It’s Elemental

With the Paris Olympic Games just behind us, and the glow of the modern version of the Games still palpable, it’s a good moment to consider how other ancient practices still influence our world today. One of the most subtle and profound s the notion of the four elements, Fire, Earth, Water, and Air.

Over two and half thousand years ago, Aristotle was the first to identify them as the building blocks of the “terrestrial sphere.” Today, the concept that these four elements are the life-force of the planet is still embraced by modern popular culture, inspiring television shows, novels and movies such as Avatar: The Last Airbender, the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, Disney’s Frozen 2, Pixar’s Elemental, and sci-fi movie The Fifth Element. Even the Harry Potter universe pays homage to the Aristotle’s four elements with the Hogwarts houses roughly corresponding to each.

Fire, Earth, Water, and Air represent the diversity and interconnectedness of the planet, but these essential elements are not immune to the impacts of climate change.

Fire: It’s Getting Hot in Here

Fire is often associated with destruction, power, and passion. The mesmerizing combination of light and heat supported the development of all modern technologies, from ceramics to welding to nuclear power. However, today fire is associated with rising temperatures and extreme weather.

Heat waves, or prolonged periods of excessive temperatures, are becoming the new normal for many of us. These events occur 3 times as often as they did in 1960 and, when they do, they are more intense and they last longer.

The Paris Olympics were impacted by a city-wide heat wave reaching 95 degrees Fahrenheit, creating dangerous conditions for some athletes. Based on the global climate and weather analysis these sizzling temperatures would not have been possible without the human-induced warming of the planet from burning fossil fuels. 

Most people experiencing extreme heat are not international athletes but ordinary citizens — but whoever is living through it, the process and symptoms are the same.

As the body loses water and salt through sweating, it can impact its ability to regulate internal temperature causing heat stroke, which can potentially result in brain damage or even death. Extreme heat can also challenge people’s mental health by making them disorientated and more irritable and prone to depression. It also increases the spread of certain infectious diseases, and exacerbates pre-existing cardiovascular diseases. 

This summer, extreme heat events are, sadly, being felt all around the world. In the United States 38 people have died due to intense heat, in Mexico 125 people have died, and in Saudi Arabia more than 1,300 people perished at the Hajj pilgrimage as temperatures reached a peak of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Heat waves are not only a direct threat to human health, but they’re an instigator for other dangerous extreme weather events that can impact the environment. Climate change-induced extreme weather events create warmer and drier conditions, setting the stage for longer, more frequent, and more severe wildfires seasons.

In Hawaii, wildfires used to be infrequent, but drought and rising temperatures have made the state more vulnerable and the islands experienced multiple deadly fires last summer.

This summer, arctic Siberia — where fires were previously infrequent — is now facing 69 wildfires that are especially dangerous to the indigenous communities that have lived there for centuries. 

For the past few decades, the US has spent nearly $1 billion dollars per year to fight fires, spending a staggering $3.5 billion in 2022 alone. More than the fiscal costs of these devastating fires, they threaten the health and safety of both the firefighters fighting to extinguish them and the communities whose homes are destroyed by the flames. 

The damage does not stop there: when fires burn wood and other organic materials, the subsequent smoke is laced with fine particles creating poor air quality for surrounding populations. These particles can trigger respiratory  Issues and aggravate pre-existing chronic heart and lung diseases.

The devastation is not limited to human health — wildfires are catastrophic for wildlife, killing billions of animals and destroying habitats.  It is unquestionably climate change that is driving the increased frequency in heatwaves and wild fire activity.

We are running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.

Elon Musk

Earth: Down to Earth

The Earth element represents life-giving soil, one of the most complex biomaterials on the planet. It supports multitudes of ecosystems, absorbs and stores atmospheric carbon, and all living things — one way or another — are dependent upon it to provide food and other necessary resources. But while we assume we’re standing on solid ground, even dirt is vulnerable to the impacts of man-made climate change. 

The reality of Earth today is that about 40% of land is cultivated for agriculture, and this doesn’t even count the land used for livestock grazing and urban expansion. Sadly, the soil that composes this land has been disappearing at an increased rate for the last two centuries. 12 million hectares, an area larger than the country of Austria, of fertile land are lost every year. Agriculture also drives 90% of global deforestation. Destroying forests to make room for farms reduces the amount of carbon the soil can store to half, prevents the recycling of organic material, and destroys biodiversity.  

The top inch of soil is the most important for food growth and it takes centuries for this topsoil to form and become fertile. Industrial scale farming involves the intensive cultivation practice of tilling, which disrupts soil structure and leaves the soil more susceptible to erosion.

Farmers use nitrogen rich chemical fertilizers to try and maintain productivity; these fertilizers often run off the lan, polluting nearby waters and causing eutrophication, the formation of algae in water that can kill fish and deplete marine ecosystems of oxygen.

A teaspoon of earth can contain more organisms than there are human beings living on the Earth, but our actions are putting this vital resource at risk. Soil is so much more than the dirt on our shoes, it is vital for our future environment and food security. 

You think of the dust bowl of the 1930s in North America and then you realize we are moving towards that situation if we don’t do something.

Duncan cameron, Professor of Plant and Soil Biology, University of Sheffield

Water: The Way of Water

The ancient Greeks revered water as sacred. The River Styx was a symbolic barrier, separating the world of the living from the world of the dead, and had the power to wipe away memory.  

Water is the most abundant of our elements, covering 71% of the Earth’s surface and constituting 60% of the human body. It falls from the sky, flows in our rivers and oceans, and physically shapes our world through erosion. 

But our oceans are changing, becoming hotter and more acidic due to greenhouse gasses. The more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, the more CO2 dissolves into the ocean, to form carbonic acid. This changing the pH of the oceans. Greenhouse gasses also trap more energy from the sun, which oceans absorb and consequently gets hotter.  Increased heat and acidity pose both serious threats to marine and human life.

Coral bleaching occurs when corals are stressed by changes in temperature, light, or nutrient levels, causing them to expel the symbiotic algae that give them their color and energy. This process not only turns corals white but also kills countless organisms and destroys vital habitats. The altered chemical makeup of the water further prevents some sea creatures from forming their protective skeletons. Additionally, changing water temperatures disrupt coastal climates by interfering with currents that regulate heating and cooling along coastlines.

Coasts are at further risk due to sea levels rising. Climate change causes polar ice caps and glaciers to melt, contributing to rising sea levels. Greenland alone lost enough ice from 1992-2020 to raise the global sea level three quarters of an inch or more. Sea levels are now rising at an accelerated rate — the previous pace of six-tenths an inch per decade is now more than an inch per decade. Higher sea levels threaten many major cities around the world and worsen the prevalence of coastal flooding. 

Climate change also can alter precipitation patterns, leading to more intense and frequent rainfall in some regions while causing droughts in others. This too can affect the availability of freshwater resources because higher temperatures increase evaporation rates which can lead to more frequent and severe droughts and affect water availability in lakes, rivers, and reservoirs.

Water is all around us, within us, and sustains life on Earth. However, it is a force we cannot easily protect.

Air: Full of Hot Hair

Air is 78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen, and nearly all living animals and organisms need oxygen to survive. The biggest threat to mankind and the driver of climate change is the growing volume of greenhouse gasses we are releasing into the atmosphere.  

The greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide and methane, are created by human activity, predominantly by burning fossil fuels. When these gasses are emitted they change the temperature of the atmosphere. Heat energy from the sun reflects off the Earth’s surface and travels back through the air and out of the atmosphere; however, greenhouse gasses trap this heat and consequently impacts atmospheric circulation. 

While the average temperature of the Earth is rising, some parts of the planet are more affected than others. The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world, a phenomenon called Arctic Amplification. It’s happening because as sea ice melts, there is less of a reflective surface to deflect heat back to the atmosphere, making it warmer. This also melts more ice perpetuating the rising temperatures of our Arctic areas. 

Air in the atmosphere is constantly circulating: warmer air is less dense so it rises and denser, colder air sinks. Normally the equator receives more sunlight, and therefore more heat, than higher latitudes. However, Arctic amplification means the temperature difference between the higher, Arctic latitudes and the lower latitudes is decreasing. The changing temperature gradient between latitudes will result in changing wind patterns and atmospheric circulation.

As a result, the high- and low-pressure systems that control global weather patterns are transforming. We are facing hotter weather conditions that will persist longer than normal, with more severe stormy weather, that it is much harder to predict. Hurricanes are 25% more likely to reach 111 mph and be classified as major hurricanes than they were 40 years ago. They are also changing track, meaning unprepared and vulnerable communities that lack hurricane proofed infrastructure, will be the communities facing more of these intense storms. 

Element Evolution

The ancient Greeks theorized that Earth, Fire, Water, and Air formed the foundation of the world. It turns out that as far as climate change is concerned, they may have been right. Our long-term survival future on this planet is uncertain but what is clear is that ignoring these elements and their impact on every single one of us is futile. 

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

Dr. Jane Goodall

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• extreme weather