Collector coin

“There Is No Planet B” dedicated to Environmental Protection

For the first time in history, we are able to model our future, measure the consequences of our actions, place them into equations in order to estimate the changes in the system. For the first time, we are facing a threat that has abnormally expanded in time. Thinking of the future and planning it in decades, generations or even centuries is not something we are well familiar with. Climate change does not have just one look, precise timing, location or boundaries. Climate change is a perpetual companion of humankind, but this time we ourselves caused it.

From the geological perspective of the past, the global climate is now changing lightning speed. In daily human experience, the change still seems sluggish. Climate scientists have estimated that, as compared to the pre-industrial period, our planet’s average temperature has risen by as much as 1.2 degrees. An ordinary person tends to replace ‘as much as’ with ‘just’ without remorse and feels vindicated.

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We have created a civilisation that depends on fossil fuel. A cheap source of energy awarded us with superpowers, yet everything has a price. In the course of the past 150 years, we have burnt billions of tonnes of coal, oil and natural gas. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are now higher than in the last 800,000 years. And these levels keep increasing every year.

We have been enchanted by cheap energy and we cannot make ourselves stop. We are still, in a choleric manner, trying to turn fossils into movement, electricity or things. The large amounts of surplus energy can no longer be absorbed by the climate system. Oceans are saturated with the waste we produce. Trees that could absorb part of greenhouse gases have been thinned out and are continued to be mowed, because words ‘cut down’ no longer describe the rate at which forests are being destroyed.

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The balance is almost lost. A target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees that was set by the Paris Agreement is already imminent. Few doubt that this threshold will be crossed in the next two decades. More gloomy scenarios predict it to happen before 2030.

The second limit set in 2015 in Paris is 2 degrees. This is a state from which it would be impossible to return to climate balance. Crossing this limit would cause changes in the natural system to amplify one another and, in turn, the global warming. Current pollution rates would lead us to at least 2.7 degree global temperature change even before the end of the century. What happens after 2100 is not being discussed. The hope is that climate change will successfully be curbed. The window of opportunity to change things is believed to be open now. A decade later will be too late.

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Since time immemorial, climate was influenced by the Earth’s orbit, axis shifts and volcanoes. When environmental conditions changed, our ancestors would simply collect their belongings and move to other areas. These days this option is no longer available. Syria’s refugee crisis serves as a warning to us all. It was catalysed by a prolonged unprecedented draught which later caused unrest in the country. This crisis displayed how difficult it is to escape danger in the modern world.

Megalomaniac gibberish about colonising other planets in the Solar system sounds like a romantic dream of a boy looking for an adventure. Everybody knows well that, in reality, there is no Planet B. Even if that day ever comes that spaceships manage to set sail for Mars or Jupiter’s satellites, this will not be a majestic travel towards the stars for the whole humankind. It will only be for selected few, an escape to a harsher world while running away from the monster we ourselves have awakened.

Climate change is an existential problem of humankind. In order to comprehend it, we have to remove ourselves from our familiar perception of time and pragmatism. It is a perfect conundrum. For the long-term plan ‘humankind on planet Earth’ not to fail, the time to change is now.

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Silvestras Dikčius

Illustrations by Aurimas Simanavičius

The title of the coin coincides with the title of the book “There is No Planet B” by Mike Berners-Lee

Coin “There Is No Planet B” dedicated to Environmental Protection

Denomination:

€10

Composition:

silver Ag 925

Diameter:

45.90 x 47.10 mm (max), irregular elliptical shape with a high relief sphere in the center

Weight:

23.30 g

Quality:

proof-like

Designed by

Egidijus Rapolis

On the edge of the coin

plain

Release date

28 June 2022

Mintage

2,750 pcs

Coin price

EUR 77.00 (inclusive of VAT)

Minted at

the Lithuanian Mint

Print

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