Get used to the burning inferno that Trinidad's forests have become. The COP21 UN Paris climate agreement seeks to limit global warming to 1.5�C above pre-industrial levels. The last few months show what that can mean for our part of the world.
Exacerbated by El Ni�o, March showed a global average temperature that was 1.2-1.4�C above pre-industrial levels, it was the warmest month in recorded history, as was January and February.
In fact, 2016 has been the warmest year on record. Ever. The result is heat and drought, bush fires and water rationing. This is exactly in line with the scientific predictions for our part of the Caribbean.
Bushfires cannot be blamed purely on climate change. Weather conditions set the stage for tinder-like conditions, but man is needed to light the fires.
The myth of spontaneous combustion of trees and leaves is just that. It's only in the Bible that a tree spontaneously combusts. Science shows that wood needs a temperature of at least 250�C to ignite. Short of a piece of littered glass, equally an act of man, magnifying sun rays to start a fire, the only way a fire starts is by setting it.
Water is rationed as reservoirs run dry. The watersheds are burnt to a crisp. In Haiti the hillsides were deforested for use as firewood. Desperate Haitians destroyed their forests for short-term survival–damn the future. In T&T we just burn our forests out of apathy. Without trees, there is no water and without water there is no life. We see farmers abandoning crops because there is no water to irrigate their fields. So much for the eat local campaign.
It is popular to categorise these extreme conditions as a one-off event attributable to El Ni�o. Scientists have looked back at the records and concluded that El Ni�o only adds 0.1�C to abnormal temperatures. This is the new normal.
T&T is the second highest per capita emitter of greenhouse gasses. Globally our emissions are less than 1 per cent. There is little that we can do as a society to influence global CO2 emissions.
Declining oil and gas production implies that our per capita emissions will drop, without any government or individual effort necessary. This means that our statistical CO2 problem will self solve.
What will not self-solve, however, is our state of preparedness. Fire conditions will get worse each warming year. Set by humans, they are entirely preventable.Fire traces can be cut. Slash and burn agriculture can be stopped–most of this is on squatted land and it should not be tolerated no matter how many sweet potatoes and plantains are produced.
This last is simply the difference between living in a lawful society and anarchy.The same goes for the enforcement of existing laws. So far, the arsonists who set the fires that took several lives this year, are still at loose. They will never be charged because we do not live in a society that values life any more than it values "bush."
The problems are not just on land. Ocean temperatures are rising. Ninety-three per cent of all the extra energy trapped by greenhouse gasses ends up in the ocean. By coincidence, 93 is also the percentage of the Great Barrier Reef that is bleaching due to these same high temperatures. Luckily Tobago's reefs do not seem to be affected this time around, but that was not the case in 2010 when there was a severe bleaching event.
Reefs are not only under threat from high temperatures, but also from overfishing and pollution, agricultural run-off being the main offender.
T&T's failure to develop agriculture has been a benefit for reef health. It means comparatively little fertiliser and pesticide run off. Now that T&T seeks to develop agriculture to offset lost oil and gas revenue, it is important that agricultural practices are sustainable.
Organic is the way to go, which will only be possible if a capital intensive approach is taken, but if pesticides and fertiliser are used, it should be under guidance of trained agricultural officers only. This means that a capacity boost is needed for the Ministry of Agriculture.
It makes no sense to plant the land while killing reefs and fisheries.Reefs can deal with one thing at a time: overfishing, higher temperatures, ocean acidification and pollution; but they can't deal with all at once.We can't control ocean temperatures or acidity, at least not until some new technology comes along, but we can control agricultural run-off and overfishing.
Our fisheries are unmanaged to the point that the EU Commission now threatens to embargo T&T seafood exports. This is a management and budgeting problem–or maybe more aptly a-we-don't-give-a-damn-about-slimy-fishes problem. It can be fixed if there is the will.
The recent temperature spike is our warning to do everything that we have done before differently. We cannot control climate change but we can manage how we deal with it. Prepare for climate change; it is here.