An Inheritance for my Grandchildren

In honor of today's Global Climate Strike, we offer this post from long-time climate organizer, Rev. Rich Killmer of the CRC's Climate Witness Project.

I am 76 years old. I often think about the kind of legacy I will leave to my 9 grandchildren.

I have concluded that the gift that is most faithful to God that I can give them is to work as hard as I can to protect the world that they are inheriting by decreasing the harm caused by climate change. Though people caught in poverty will continue to suffer more, my grandchildren will have very different lives than the one that I have been lucky enough to live.

I often think about the kind of legacy I will leave to my 9 grandchildren.

Two reports were published in the fall of 2018 which tell us about the urgency and seriousness of climate change and which affect my thinking about my legacy. The first is a report from the world’s leading climate scientists who warn that there are only 12 years left for us to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Centigrade (C). After that date, it will be more difficult to mitigate the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat, and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. The report was prepared by the scientists of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

The world is already 1C warmer than it was in 1880. Following devastating hurricanes in the US, record droughts in Cape Town, and forest fires in the Arctic, the IPCC makes clear that climate change is already happening, and warned that every fraction of additional warming would worsen the impact.

The world is already 1C warmer than it was in 1880.

These scientists conclude that urgent and unprecedented changes are needed to reach the target, which they say is affordable and feasible, although it lies at the most ambitious end of the Paris Agreement pledge to keep temperatures between 1.5 degrees Centigrade and 2 degrees Centigrade. The world will be in much better shape if we are able to reach 1.5 degrees Centigrade by 2100 instead of an increase of 2 degrees C.

If the world’s temperature gets to 1.5 C by the year 2100, instead of 2 degrees C…

• The proportion of the global population exposed to sea level rise and other water stress could be 50% lower than if it only gets to 2 C. (Sea-level rise at 2C would affect 10 million more people by 2100.)
• Food scarcity would be decreased and hundreds of millions fewer people, particularly in poor countries, would be at risk of climate-related poverty, compared to 2 C levels. At 2 degree C increase, extremely hot days, such as those experienced in the northern hemisphere this past summer, would become more severe and common, and there would be an increase in heat-related deaths and more forest fires.

Carbon pollution would have to be cut by 45% by 2030 to produce a 1.5 C increase – compared with a 20% cut to get to a 2 C goal – and come down to zero by 2050, compared with 2075 for 2 C. The 1.5 C increase would require carbon prices that are three to four times higher than for a 2 C target. But the costs to the planet of a more modest response would be far higher.

The 1.5 C increase would require carbon prices that are three to four times higher than for a 2 C target.

The second report is the fourth National Climate Assessment, which comes from the US Global Change Research Program, a consortium of 13 U.S. federal agencies including the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, and NASA.

The reports names three major themes:

1) Climate change will be expensive. By the end of the century, warming on our current trajectory would cost the US economy upwards of $500 billion a year in crop damage, lost labor, and extreme weather damages. This is almost double the economic blow of the Great Recession in the early 2000s.

Cutting greenhouse gases makes sense simply for our own economic self-interest.

But the inverse is also true: fighting climate change has huge financial benefits. Cutting greenhouse gases makes sense simply for our own economic self-interest.

2) Climate change is deadly. The most direct way it kills is by increasing the frequency, intensity, and duration of heat waves. This summer alone, we saw deadly temperature spikes in Japan, Canada, and Pakistan that killed dozens of people. In the US, this heat is expected to more than offset any lives saved because of warmer winters.

The scientists in the report projected that air quality will suffer as well. The pollution we breathe is already one of the biggest killers in the world, taking years off of people’s lives. It can also exacerbate sources of pollution like wildfires, which have created some of the worst breathing conditions in the world in California.

The biggest uncertainty in climate forecasting is always us.

3) We can still do something to limit global warming and counter its effects. We already have most of the tools we need to aggressively curb carbon dioxide emissions, thereby limiting the rise in global average temperatures. According to the report’s scientists, we must use them.

“Future impacts and risks from climate change are directly tied to decisions made in the present,” the assessment reads. The biggest uncertainty in climate forecasting is always us: What will humanity actually do about climate change?

I ask myself what else can I do to provide my grandchildren with a world that is more livable.

I do some work for the Climate Witness Project of World Renew and the Office of Social Justice (OSJ) of the Christian Reformed Church and try to diminish the damage that climate change produces. The 2012 Synod asked the OSJ to address climate change in God’s world. Yet I could take other steps personally like driving an electric car or putting solar panels on the roof of my house.

When I receive thank you notes from my grandchildren for my Christmas presents to them or participate in our annual gathering when all nine of them and their parents are gathered together, I ask myself what else can I do to provide my grandchildren with a world that is more livable. That legacy will have an influence on the health of the world they inherit. 

Fighting climate change will require many changes, including changes to government policies.

Speak up for bold climate action today:

Canada: Ask your MP to support bold climate action

U.S.: Support bipartisan climate solutions

[Photo by Julie Johnson on Unsplash]