1 The need for individual change

1.1 Changes in the national and global climate

Whether it is our consumption of modern (often imported) products, food miles, household energy use, transport, or any number of other areas of activity associated with a modern lifestyle in a developed country, we emit more carbon dioxide (CO₂) than the planet's climate can handle. In the UK, over 40 per cent of CO₂ emissions come from the energy we use every day at home and when we travel. We can already see the effects of climate change in the UK with milder winters and changing rainfall patterns making droughts and floods more common.

During the last 40 years, winters in the UK have grown warmer, with heavier bursts of rain. Despite occasional wet periods that get a lot of media attention (such as the summer of 2007), our summers are growing drier and hotter, causing water shortages. The years 2003-2008 were the warmest since records began: for example, during August 2003, Kent experienced the hottest temperature ever recorded in the UK at 38.5°C. More severe storms and rising sea levels erode the coastline, while heavy rains cause rivers to burst their banks more often, leading to flash floods. The floods during summer 2007 were caused by the heaviest rainfall since records began and resulted in the insurance industry paying out around £3 billion.

You can download a report by the Association of British Insurers on the UK's floods in 2007.

Scientific predictions indicate that, by the end of this century, the average yearly temperature of the UK will be between 1°C and 4.5°C hotter than today, depending on the levels of greenhouse gases. The land will heat up faster than the sea and the south-east more than the north-west. Summer and autumn will heat up more than winter and spring and, as nights become hotter and stickier, the temperatures we currently get at 7 p.m. could be experienced at 11 p.m. By 2100, we could face intense heatwaves into the mid 40s °C, similar to the heat that killed thousands of people across continental Europe in 2003. Wildlife will find it increasingly difficult to adapt, and many British species may disappear. Over the last 30 years, evidence has shown that spring is beginning earlier, but a major problem is that the change is not the same for all species groups. Plant responses to spring are now about 10 days earlier, insects about two weeks earlier and birds (migration and breeding) about a week earlier. This may disrupt the complex array of carefully balanced ecological relationships between species. Another way in which the effect on species will be seen is in our gardens as the weather affects what can grow. Equivalent patterns of change and their impacts are seen around the world.

You can see some of these effects illustrated in Nature's Calendar from The Woodland Trust.