Climate change: Simple, serious, solvable

The Freedom From Religion Foundation hosted longtime meteorologist Bob Lindmeier to speak on the topic of climate change. The event was held March 21 at FFRF’s headquarters (Freethought Hall) in Madison, Wis.

Lindmeier is senior chief meteorologist for WKOW in Madison and a member of the American Meteorological Society, the AMS Station Scientist Committee, and the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. (He is married to FFRF’s IT Helpdesk Associate Sheryl Lindmeier.)

The following is an excerpt of his hour-long presentation, which included numerous graphs, charts and images.

By Bob Lindmeier

It’s a pleasure to be here.

Over the years, as I was doing my job, concentrating on the next seven days of weather for my viewers, I was keeping track of what climate scientists were saying and the research they were putting out. I noticed how really alarmed they were becoming on what was happening in our climate.

But, I also noticed that there was a disconnect with the general public. Much of the public didn’t share that alarm. I was like, “What’s going on here? Why aren’t they concerned like I am, and climate scientists are?”

So, I delved into it. I found out how misinformed the nation is, and how the fossil fuel industry has been instrumental, unfortunately, in putting out that misinformation — enough that people are just confused, not really knowing what is happening.

But our climate problem is the following: simple, serious and solvable.

Let’s talk about how simple it is in the scientific world that I live in. When you get away from the political world and the discourse that goes on there, it is unquestioned that climate change is real. It’s us causing it. It’s dangerous.

Scientists overwhelmingly agree it’s very important. It is widely agreed upon: 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists agree that humans have caused climate change. What about that other 3 percent? That’s the fossil fuel industry and scientists who are in their pockets, unfortunately.

But, we have solutions that are technically feasible, economically affordable, and politically viable. It’s really simple, actually.

The reason that climate change and temperatures are increasing — and the scientists back in the 1800s knew this — is because of the burning of fossil fuels, the burning of oil, the burning of coal that’s putting more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, along with other greenhouse gases, that is causing the average temperature of our atmosphere across the world to rise.

This warming has had serious implications. Our seas are rising due to the melting of land ice: glaciers, primarily. But, we’re also seeing more wild weather. We’re seeing extreme weather events because warming the atmosphere supercharges it, and that supercharging manifests itself as extreme weather events that are becoming more intense and more frequent.

Winters are by far our fastest warming season in Madison. It’s over four degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was back in 1970. If you think about 1970, that was just a little over 50 years ago, and we’ve had that much warming in that short a period of time. The end effect is our summers are getting longer, our winters are getting shorter.

And this past winter is an excellent example. One of the ways that really is shown is in the coldest temperatures we experience every winter. Back in 1970, our average coldest temperature was 20 degrees below zero. Now it’s 12 degrees below zero. So, it’s 8 degrees different. And again, climatically, this is just a snapshot of time.

Evolution has not kept up with climate change, so there’s mistiming taking place in insect pollination, in birds, food supplies being disrupted. Plants are sprouting earlier. We’re getting that allergy season going earlier. We have crop damage. In the last decade, we’ve had major crop losses in vineyards and fruit orchards.

And, the impacts on health are many, including injury and death. Ultimately, mental health is a big one. Heat stress, insect-borne diseases, lung disease and allergies ultimately are impacts from climate change.

And allergies and asthma have increased so much because we have a longer and more severe allergy season. This is especially impactful for the young, for the elderly, for those who are sick and ill. It’s a big problem that’s just going to get worse because our growing season is about a month longer than it was back in 1970.

At the rate things are going, you don’t want to add another 2 degrees Celsius. If we go up just another half degree, you’re adding more sea level rise to the point where 10.4 million people are exposed to that rise and will have to move. You’ll have virtually the entire coral reef ecosystem disappear. Over 400 million people in urban areas are exposed to severe drought and at least one ice-free arctic summer.

Fortunately, it is solvable.

One big thing that we can do — kind of the low-hanging fruit — is reduce our electricity consumption; reduce our carbon footprint.

A carbon price is the single most powerful tool available to the government to reduce American’s carbon pollution. The idea is to charge a fee on fossil fuels at the source.

When you do that, yeah, fossil fuels become really expensive, but inflation takes off, too, as this transition occurs. But, if you take the fee and give it back to us as a dividend, then that really mitigates that inflationary cost to us and makes it doable — makes where it really, it can happen. The benefits are we get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Another big way is through better buildings, and there’s effort going on here, but there’s a lot we can do to make our own buildings more energy efficient: putting in glass that’s more efficient, insulation improvements, electric heating and cooling, getting away from any kind of natural gas.

And there’s something that you can do personally, and that is eat less meat — eat more plant-based foods. The more you can eat as a vegetarian, the more you’re going to help our planet. And I’ll tell you, I was a meat eater like no one else not that long ago. But with the help of our vegetarian daughter, I have been eating more and more vegetarian and finding out how good it is.

What else can you do personally? Have conversations with your family, friends, and neighbors about climate change. Hopefully, this talk spurs you to have those conversations. It can be difficult sometimes, right? There’s a lot of politics, unfortunately, intertwined with climate change. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.

Vote for candidates that advocate for climate change solutions.

I don’t care if it’s a school board, a village, city, town, state, or federal. What is the position of each of those candidates on climate change? Make sure that factors into your decisions. Join an environmental organization. As an individual, you feel powerless, but when you join a group, that really changes things.

We have what we need, to make changes. This is why I’m here today talking to you. I think that’s why many of you are sitting here right now. You’re thinking about your kids. You’re thinking about your grandkids, because you look at those upward temperature curves by the end of the century, if we don’t make changes. We can’t go there. So, it’s up to us to help them.

Thank you.