Sounding the Alarm: Glacier Research Shows Effects of a Warming Climate
Tags: Oceans, Environment, Economy, Italy, Climate Change

What Can Be Done?

What do these changes mean for our planet and its people? Impakter spoke with Luca Mercalli, a climatologist and president of the Italian Meteorological Society, to get his thoughts on the environmental changes and possible solutions.

Luca Mercalli

Let’s go straight to the heart of the problem: How much time is there to stop the climate drift?

Time is up—the increase in temperatures cannot be stopped. But we can try to stem it, avoiding the total catastrophe that would put the planet underwater. To do this will require an immediate change in everyone’s personal lifestyle and in the economy’s production model.

If we talk about stopping altogether, we have no more time. We lost it in previous decades. They were already known problems in 1992, when the United Nations held the first world climate convention in Rio de Janeiro. We are already steeped in the disease; we can only reduce the symptoms.

Let me give you the example of a fever: We have a fever at 38 degrees C. Even if we treat it immediately, the fever continues to rise to at least 39 degrees; however, that is certainly better than going all the way up to 42 degrees. The numbers are the same for the climate. We have already grown by a degree. If we do all what the Paris agreement expects, there will be another increase. But if we do nothing, by the end of the century you can expect an increase of 5 degrees.

Weather phenomena are increasingly extreme. What is the link with climate change?

The weather phenomena are extreme on two scores. But what matters is that they are short-lived and affect small areas of the planet. When we talk about global warming, we are interested in what happens to the entire planet, not to the individual city, and it concerns the long-term trend over the years, not what happens in three days. In Italy, 2018 was the hottest in history: The Italian climate graph has been rising for years. Then, in between, anomalous episodes occur. Maybe in a month we’ll complain about the cold instead of the heat.

We live surrounded by water. What will happen to Italy and other waterfront countries in the near future?

The oceans in the world are growing at 3.5 millimeters per year. The problem is already here with us: The sea has already increased by 20 centimeters in the last century. And the more the glaciers melt, the higher the water levels. You cannot solve the problem once the sea has increased by a meter; it cannot be emptied. We must think of containing it starting now.

What can we do every day to fight global warming?

First of all: Don’t leave rubbish in the environment; produce less waste by being more careful; focus on recycling. Then there is energy: We waste a lot of it. Houses are energy sieves, although there are ways to cut back on consumption by as much as 80% that can also save a lot on bills. There are government subsidies to make our buildings more energy efficient.

Transport is another sector. Have a car that consumes little instead of an SUV; use public transport or, if possible, bikes; reduce air travel, even though with low-cost flights everyone is tempted by exotic vacations. Finally, the last area is that of food: Eat little meat, which causes a lot of emissions to produce; buy local products that have not been transported all over the planet, and eat seasonal products. For example, strawberries at Christmas have been grown in a greenhouse or have arrived on a plane trip.

And how is it possible to quickly change a production system still tied to 20th century logics?

Even the United Nations has written that our economic system is in conflict with the environment. We must have the courage to question it. We must understand that a system based on infinite growth, in a world of finite dimensions, cannot function. We need an international institution on economic transition, formed by the best economists in the world, for the development of a new model. Investment in knowledge is essential to identify a different system, which should be born of a negotiated initiative.