Chapter 2

Question 1

What is the IPCC? When was it created? What does it do?

Answer 1

• Intergovernmental panel on climate change
• the top association of climate scientists
• created in 1988
• scientists volunteer to provide a summary of what is known about the drivers of climate change
• UNFCCC binds member states to work toward an international treaty on climate change

Question 2

What is the NIPCC

Answer 2

• Non-governmental panel on climate change
• organization of climate deniers funded by fossil fuel companies

Question 3

What percentage of people actual deny climate change according to a Harvard study?

Answer 3

10%

Question 4

Why is there debate over the reality of climate change?

Answer 4

• because it is both a physical phenomenon and a set of cultural ideas
• our discussions about climate change as a physical phenomenon are filtered though ideas about what it means to us (threat, challenge, blessing, etc.)

Question 5

Greta Thunberg and EU’s largest school strike

Answer 5

• 1.4million students joined Greta to protest climate change
• what is your circle of influence?

Question 6

Our Children’s Trust and Kelsey Juliana

Answer 6

• sued the US government in 2015, claiming they violated the younger generation’s rights to life, liberty, and property
• climate change as an issue of inter generational justice

Question 7

Climate Fatigue

Answer 7

hearing too much about climate change, fear you cant help, and hoping it wont be so bad; fed by corporations

Question 8

Climate Denialism

Answer 8

emotional state similar to denialism that mourners and victims of trauma experience; usually related to deep beliefs in conservatism, market fundamentalism, and Christian doctrine

Question 9

What is climate change?

Answer 9

• long term pattern of temperature and precipitation averages and extremes at a location (NOAA)
• WMO requires 30yrs of data before determining a ‘normal’ climate

Question 10

Climate vs. Weather

Answer 10

• Weather = what’s possible for temperature and precipitation in a location
• Climate = what is likely
• with climate change, extreme weather is more likely

Question 11

What is the Holocene and what is its significance to climate change?

Answer 11

• The Holocene is the period that humans evolved in
• it had an unusually stable, warm climate which allowed humans to create agricultural civilization
• If our current environment conditions have changed from those of the Holocene period, civilization must change as well

Question 12

What causes climate change?

Answer 12

• Changes in atmospheric chemicals (greenhouse gases)
  Increases in carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide trap more solar radition

Question 12

What are environmental “sinks”?

Answer 12

things like soil, plants, and oceans which can absorb some greenhouse gases

Question 13

What is anthropogenic climate change?

Answer 13

climate change caused specifically by humans

Question 14

How does lag time relate to climate change?

Answer 14

• The Earth has a lag time between a change in course and when you actually see the results of said change
• you won’t see the changes until the moment they instantly happen
• we are just beginning to see the effects of climate change

Question 15

How much does carbon neutrality cost?

Answer 15

• IPCC Special Report 1.5
• $2.4 trillion annually over 20yrs
• this is only 2.5% of global GDP
• the US spent 3.5% of GDP on defense in 2018
• When investments to reduce climate change are combined with those to reduce global poverty, synergies multiply their effectiveness

Question 16

How can we reduce global carbon emissions 50% by 2030?

Answer 16

By reducing emissions of the richest 1/6th of people

Question 17

What is WEIRD and how does it relate to carbon emissions?

Answer 17

• Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich Democracies
• How and why carbon is emitted varies according to a local culture’s traditions and capacities for using fossil fuels to achieve what WEIRD calls ‘the Good Life’
• EH gives us new ways to imagine ‘the Good Life’ that are symbiotic rather than parasitic

Question 18

What is a Sacrifice Zone?

Answer 18

• Originally degraded environments used for nuclear testing
• Now refers to places that industrial society writes off as collateral damage in the name of progress
• these places are almost always where poor and minority populations live