THE CLIMATE CRISIS Finding Solutions
his is not just having nice little debates and arguments and then coming away with a compromise. This is an urgent problem that
dioxide emissions are the worst offending global warmer. Once CO2 is loose, it’s hard to remove. Methane is 30 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas but gets drawn down in about 12 years. When a given amount of CO2 goes into the atmosphere, 65-80% of it will dissipate in somewhere between 20 to 200 years and portion of it will stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years. ‘World War II-style mobilisation’ is a phrase thrown around a lot to describe the effort necessary to get to zero carbon emissions, and that’s not an exaggeration. Every part of the economy will need to rethink how it does business. As Aaron Matthews, head of Bafta’s Albert WE BECAME AWARE THAT MEDIA IN PARTICULAR WAS ONE OF THE BIG HOTSPOTS
has to be solved. And what is more is that we know how to do it – that’s the paradoxical thing, that we are refusing to take steps that we know have to be taken.” So declared veteran broadcaster Sir David Attenborough in an interview with the BBC last month. Attenborough has done more than any individual in the TV industry – maybe in any industry – to communicate the value of the natural world to the general public. He’s also seen more of it, up close, than just about anyone else. He knows what he’s talking about. So how do we take the steps we know have to be taken? The broadcast industry – primarily the BBC – was the platform Attenborough used to take us on those amazing journeys. What is that industry going to do save that world it showed us? Greenhouse gas emissions are threatening all life on earth. They are generated largely by fossil fuel use, with a respectable chunk contributed by agricultural emissions, concrete production and various industrial processes. Carbon
2%
6%
N2O
16%
GLOBAL GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS (non-CO2 gases converted with their equivalent ‘global warming potential’)
CH4
3%
CO2 fossil fuels
CO2 land use
11%
CO2 – CH4 – N2O – F-gases –
Carbon dioxide Methane Nitrous oxide Fluorinated gases (including HFCs & PFCs)
62%
DATA FROM EPA
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