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Petteri Taalas, the chair of World Meterological Organization in 2016-2023 and highly influential globally through IPCC and UN, was dunked on constantly by Finnish climate activists for statements like this.
“This translation service isn't available in your region”
That’s classic Petteri Taalas.
Sigh.
"WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas soothes people's climate pain: "Only small changes to our everyday life" Fighting the climate crisis looks promising and hopeful from the eyes of an aeronautical scientist.
Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization Petteri Taalas
The actions required to combat climate change are significantly easier than what has been done to combat the corona pandemic. And they don't have to be done immediately, but over time.
This is the message of the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization, WMO, Petteri Taalas, in his book , Climate change in the eyes of a meteorologist, published today .
WMO is an international organization in the field of meteorology under the UN. Taalas works in the organization's highest office. The core of the world's climate science, the intergovernmental panel on climate change IPCC, is also under his supervision .
So Taalas' words have weight. That's why he is listened to.
Taalas makes the fight against climate change sound easy and nice. And like you don't have to give up or suffer from anything.
That's what he wants it to sound like.
However, in Taalas' opinion, the image of combating climate change is in danger of slipping off the wrong track. According to him, the necessary actions, at least from the individual's point of view, will not revolutionize anyone's life in one way or the other.
So Taalas wants to restore dimensions to the climate debate. In his book, he repeatedly reminds us that understanding the proportions of things is important when choosing ways to solve a problem.
We sacrifice 75 percent of the Earth's arable land for growing livestock feed. It's a fool's errand and globally the biggest drawback of land use.
According to him, the means to combat climate change should be chosen carefully and thoughtfully.
According to Taalas, people should focus on big things if they want to play their part in climate action. Big things mean moving, living and spending.
Recently, the airspace has been dominated by diet changes, reducing the economic exploitation of forests and stopping air travel as the best ways to solve the climate problem. Someone is already talking about climate fanatics as standard-bearers of the true doctrine and guides in the lives of fellow human beings , he writes in his book.
Climate fanatics are taking climate talk on the wrong track Petteri Taalas has seen how climate change has turned from a phenomenon that worries a small group of researchers into mainstream news that shakes the whole world.
He has also seen how climate skeptics, who once strongly attacked science, have withdrawn from the debate. Now Taalas thinks it has gone to the other extreme.
This time, in Taalas' opinion, the desire to combat climate science has partly arisen as a result of "sharp and incriminating climate communication".
The desire to limit people's movement, diet, living or leisure time habits or the number of children under the guise of combating climate change has certainly put many people on the back foot , Taalas writes in his book.
On the other hand, Taalas does put the number of children on the agenda in an interview when talking about climate change. He would like population growth to be discussed in connection with climate change.
In Taalas opinion, diet is also an issue that needs to be considered.
Taalas also blames the sharpness of communication as the reason why the support of some parties has increased and others have decreased. In Finland, according to him, the Greens and the left-wing coalition have been at one extreme, and the basic Finns at the other.
So, according to Taalas, has a certain kind of politics done a disservice to climate protection?
The topic involves political sensitivities, because a significant part of the world's economic growth, jobs, transport and industry has been achieved by coal, oil and natural gas. Humanity's dependence on these was and is considerable , he writes.
For example, Taalas raises the yellow vest movement in France. The people took over the streets in protest of France's intentions to slightly increase diesel taxation .
According to Taalas, the majority of the world's population is of the opinion that climate change should be combated.
Things have to be considered from many points of view; in terms of climate, biodiversity, economy and employment.
According to Taalas, people are worried about how they will be able to move around at a reasonable price in the future, eat the reasonably priced food of their choice and vacation as they wish.
Presenting the fight against climate change as a penitential exercise requiring asceticism and self-flagellation falls into the lair of populists , Taalas writes in his book.
According to Taalas, sharp and blaming talk about climate change leads to polarization.
Just like the church, the fight against climate change also needs objective and moderate messengers, so that its image remains positive , writes Taalas.
According to Taalas, extremeness when talking about climate change can lead to the popularity of populists.
"The domestic climate debate has tones different from many other countries" In his book, Taalas accuses Finland's climate debate several times of being too fanatical and of moving at the level of imagination.
According to Taalas, it is important to value the importance of diet, the number of children, forests and air traffic with the numbers that describe them, and take into account the entire spectrum of reducing emissions.
Well, what are those numbers? You can look at it from many angles.
If you look at it from an atmospheric scientist's point of view, i.e. from the perspective of the amount of greenhouse gases ending up in the air worldwide, the numbers look like this.
Global greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest cause is energy 73.2%.
Taala is annoyed by the fact that, for example, the coverage of the IPCC's land and sea reports has given rise to the image that, in his opinion, the most central issue of climate change is agriculture and forestry or the seas.
According to him, the general public may have had a deficient picture of the fight against climate change as a whole, because the role of fossil fuel emissions has not been discussed in these contexts.
If you look at emissions from the perspective of a single person, they look like this.
The carbon footprint of the average Finn is 10,300 kg C02/person/year
According to Taalas' view, small climate measures are pointless tinkering. In his opinion, it doesn't matter from the point of view of the climate whether he chooses a paper or plastic bag in the store.
If climate change is not curbed, the earth will not be able to support the current number of people According to the most recent measurements, the global average temperature has broken the limit of 1.2 degrees of warming. According to the British Meteorological Institute, the magical 1.5 degrees may be reached at least momentarily already by 2024.
A return to the climate gap of pre-industrial times is no longer in sight.
Finland's Arctic region will warm by at least three to five degrees, even if the Paris Agreement is kept within the limits. In winter, the readings are even higher.
Sea level rise is happening slowly and will inevitably continue into the 21st century, even if we stay within the limits of the Paris Agreement.
The IPCC showed in 2018 that one and a half degrees would be the most ideal goal for the entire planet. Even two degrees would be happy in terms of the well-being of humanity. In conditions above three degrees, feeding the world's population would become very difficult.
Both policy makers and various companies and financial actors have heard this message and want to be part of solving this problem.
If emission restrictions are completely failed and all fossil resources are burned, the average temperature may rise by 3-5 degrees by the end of the century. Life on Earth continues even under those conditions, but the biosphere, i.e. the environment, experiences dramatic changes and is unable to support the current number of people.
Taalas wants to remind you that climate change is not leading to the destruction of humanity or the destruction of our planet.
Taalas even sees the situation as promising at the moment. By promise, Taalas means that so many countries in the world have made promises about climate action. China, the EU, Japan, South Korea, South Africa, with President Biden, the USA will also join the same front.
This is despite the fact that the Earth has already warmed 1.2 degrees on average and 1.5 degrees is knocking on the door.
According to Taalas, the message that climate scientists have been preaching for 40 years has now been heard.
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