Ever since we were asked to throw away our aerosol cans in the 1980s the public has been bombarded with ominous warnings about the consequences of human-induced climate change.
The concept of ”climate change” forces us to be slightly more serious when we comment that the weather ”just isn’t the same as it was when we were young”; but very few of us actually know what it means, or whether we should be worrying about it.
Climatologists, biologists and policy-makers got together at a Global Change Symposium at Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town on Monday to discuss this topic, and it appears that they have actually got some answers for us.
”At a global level we know that the world is warmer now than it has been for the past 1 000 years”, said Bob Scholes, chief research fellow at the CSIR.
He said some places were going to get drier, and some wetter, but that climate models were able to predict with increasing accuracy what the situation would be in your part of town. Climate would also become more variable.
”Increasing the CO2 levels in the atmosphere is like putting the climate system on steroids”.
With some confident predictions in their hands, governments and research agencies all over the world are starting to address the issue of climate change. South Africa is no exception, and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (Deat) is actively engaging with this topic.
”We need to act now,” Muriel Dube, chief negotiator on Climate Change for Deat told the symposium.
She said the department was not only working towards ways of mitigating the effects of climate change, but also towards adapting to climate change.
And this was the message that came out of the symposium: we have to adapt, it is not possible to turn the clock back.
”There is no such thing as a climate-normal,” said Bruce Hewitson, climatologist at UCT, ”we are living in a transient climate.”
So the world is changing, but perhaps we can change with it. However, it seems that Africa is particularly vulnerable: large climate impacts are predicted, but in Africa there is a lower capacity to adapt than in more developed regions.
”Climate change is not a reason why we should starve in Africa,”
Scholes said. He said the amount of agricultural land in Africa might decrease in the future, but there was still huge potential for increased productivity on the land that is available.
And it is not all bad news. For example, in the Western Cape, temperature trends in the future might increase the productivity of wheat, Ann Barrable, a researcher at UCT, told the symposium.
Scholes pointed out that in the 1980s we were asking: is the climate changing? In the 1990s we were asking: is it changing because of us? In the late 1990’s we were asking: does it matter? Now we are at the stage where we can ask: what can we do about it?
”It’s quite a daunting task”, said Dube.
Daunting, yes, but apparently one that many people in South Africa are excited about tackling. – Sapa