The Polish Academy of Sciences leaves no illusions: human activity is the cause of global warming

The official reason for publishing this declaration on the official website of the Polish Academy of Sciences is to care for the quality of public debate. Although I could point out some more unofficial ones.

The merits in publishing this content on the web probably have a few right-wing media, which without a great deal of willingness to share their platforms with climate denialists. Even a reliable Rzeczpospolita will sometimes pass a strange column on the subject. Well, no one is perfect, and that everyone, regardless of faith and belief, we live together on the same planet, it is worth talking about it from time to time.

Best with scientists

The official and - as the Academy itself stresses - an unambiguous position of the PAN on climate change is as follows:

We emphasize that human activity is the dominant cause of modern warming, and science has solid evidence for it. - we read in the publication on the official website of the Academy.

Polish scientists also emphasize the existence of irrefutable scientific evidence on the following issues:

• The earth is quickly warming up. The average temperature is already 1 degree Celsius higher than the time before the rapid development of industry.
• Emission of greenhouse gases from human activities is a major factor in climate change.
• Many of the changes thus caused today already have a negative impact on society and can deepen social problems.
• There is still a chance to avoid a total climate crisis. However, with the passage of time it decreases very quickly. If this opportunity is completely lost, the development of humanity will be thwarted, and the use of fossil fuels, which largely enabled this development, will become our curse.

It is difficult to argue with any of these points. The overwhelming (97+ percent) scientists from all over the world share this position and for several years have been appealing in a similar style to politicians and the industrial sector, to introduce the necessary changes in the reduction of fossil fuel consumption and increasing the share of environmentally friendly technologies.

Scientists' appeals do not bring too many results so far

The industry does not care too much about the consequences of the growing consumption of fossil fuels. Yes, yes, I was not wrong - in a global perspective, coal consumption by power plants continues to grow. Falling groundwater level, which can already cause long-term shortages of drinking water? Well, it's hard, it happens. So far, apart from minor image-related activities, no branch of industry has introduced radical reforms related to environmental protection. Of course, there are glorious exceptions, but that's not enough for us to stop the global temperature rise on our planet.

Some scientists are starting to talk slowly about the black scenario, in which we will find out too late that something had to be done. The most-publicized publication on this subject is a report prepared by David Spatt and Ian Dunlop. In their opinion, it will look something like this:

2020 - 2030: Politicians are delaying the introduction of the necessary regulations, we are still trading in CO2 limits happily, extracting more and more fossil fuels. In 2030 there is a peak of emission, which guarantees us an increase in the average temperature on Earth by 3 degrees Celsius to 2,100. The concentration of carbon dioxide reaches 437 ppm - the last time so high was 20 million years ago. By the way: 2019, the CO2 concentration is already 415 ppm, and we are definitely going for this record. The average temperature jumps at this point by 1.6 degrees C.

2030 - 2050: We are slowly beginning to realize that it is starting to get a little hot and we are starting to do something. Emissions of greenhouse gases are gradually decreasing - by 2100 they will fall by about 80% (compared to 2010). Heating up the planet will slow down a little, but by 2050, we will already reach an average temperature increase of 3 degrees C. Emissions are decreasing, but we woke up a bit late and caused some effects of the snowball. Desertification, anaerobic zones etc.

2050: In about 31 years we will realize that the loss of ice from the entire western part of Antarctica, the increasingly frequent melting of the Arctic waters, the re-greening of Greenland and the increasingly frequent droughts of Amazonian forests were inevitable after exceeding 2.5 st. C.

Sea level up to 2050 will increase by 0.5 m. By 2100, this value is likely to increase to 2-3 m. These are very cautious estimates - in the history of our planet we already had such periods, in which this level grew by 25 Of course, the Sea will be increasingly larger plastic dumps, which thanks to continuous grinding by sea currents goes to our food and the air we breathe.

In short: it will be (too) hot

Looking at our current activities, the above scenario is currently being implemented perfectly. Calls such as the one published by the Polish Academy of Sciences remain ineffective. For now, we are more interested in discussing whether something is really wrong.

Quite well-documented changes in the terrestrial climate by science have already become a matter of political dispute. I even understand it. Nobody wants to give up their comfortable lifestyle. Extreme and immediate reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and a change in the style of the current - quite a one-off in its assumption - production of goods would be a disaster for the global economy.

And we can not afford it.

The Polish Academy of Sciences leaves no illusions: human activity is the cause of global warming