Bilbao, (EFE).- The Dutch paleoclimatologist Ellen Thomas is not optimistic about global warming, which is a challenge, above all, for human beings, because “it is not a problem for the planet” if we become extinct.
Thomas and the American James Zachos have won this year the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Climate Change for discovering that 56 million years ago there was an episode of the greenhouse effect that offers analogies with the current climate change generated by humans.
“Very concerned” with the current climate crisis
An expert in marine micropaleontology at Yale University (USA), Thomas (1950) tells EFE that she is “very concerned” with the current climate crisis.
Among the main concerns, he cites the rise in sea level “one of the potential consequences, especially if Greenland or Antarctica melt”
The discovery and study of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) makes it possible to predict some impacts of the current global warming generated by humans, although there are also differences between the two.
There were no ice sheets in Antarctica then, “so the sea level didn’t rise as much as we expect it to now”, which in the worst case scenarios could exceed 10 metres, and “that’s not good at all”.
And it highlights another element that “may not be so clear” related to agriculture and how the distribution of different plant species moves north. In the United States, where he lives, it rises from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, “which is a problem for society.”
Change in PETM patterns
In addition to the change in rainfall patterns, of which there is evidence that they already changed during the PETM, when there were “very severe droughts, followed by floods and landslides”, all these factors would pose problems for agriculture and the displacement of people. .
During the PETM, the emission of greenhouse gases, due to natural causes, “we thought it was much slower than what humans are doing”, now it is perhaps ten times faster.
There are those who think that the Earth should be left to take care of the current CO2 emissions, but Thomas warns that “the time scale in which it can do it is too slow to be useful for us”, since we are talking about centuries.
The rise of the sea a serious problem
“I live in Connecticut (USA). There, in the history of the Earth, there have been ice ages, rises and falls of the sea, but they were not a problem. Today, next to the beach there is a train, there are houses and if the sea level rises it is a problem for us, for our infrastructures”.
The scientist emphasizes that “for the planet it is not a problem that we become extinct, because there have always been species that have become extinct, although we can argue – she points out – that we like that idea”.
In addition, he insists that “there is no doubt that this period of climate change is due to what we do as human beings.”
Since the early 1980s, scientists have debated climate change, “our argument is known and now the question is, what do people do about it”.
deniers
As for the deniers of the current climate situation, he points out that “speaking with them is with creationists, they have the same type of argument and there is no way to change their way of thinking.”
The scientist believed that with climate change there would come a time when “the process would be so clear, as it is today, that people would begin to react.”
But it came to the covid-19 pandemic, a time for her “very discouraging intellectually.” In the United States, she saw how there were people who rejected the vaccine and “that was because of something that affected them more directly than the weather. So what are you going to do about climate change?”
Precisely at the beginning of the pandemic, it was seen how the industry had to stop for a while, but that “has made almost no difference in terms of CO2 emissions” and the same level of severe emission limitations will never be reached as at the time, he adds.
Thomas is not optimistic
During the interview, Thomas reiterates that he is not optimistic about the situation and believes that there is no other option but resilience. “One of our hopes is to try to adjust to living in a different world because of climate change.”
In addition, “when human beings try to correct our mistakes of the past, sometimes we have come to make bigger ones.”
Thomas acknowledges that there are people who “see that there are problems and want to do something about it themselves”, but the researcher considers that “it is the entities, the largest institutions, the big companies that have to change and this is more difficult to achieve”.
Hope in younger generations
If anything, he shows his hope in the younger generations. “My generation is the one that created this mess,” she points out.
“In many moments I have felt more hope when speaking with younger generations that are organizing and being active, because if not, my generation is not going to do anything or change anything.”
For this reason, he believes that “if there is hope, it is in the young generations who are going to see the problems from a different perspective and I think that there is some evidence that they are beginning to be aware of it and to organize themselves.”
