Climate Change and Idai

Cyclone Idai as represented by the European Space Agency

Cyclone Idai is one of many extreme weather events.

Storms on this scale are not a new thing. But we have to expect more storms of increased severity as the planet heats up.

One of the main drivers of weather is transfers of energy between the atmosphere and the oceans.

One of the lesser-known facts about climate change is that 90% of the extra energy being captured by greenhouse gases is in the oceans.

While warming of the surface is alarming that is, so as to speak, only the tip of the iceberg.

Here in South Africa, we see a limited effect – the temporary loss of electricity from Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa hydroelectric power plant. But for our neighbours, this is a massive calamity.

Can we still stand by quietly while the forces of fossil fuel propel our planet towards the risk of a major extinction event?

The risk is not theoretical and distant – it is real and on our own doorstep, with major impacts not only in Mozambique but in Malawi and Zimbabwe.

So why is climate change not a big issue in the 2019 South African elections? Instead, we hear a ramping up of xenophobic rhetoric – and that is before we have a significant number of climate refugees caused in part by our own addiction to fossil fuels.

Green Policy in South Africa

The major parties in the 2019 South African election do not mention climate change in their manifestos – an existential threat to humanity.

Nor do they seriously address green energy, a proven job creator as well as part of the pathway to solving the climate crisis.

This blog contains personal views on green policy that anyone is free to lift but with attribution if they use them wholesale. I am not in this for gain but credit where it is due is fair use practice.

Why is there urgency around this issue?

Large parts of the country are in the grip of a serious drought including the Eastern Cape where I live. A prediction of climate change science is intensification of the hydrological cycle as the planet warms – so extremes of drought and flood will increase. And the poor are the ones who suffer the most, so this is a question of equity and justice.

Protests by school children about climate inaction are both inspiring and shameful. They are inspiring because it shows they care; they are shameful because it should not be up to children. This country had the experience of leaving addressing change to school children in 1976; have we learnt nothing from that?

What do school children have to protest about? Stealing their future for a quick buck. This is also very much about intergenerational justice. So they are right to be concerned. The first stage hits the poor the hardest but eventually it will hit everyone.

This is not the time for silence – silence is complicity.

But anger alone is not enough – you have to have solutions. And that is what this blog is about.

Check in here for articles; you can also follow my Facebook page on the same subject. These are personal views – use them to inform your voting choice.