Gwynne Dyer. Contributed Photo by HandOut /HandOutArticle contentI was reading an article about the current wildfires written in a reputable paper by a recognised ‘environmental journalist’, but I stumbled to a halt when I read the following sentence: “While the skies over North America and Europe will eventually clear, this climate change-driven era of wildfire will exact a lengthy toll.”THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.Subscribe now to access this story and more:Unlimited access to the website and appExclusive access to premium content, newsletters and podcastsFull access to the e-Edition app, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment onEnjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalistsSupport local journalists and the next generation of journalistsSUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES.Subscribe or sign in to your account to continue your reading experience.Unlimited access to the website and appExclusive access to premium content, newsletters and podcastsFull access to the e-Edition app, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment onEnjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalistsSupport local journalists and the next generation of journalistsRegister to unlock more articles.Create an account or sign in to continue your reading experience.Access additional stories every monthShare your thoughts and join the conversation in our commenting communityGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorArticle contentWhat? Does he expect the skies to “eventually clear” of their own accord? We already know with high confidence (85%-92%) that next year will be even hotter than this year. What natural event or human action is going to return us to the old ‘normal’? Here’s a market tip: invest in companies making water-bombers.Article contentArticle contentArticle contentSome people seek solace in the belief that this is just another ‘El Niño’ event, a 9-to-12-month weather phenomenon that starts in the tropical eastern Pacific but affects the entire global system. It repeats every two to seven years. This time it is coming back in three years, so technically it could be another El Niño – but there are strong reasons to doubt that.Article contentA normal El Nino temporarily adds only about 0.2°C to average global temperature, whereas the 2023-24 El Nino added more than 0.3°C. Much more importantly, that extra heat never went away again. It acted like a ratchet, taking us up past some invisible of no return, and we seem to be stuck there.Article contentBut not for much longer, because the returning El Nino is forecast to bring us another 0.3°C of extra warming. If that also stays behind when the 2026-27 El Nino is finished, then the average global temperature will soon be within shouting distance of the +2.0°C that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said we must never exceed.Article contentArticle contentSorry about the numbers, but it’s hard to talk about these matters without them. In plain words, we should probably already be in emergency mode (although there is little chance that we will be until the damage and deaths at least double and double again).Article contentIt seems likely that our current estimates of the speed of global warming have been overtaken by events. They were driven by computer models working with historical data about climate and they worked well for a while. Now they are playing catch-up with new realities and hypotheses, but they are still all we have.Article contentCutting our carbon dioxide and methane emissions, while it is still vital, cannot act fast enough to slow the warming back down to the old rate. Nor can high-tech solutions like removing greenhouse gases from the air or the sea work fast enough to make much difference: the volumes involved are just too great.Article contentWhat can act fast enough is Solar Radiation Management (SRM for short). That includes any technique that reflects some incoming sunlight back into space and cools the planet, but the most promising one involves putting some reflective substance into the stratosphere.
GWYNNE DYER: Climate: What to do now
