SEE YOU "THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW"...

People in Peru are planning to paint the heights of the Andes white. In 2003, giant sheets of plastic covering material with air bubbles inside were placed on the surface of Africa's highest mountain - Kilimanjaro. Recently, the government of Nepal held a meeting in oxygen masks on Mount Everest at an altitude of 5,200 metres. In November, the government of the Maldives donned aqualungs and held a meeting at a depth of 6 metres underwater. A journalist from the United States, Vanessa Farquharson, refused to use cars, toilet paper or women's tampons in her daily life and vowed to sleep only naked. Residents the Chinese village of Longtan carefully collect and keep pig faeces. This list that may seem very strange at first sight could go on and on. However, in reality all these things have been done by completely sane people - it is just that they want to draw attention to the problem of global warming.

Why do they paint the mountains?

It was the World Bank that allocated money to paint the Andes with a special composition of cement, whose coefficient of diffuse reflection is the same as that of snow. In this case, the white colour is to prevent the conversion of solar radiation into heat, thus reducing the negative effect of global warming - 85 per cent of sunlight will be sent back into space. Seventy per cent of the glaciers of the Andes Mountain Range, which passes through seven countries in South America, are located in Peru and, over the past 30 years they have lost a fifth of their area as a result of climate warming. If the glaciers continue melting at the same pace, then all glaciers below 5,500 metres above sea level will disappear from South America within a few years.

 Things are even worse on Kilimanjaro - the plastic coating was required to slow down the melting of snow and restore the woods on its slopes. If the great Ernest Hemingway saw the highest peak in Africa, to which he once devoted his immortal novel, he would not believe his own eyes - the glacier has shrunk markedly since then. The problem of melting glaciers has also affected the Himalayas, which is very worrying for the leaderships of Nepal, India and other countries.

The Republic of the Maldives is facing another disaster - if sea levels continue to rise, by 2100 the islands will be completely flooded, as more than 80 per cent of their territory is situated below one metre above sea level.

Everything that is happening in different parts of the Earth worries not only scientists and politicians, but ordinary people, many of whom are trying to contribute to efforts to combat climate change. For example, Vanessa Farquharson decided to save a little water, electricity, clean air and trees for mankind. Residents of the Chinese village use pig faeces to produce biogas - a new kind of energy to heat homes. It is claimed that the faeces of three or four pigs is enough to supply one family with power. If we consider that in China, 45 per cent of the population live in rural areas, the numbers are huge.

Politics and ecology are no friends...

Meanwhile, global warming seems to have become the main question of the early 21st century. The point is that, despite the volumes of various studies, no-one can reliably indicate its causes. Countering global warming means the emergence of a new kind of business, up to national scale and the emergence of a new type of political thinking, or is it simply a desire to live in harmony with nature and save the Earth? Is human activity the main cause of global warming?

It is impossible to answer these questions with absolute certainty at the moment. However, the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen brought together a huge number of participants - about 200 official delegations (about 15,000 people from 192 member countries of the UN and the leaders of more than 100 countries), which demonstrates the importance of this issue. They all gathered in Denmark with a single purpose - to try to come to at least some semblance of agreement on what the document replacing the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, should be like. The Kyoto Protocol specifies, for the first time, norms for harmful emissions into the atmosphere for some industrial countries.

However, the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges developed countries and countries with transition economies to reduce or stabilize greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2012, has many weaknesses, first of all, because the United States, China and India, which are the main producers of greenhouse gases on the Earth, are not signatories. In addition, the Kyoto Protocol introduced emission quotas, but without effective and appropriate mechanisms. They now continue to consider whether the practice of allowing certain emission standards to be exceeded in exchange for the introduction of environmentally sound industrial technologies, as well as in exchange for financial payments, will work in the future. It is not clear yet how verification mechanisms should work. 

According to scientists' calculations, in order to avoid catastrophic consequences from global warming, it is necessary to keep global warming to within two degrees. This means that by 2020 emissions of greenhouse gases should be reduced to 25-40 per cent below1990 levels and 50 per cent below by 2050. It is said that we can spend 5 per cent of world GDP now in order to avoid spending 30 per cent of world output later to overcome the effects of global warming.

 But to achieve this, world leaders will have to come at least to some agreement on the issue. This is very difficult, because various countries have serious differences on this issue. As it turns out, politics and ecology are no friends...

The point is that in order to distribute emission standards, it is necessary to determine the measure of responsibility of each member of the international community for air polluting emissions. But no-one is willing to voluntarily sacrifice their economic development, even for the sake of combating the effects of climate change on Earth. Thus, it is clear that a new climate agreement should also include developing countries, especially India and China. However, they believe that they, too, have the right to economic growth, and the new agreement could be a hindrance.

At the same time, the discontent of other states with the position of China, whose economy is, to say the least, looking very impressive, is also quite understandable. The government of Japan, for example, has clearly stated that it opposes a mechanical extension of the Kyoto Protocol, if it does not include the US and China. The EU also says it is willing to actively sign up to the document, but only on condition that it is supported by other major "polluters" of the atmosphere. The government of India announced its intention to reduce emissions by 20-25 per cent over the next decade, but "on the condition of assistance from the international community". In turn, China's State Council decided that, by 2020, the Celestial Empire will reduce, by about 40-45 per cent, emissions of carbon dioxide per unit of added value, compared to 2005. Beijing is hinting that, in addition to the fight against global warming, it has other problems such as poverty eradication, which, of course, requires economic growth...

In addition, enormous investment is required for a transition to environmentally safe production, but not many countries can afford this.

The American state of California is going to produce part of its electricity in outer space - the first deliveries are expected in 2016. Japan also plans to establish a system of orbiting solar panels by 2030, while China has started to build a giant wind power station with a capacity of about 10 gigawatts, and may increase capacity to 40 gigawatts. It is clear that only states with strong economies can afford such projects, and only on a semi-experimental scale.

This is the aspect of environmental protection in which the global economy "starts its game" to the accompaniment of global politics. The disposition is quite complicated.

Many expect active steps from the United States. Previously, Washington has voiced plans to reduce emissions of climate damaging gases into the atmosphere by 17 per cent by 2020. Now supporters of the fight against global warming have great hopes of Barack Obama's administration, which, unlike the previous White House team led by President George W. Bush, has launched much more stringent environmental policies, or has at least recognized the need for some measures. Obama, for example, has already demanded that automobile manufacturers make their vehicles more efficient in fuel consumption.

The trouble is, however, that most people in the US and, for example in the CIS, have little knowledge of the essence of discussions about the climate. In Europe, by the way, public consciousness in this area is a much more advanced, and there it is even fashionable to "turn green" and take care of the environment.

"Well, what if?"

So what are they wrangling about so furiously? What is at stake? It seems that our future is at stake...

According to scientists' predictions, politicians' speeches and journalists' articles, and especially the works of screenwriters with wild imaginations, the end of the world truly awaits us - at least the type of the world we are used to will certainly cease to exist. Perhaps slowly, or perhaps in a short period of time... It is unlikely that, while watching the masterfully created computer "images" of most of the world's cities falling into ruin in the Hollywood disaster film "The Day After Tomorrow", no-one's heart trembled, at least for a second: "Well, what if?"

Setting fiction aside, scientists actually predict little that is good. Thus, if the increase in emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere continues, humanity will face unprecedented floods and rising sea levels as a result of melting mountain glaciers and Arctic and Antarctic ice. The coastal areas of many states may be flooded and whole island states will disappear from the face of the Earth.

 On the other side of the coin, we also expect declining rainfall, the expansion of deserts, a drying of the rivers which feed mountain glaciers and, as a consequence, severe droughts in some regions of the world. Such a scenario threatens the Middle East, Southern Europe and Australia, as well as some regions of Africa and North America.

The result of these disasters will be a lack of fresh water, which is a fairly serious problem in the Middle East, West Africa and Central Asia. Thus it is possible that in the future wars will be fought over access to drinking water.Irreparable damage will be inflicted on many species of flora and fauna, as far as their complete disappearance from the surface of the Earth, while agriculture in most countries will fall into decay; this is fraught with potential for a food crisis and, possibly, millions of deaths from starvation. In Africa now, with relatively favourable overall conditions of life on the planet, a huge number of people die from a lack of food and water each year.

In such circumstances, even without apocalyptic movies in the style of "The Day After Tomorrow", the world could change beyond recognition. The emergence of an unprecedented army (hundreds of millions) of "environmental refugees" would lead to riots, disorderly migrations, blurring of national boundaries, economic collapse and anarchy. Suffice to mention that there are already as many as 25 million people forced to flee their homes due to various environmental problems.

In addition, the number of severe storms, hurricanes and heavy rains will increase across the planet. Extreme weather conditions (anomalous heat or anomalous cold) will become the norm in regions that have not previously experienced sharp changes in temperature.

The list of horrors, alas, does not end here, because all the aforesaid will certainly trigger outbreaks of infectious diseases - new and old mutated ones. According to studies by scientists and veterinarians from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) published in The Times, "owing" to climate change, the planet might be taken over by babesiosis (a disease transmitted by mites) and other skin and intestinal parasites, cholera (which is very fond of warm water), Ebola fever which is deadly for humans, plague (the habitats of rodents and fleas which transmit it are changing noticeably and expanding as a result of global warming), Rift Valley fever, sleeping sickness (transmitted by the tsetse fly), tuberculosis, yellow fever, transmitted by mosquitoes etc.

Also, the so-called "red tides", formed by the flowering of certain species of deadly algae, could spread on a large scale.

But that's not all. Fresh data from studies by the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London suggest that global climate change may adversely affect the mental health of many people, giving rise to stress disorders, major depressive episodes and somatoform disorders (so-called organ neuroses).

However, it seems that this conclusion does not require a doctor's degree in psychiatry, since even half of the things we list are quite enough to go crazy...

Moreover, the scale of negative consequences can be much more impressive, because in the absence of restraining measures, the volume of greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere and, consequently, their impact on Earth's climate will be very difficult to predict. New studies suggest that temperatures on our planet may be 30-50 per cent more sensitive to atmospheric concentrations of СО2 than previously thought.

"Alarmists" against "ecosceptics"

The main cause of warming is the greenhouse effect from the emission of large quantities of industrial gases, which are mainly generated by burning fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. However, there are many politicians and scientists who do not believe that human activity is causing global warming.

Two years ago, a documentary entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle" was released in the UK. It attempted to refute scientists' arguments about the anthropogenic factor underlying global climate change. Proponents of this theory argue that talk of man's responsibility for the heating of the planet can be explained by political and economic factors - votes and money for new industrial environmental orders, projects and studies. The obvious signs of warming are much easier to explain - this is just part of cyclical climate change.

For example, the well-known environmentalist and former US vice-president and presidential candidate Al Gore stands accused of having a financial interest in combating the effects of global warming. In 2007, Gore received an Oscar for his manifesto film "An Inconvenient Truth", and he later won the Nobel Prize.

"An Inconvenient Truth", edited in a leisurely, but convincing manner, is almost entirely accompanied by Gore's ironically sad voice. One cannot help believing this tired man who seems to be interested in nothing but saving the Earth. Inside, apart from the will, you have a strong desire to rush out to combat the effects of global warming, even to the collection of pig faeces. That is what we wanted to prove...

Another argument of opponents of the "alarmists" (climate alarmism meaning the notion that global warming is human-induced) appeared virtually simultaneously with the start of the conference in Copenhagen. It is alleged that Russians from Tomsk hacked into the server storing correspondence between scientists at the climate department of the University of East Anglia (incidentally, they prepared reports for the current climate forum in Denmark), as well as NASA specialists and the staff of US universities. The correspondence shows that the public is being given false information about climate change. Scientists allegedly fake data to create the impression that the climate is warming because of industrial emissions into the atmosphere. Their results, however, indicate that the average temperature on Earth has not increased, but has decreased in recent years. This has caused a major stir and has already received the symbolic name "Climategate".

The chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, told the BBC that the facts which surfaced were either fabricated or misinterpreted. But the unpleasant aftertaste, as they say, remained.

The worst thing is that there are no definitive answers to all the questions and doubts raised there... We will definitely learn them, maybe "The Day After Tomorrow"...

Clearly, in such a situation, the international community must finally make up its mind on the issue of global warming, and the conference in Copenhagen, which has been called "the largest and most important since the Second World War", will be crucial here.

The article uses materials from the website http://ru.cop15.dk/ (the site belongs to Denmark - the host country of the UN Conference on Climate Change)