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In the southern hemisphere, the Antarctic continent is also experiencing a net loss in ice from the extensive glaciers and ice sheets that cover it. However, the connection between changes in Antarctic ice sheets and the global warming trend are much more uncertain than in the Arctic. The complex of changes in the Antarctic climate and the ice sheets are described in a later section of this chapter.

Global temperature has risen by 1°C since 1900, while since the 1990s the Arctic has recently experienced an accelerated warming of about double the average rate of global warming. Nearly all climate scientists agree that the main cause of this temperature rise is ever-increasing accumulations of ‘greenhouse gases’, especially carbon dioxide and methane, within our atmosphere. Sea level rise could easily exceed one metre this century under ‘business as usual’. However, global warming is not just about rising temperatures, melting ice and rising sea levels, but it also affects the frequency and severity of many extreme weather events. Planetary warming is not a uniform process, can spring surprises in regional climate change and is probably linked with the tendency for Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes to have more extreme (variously hot/cold/dry/wet) weather, especially during the recent period of rapid Arctic warming. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that human activity through enhanced greenhouse gas emissions is largely responsible for recent climate change and accompanying extreme weather, and we are already clearly seeing these changes. However, it is equally evident that, although initial remedial steps are being taken, finding an adequate solution will not be easy unless much larger changes are made to the way in which we all live. Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures would require global carbon dioxide emissions to decrease by approximately 40–60% by 2030 relative to 2010 levels. This can only be achieved through a collective solution that fully involves diverse communities, among them religious stakeholders.

In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment Report revealed an important increase in the level of consensus concerning the reality of human-caused climate warming. The scientific basis for global warming has thus been sufficiently established to enable meaningful planning of appropriate policy responses to address global warming. As a result, the world's policy makers, governments, industries, energy producers/planners, and individuals from many other walks of life have increased their attention toward finding acceptable solutions to the challenge of global warming. This laudable increase in worldwide attention to this global-scale challenge has not, however, led to a heightened optimism that the required substantial reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions deemed necessary to stabilize the global climate can be achieved anytime soon. This fact is due in large part to several fundamental aspects of the climate system that interact to ensure that climate change is a phenomenon that will emerge over extensive timescales.

Although most of the warming observed during the 20th century is attributed to increased greenhouse gas concentrations, because of the high heat capacity of the world's oceans, further warming will lag added greenhouse gas concentrations by decades to centuries. Thus, today's enhanced atmospheric CO2 concentrations have already “wired in” a certain amount of future warming in the climate system, independent of human actions. Furthermore, as atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase, the world's natural CO2 “sinks” will begin to saturate, diminishing their ability to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Future warming will also eventually cause melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which will contribute substantially to sea level rise, but only over hundreds to thousands of years. As a result, current generations have, in effect, decided to make future generations pay most of the direct and indirect costs of this major global problem. The longer the delay in reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, the greater the burden of climate change will be for future life on earth.

Collectively, these phenomena comprise a “global warming dilemma.” On the one hand, the current level of global warming to date appears to be comparatively benign, about 0.6°C. This seemingly small warming to date has thus hardly been sufficient to spur the world to pursue aggressive CO2 emissions reduction policies. On the other hand, the decision to delay global emissions reductions in the absence of a current crisis is essentially a commitment to accept large levels of climate warming and sea level rise for many centuries. This dilemma is a difficult obstacle for policy makers to overcome, although better education of policy makers regarding the long-term consequences of climate change may assist in policy development.

The policy challenge is further exacerbated by factors that lie outside the realm of science. There are a host of values conflicts that conspire to prevent meaningful preventative actions on the global scale. These values conflicts are deeply rooted in our very globally diverse lifestyles and our national, cultural, religious, political, economic, environmental, and personal belief systems. This vast diversity of values and priorities inevitably leads to equally diverse opinions on who or what should pay for preventing or experiencing climate change, how much they should pay, when, and in what form. Ultimately, the challenge to all is to determine the extent to which we will be able to contribute to limiting the magnitude of this problem so as to preserve the quality of life for many future generations of life on earth.

During the great post–World War II economic expansion, modernization theorists held that the new American capitalism balanced mass production and mass consumption, meshed profitability with labor's interests, and ended class conflict. They thought that Keynesian policies insured a near full-employment, low-inflation, continuous growth economy. They viewed the United States as the “new lead society,” eliminating industrial capitalism's backward features and progressing toward modernity's penultimate “postindustrial” stage.⁷ Many Americans believed that the ideal of “consumer freedom,” forged early in the century, had been widely realized and epitomized American democracy's superiority to communism.⁸ However, critics held that the new capitalism did not solve all of classical capitalism's problems (e.g., poverty) and that much increased consumption generated new types of cultural and political problems. John Kenneth Galbraith argued that mainstream economists assumed that human nature dictates an unlimited “urgency of wants,” naturalizing ever increasing production and consumption and precluding the distinction of goods required to meet basic needs from those that stoke wasteful, destructive appetites. In his view, mainstream economists’ individualistic, acquisitive presuppositions crown consumers sovereign and obscure cultural forces, especially advertising, that generate and channel desire and elevate possessions and consumption into the prime measures of self-worth. Galbraith held that production's “paramount position” and related “imperatives of consumer demand” create dependence on economic growth and generate new imbalances and insecurities.⁹ Harsher critics held that the consumer culture blinded middle-class Americans to injustice, despotic bureaucracy, and drudge work (e.g., Mills, 1961; Marcuse, 1964). But even these radical critics implied that postwar capitalism unlocked the secret of sustained economic growth.

The observed increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases since the industrial period, due to human activities, is very likely causing the warming of the climate system. Anthropogenic warming and rising sea levels will continue for centuries due to the time scales associated with climate processes and feedbacks. Even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized, different types of adaptation measures are needed to cope with the inevitable change. At the same time mitigation measures aiming at decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing carbon sinks must be taken in order to reduce the potential extent of global warming. This chapter covers the main aspects of the current understanding of the physical basis of climate change, including the directly measured observations and estimated projections for the 21st century. Causes and effects of climate change are also addressed. Finally, the main uncertainties of climate projections and a few general considerations on the different ways to respond to the climate change issue are discussed.

Sustainable atmospheric management today involves a complex set of issues arising from the deliberate or inadvertent use of the atmosphere as a repository for waste products arising from human activities. Urban pollution affects human health, building materials and vegetation. Acidic emissions and excess nutrients produce both acid rain and dry deposition that affect terrestrial, freshwater and ocean chemistry and ecosystems. The production and effects of atmospheric pollution can transcend national boundaries and thus mitigation will require cooperation on regional and global levels, as well as local action. Global pollution includes greenhouse gases and atmospheric particles which are changing the global climate and affecting human health. While technological solutions will play an important part, the large reductions in emissions necessary to achieve sustainability will involve adopting lifestyles that conserve energy and minimise pollution. These concerns were foreshadowed in the writings of Fritz Schumacher.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, to give a concise account of the current global climate situation, its previous history according to the palaeoclimate record, and climate scientists’ predictions of the consequences of various scenarios of global climate change. Then to explain why so many people continue to be oblivious to the enormous risks of continuing with business as usual.

The approach is through a comprehensive study of the relevant evidence and the scientific and scholarly literature, interwoven with philosophical reflections on their significance.

The findings are as follows: the evidence for the anthropogenic nature of global warming is overwhelming, and the prognoses for continued burning of fossil fuels (sea level rise, extreme weather, etc.) are dire. The denial stems in large part from the undue influence of climate scepticism movements, lavishly funded by the fossil fuel industries, combined with a variety of psycho-social and economic factors.

The implications are several. Given the complex nature of global warming, scientists need to do a better job of communicating their findings to the general public, and scholars and academics need to find ways to expose the machinations of the fossil fuel industries. And given the global impact of climate change, citizens of the developed nations need to see that a radical change in their behaviour is demanded not only by considerations of social justice but also even by their own self-interest.

The value of this philosophical approach is that it affords a more comprehensive view of the situation around global warming than we get from the more specialised disciplines.

This chapter contextualizes the interrelationships between tourism and climate change and thus provides an introduction to this volume. It commences with a brief but comprehensive overview of the key issues identified by climate change research, including an update since the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as a brief discussion of the latest rounds of climate change negotiations. The pursuing discussion is informed by these points and explores climate change's indirect and induced impacts on tourism and possible ramifications. Both of these parts highlight behavioral change as a critical factor to both adaptation and mitigation thus motivating the psychological contribution in an effort to shed light on the obstacles to behavioral change. In the concluding section, the chapter synthesizes the discussion grounded in multiple disciplines into a set of research themes that the volume subsequently begins to address.

In his renowned article published in 1967, Lynn White Jr argues that a causal relationship exists between Christianity (grounded in the Bible) and the contemporary ecological crisis. ‘Western’ Christianity, insists White, is the world's most anthropocentric religion, and it is this anthropocentrism that underlies human harm of the environment. The ecological crisis, he argues, is a religious crisis. But White also suggests that since the roots of the ecological crisis are largely religious, the remedy must also be (broadly) religious. With White's words in mind, this chapter outlines a strategy for Christian communities to read the Bible in such a way that it might contribute to the emergence of an ecological sensibility that is appropriate to the environmental concerns of climate crisis in the twenty-first century. It then offers a brief ecological reading of Genesis 1 and 2, exploring how such an interpretation might provide faith communities with a foundation for re-conceiving the relationship between God, Earth and humanity. This chapter argues that, set alongside the ever-increasing scientific discoveries that point towards interdependence and the continuity of all life, the Bible has the potential to act as a powerful resource for Christian communities in the ongoing endeavour to alleviate environmental degradation.