the future must be accelerated.”
Both the temperature and moisture of the planet are rising. I have never seen a glacier, but I have always felt those truths to be true. The most terrifying thing, though, is that you can now have faith in your senses instead of needing faith in science. Not only is the truth inconvenient, but it also exists.