Communication is vital in spreading the message
One of the many impacts of climate change, according to the United Nations (UN), is the harm it causes to both humans and animals – something that continues to worsen as the earth heats up by even a fraction of a degree because of greenhouse gases. Raising awareness about climate change is a cause very dear to Vox Weather.
Annette Botha, Vox Weather Meteorologist, says: “It’s an established fact that climate change harms the health of living creatures through such factors as air pollution, extreme weather events like drought and flood, disease, food insecurity, forced displacement and even pressures on mental health.
“The main cause of climate change – namely the burning of coal, oil and gas – causes air pollution, which can in turn lead to respiratory diseases, strokes and heart attacks. One study has found that air pollution from fossil fuels is responsible for nearly one in every five deaths worldwide.”
Communication to continue driving awareness is a key element of combatting climate change. “This is a conversation we should all be having,” says Botha, “and it’s critical for everyone, no matter their age, to understand how humanity’s actions are affecting the health of our planet.
“The past 13 months have all exceeded the 1.5ºC threshold of global warming, marking an unprecedented streak of record-breaking temperatures. The period from July 2023 to June 2024 is now officially the warmest 12-month period on record, with global temperatures averaging 1.64ºC above pre-industrial levels.”
In this article, Vox Weather looks at climate change and how it affects everyone – and some of the actions that people can take to play their part in reducing global warming.
Unpacking the Terminology
‘Climate’ simply means the long-term statistics of weather, while ‘climate change’ refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. According to the UN and other credible sources, human activities have been the main drivers of climate change. Today, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 50% higher than in 1750, far exceeding the natural changes over at least the past 800,000 years.
Because people have been burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas at significant rates since the Industrial Revolution[1], this in turn has raised the levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, causing the earth’s surface and its oceans to heat up. If this is allowed to continue unchecked, experts say the consequences would be catastrophic.
[1] The Industrial Revolution was a period of major mechanisation and innovation that began in Great Britain during the mid-18th and early 19th centuries and later spread throughout much of the world. The British Industrial Revolution was dominated by the exploitation of coal and iron.
“We can think of global warming as being one part of climate change,” says Professor Francois Engelbrecht of the Wits Global Change Institute (GCI) in a Vox Weather interview with Annette Botha. “It’s also not wrong to think of global warming as being the cause of climate change.
“Global warming means a systematic increase in the world’s average ‘natural temperature’ at the surface of the planet, which should be around 14ºC – this was its temperature during the pre-industrial era. Over the last few decades, there has been an increase in the available energy of the planet – the ‘energy budget’ – as well as the average natural surface temperature of the planet, by 1.64ºC for the most recent 12-month period based on new data.”
The international Paris climate agreement is a global treaty that aims to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and, as a result, limit the global temperature increase to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels, and preferably below an increase of 1.5ºC.
A 1.5ºC increase in global temperatures will have a significant impact on the climate, but a 2ºC increase will be far worse, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, according to Professor Engelbrecht, recent data shows that the world has now breached the 1.5ºC mark for 13 consecutive months, emphasising the urgency of reducing emissions faster than ever.
More Energy and Water in the Atmosphere
Says Prof Engelbrecht: “The warming of the planet has been accelerating over the past few decades, and this is projected to continue for as long as we continue pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. With the warming of both the atmosphere as well as the oceans, we have more available energy in and around the planet.
“The atmosphere uses this energy to build weather systems that are more intense, for example tropical cyclones become more intense, because the more energy and heat that is available in the system, the more intense such systems can become.”
He clarifies that a warm atmosphere can also hold more water vapour to contribute to intense weather patterns: “In March 2019, southern Africa experienced the disastrous incident of killer cyclone Idai, which took place over Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. It killed over 1,000 people and left 2.6 million people in need of humanitarian assistance after the catastrophic damage caused by the strong winds and extensive flooding.”
Floods in February this year in Kwa-Zulu/Natal were declared a national disaster, following on from previous storm floods in KZN in April 2022, which led to over 400 deaths and forced Transnet to close the port of Durban. Floods in Gauteng in early March underscored this principle that global warming is leading to more extreme weather events, with the potential of more moisture and energy in the weather systems as they unfold.
How Can Individuals Help to Reduce Global Warming?
“While the biggest causes of global warming happen at the industrial level, sanctioned by the governments that rule countries around the world, there are still things that we can do as individuals to play our part in trying to reduce our energy consumption,” says Botha.
The ideas below are endorsed by the United Nations.
- Save energy at home: You can use less energy by reducing your heating and cooling use, switching to LED light bulbs and energy-efficient electric appliances, washing your laundry with cold water, or hanging things to dry instead of using a tumble dryer.
- Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle: Electronics, clothes, plastics and other consumer items cause carbon emissions at each point in the production cycle. Every kilogram of textiles produced generates about 17 kilograms of CO2 emissions. You can consciously plan to buy fewer things, shop second-hand, and repair what you can and in this way reduce your carbon footprint.
- Eat more vegetables: Eating more plant-based food, and less meat and dairy, can significantly lower your environmental impact, because producing plant-based foods requires less energy, land and water, and generally results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
- Throw away less food: When food rots in a landfill, it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. To avoid this, try to use what you buy and compost any leftovers. Cutting your food waste can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 300 kilograms of CO2 emissions per year.
Spreading the Word on Climate Change
Botha says the ideas presented are all relatively easy for households to slot into their lives.
“We would encourage people to play their part in small lifestyle changes that could add up to significant outcomes in reducing individual global warming levels,” she notes, “and if everyone plays their part, small efforts can all add up to larger results that could make a difference. At the same time, it’s obviously critically important that these efforts also take place at national and global levels also.
“At Vox Weather, we endorse the replacement of fossil fuel-based power plants with renewable energy like wind or solar farms wherever possible, or at least its addition into the available energy sources. Wind turbines and solar panels don’t release emissions that pollute the air or cause global warming.
“Vox weather is passionate about spreading the word so that by increasing awareness, people will be inspired at both the individual and enterprise levels to play their part in trying to curb the current levels of climate change and global warming. In this way, we will protect our precious planet for the future – not just for individuals who are alive today, but also for our children’s children to come,” she concludes.
If you would like to watch the full interview with Professor Francois Engelbrecht and Annette Botha, please click here.