When I started teaching in 1987, one of the topics we taught was Climate Change. We explained and warned that the world would see warming as a result of our activities changing the atmosphere, which would set in motion a number of feedback loops which would begin to accelerate once established. One related area was James Lovelock's GAIA theory, and the idea of daisy world. These were likely to appear 'by 2100'. We had time to change. We didn't change. We don't really have time now...
Over the years, a sequence of reports have warned of a climate emergency and changes to natural systems as Arctic sea ice declined, carbon stores were depleted, methane started to bubble up from beneath the permafrost and our consumption of fossil fuels continued unabated, along with construction using concrete and other materials, particularly latterly in countries like China (and previously in the UK of course) where development occured at unprecedented rates.
The latest IPCC report came out yesterday. It is full of interest and alarm for geography teachers, and a dire warning for everyone. The current forest fires in Greece, across the Arctic, in the USA, Turkey and many other locations are a visual sign that things are burning.
It's also a reminder that we need to keep doing our best to educate people that the climate emergency has already started, and that an increase of just over 1 degree has already been sufficient to set in train all sorts of terrible consequences. There have been plenty of news items over the last month to show how no part of the world will be spared the effects, and that's even if the Gulf Stream continues to work...
There's been plenty of news coverage of the report through the last few days.
I'm also conscious of the need to focus on solutions and mitigation with young people as it would be easy to be very pessimistic about the next few decades and the implications of large scale climate migration to come. I previously posted about a book called "America City" which explores the possible impacts in fictional form.
Klaus Dodds sent a link to an Interactive Atlas.
Already, however, other news stories - often trivial, relating to multi-millionaire footballers etc are pushing the story off the top of the news...
I will try to do my bit by posting relevant stories relating to climate impacts as often as possible, particularly where they are of particular relevance to the geography curriculum. Also remind yourself that 'we' * are all partly to blame because of our lifestyles compared to those of many other parts of the world. Our houses are full of consumer goods, many of which are unecessary, and many of us have travelled in cars, and took flights in our lives...
Here's a thought to get you started from David Garcia about the map that was used on the cover of the IPCC report, while we are in the decolonising geography discussions....
I recommend following David on Facebook for cartography, thoughts on empire and plenty of cooking tips...
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