Global Warming

The earth's climate is changing and mankind causes this. Although some regions may cool for a time, the earth as a whole is getting steadily warmer and this will continue during this century. Other climate changes follow the warming. Sea level is increasing. There will be more droughts in some areas e.g., in parts of Africa where people, already now, are suffering from water shortage. And the extra water that evaporates from Africa and similar locations will fall down as increased precipitation elsewhere, such as at our latitudes.

These changes occur because we humans are emitting various substances into the atmosphere that change the climate. Especially carbon dioxide, CO2, is important. This substance is emitted whenever we burn oil, coal, or gas in cars, factories, for heating our homes, etc. The bad thing about CO2 is that it acts somewhat like the insulation in a house. When we increase the insulation of our house, it becomes warmer, and this is what we are now doing to the earth.

It is hard to predict, how large the changes will become, since we don't know how much CO2 will be emitted in the future. In the worst case, the earth may warm some 6 degrees centigrade during this century. This is more than the temperature increase since the last ice age. Added to this, are the other climate changes. This will have large impacts on living organisms on land and in the sea: plants, animals, and humans. It is hard to predict exactly, what changes will occur, but the damages are expected to increase with increasing climate change.

Different regions may well be affected in different ways and may also be most sensitive to different aspects of climate change: In some places, heat waves, elsewhere drought, or floods, or the sea flooding the land. The Arctic is one region that has been predicted to change more than most and it seems that even some of these predictions may be underestimates.

The Faroe Islands are located on the boundary of the Arctic but the climate is also very dependent on the heat carried by the ocean currents. If they were to change, the boundary could move. At the present, it is therefore very difficult to predict, how the Faroese climate will change. Almost certainly, there will, however, be changes and they will affect the living conditions and the resources, such as fish, that the Faroese depend on.

Global warming cannot be immediately stopped. We have perturbed the climate balance and it needs time to re-adjust. A car does not stop immediately after you step on the brake, and neither does the climate. To prevent dangerous consequences, it is essential to put the brakes on well before the danger signals are evident. We can reduce the long-term consequences of global warming by limiting the increases in CO2 emission, but this requires politicians that are sufficiently smart and responsible to plan farther ahead than to the next election.

Bogi Hansen

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