There are plenty of reasons to visit America’s East Coast. Most people seek the culturally rich cities, natural beauty and funny accents. Urgency is not often on one’s mind when planning an eastbound adventure. Unfortunately, barring major changes, much of the current East Coast won’t be around for our grandchildren. There is no indication the globe will cease to warm up over the next century, and as a result, there are plenty of indications that the Atlantic will lap up everything from Nova Scotia to Florida in the not-too-distant future.
The vast majority of climate change predictions, backed by voluminous research, are extremely depressing, and the natural reaction to the discomfort they engender is either ignorance or disbelief. That is an understandable coping strategy, especially when confronted with panoply of signs that mankind is about to jump head first into the abyss. Still, this cannot detract from the immense danger implicit in denying the demonstrable fact that the globe is warming, and at a rate that will inevitably transform civilization as we know it for the worse.
Of course, there are far less innocuous rationales for mounting a strong denial campaign to neutralize all responsible efforts to avert ecological disaster. Operating on the basis of their own rational self-interest and exhibiting the purest form of capitalist behavior, many corporations are expending copious war chests to protect their bottom line: The exploitation of natural resources for profit. Therein lies the source of the recent flurry of climate change denial and corporatist subterfuges of reform initiatives. The global economic system, based soundly upon self-interest, exploitation and myopia, will continue to put off sacrifice and long-term security in exchange for short-term competitive advantage and growth.
In spite of corporate financing of dissenting studies and the increasingly tiresome attacks on Al Gore, global scientific and popular opinion is resolute in its acceptance of climate change and its catastrophic consequences. Still, it is worth reviewing a few key concepts in light of the American right’s rapturous embrace of fantasy over facts.
A good scientist is characterized by his or her caution when drawing conclusions from data. In this sense, science is a very conservative discipline. So when scientific communities around the world aggregate decades of their data, critically analyze them and publish results, one can be confident beyond a reasonable doubt their conclusions are accurate — if not, the data is freely available for any skeptic to independently verify. Most people understand this and trust the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s prediction that by 2100 the global temperature will rise at least 2.0?F and probably much more. The effects on sea level, plant and animal life, as well as weather patterns, implied by these predictions would be disastrous on a scale scarcely imaginable.
Does this mean every year will be hotter than the last? The five warmest years on record were within the past 12, and it’s certain the overall trend will be toward warmer and warmer weather. But the most immediately noticeable effect will be violent fluctuations in the weather cycle. Despite the many stunted understandings of climate change expressed by the media, a major, anomalous snowstorm is in fact a validation of climate change theory and not evidence that Gore is wrong.
Now, though the unprecedented nature of the current warming trend remains an incontrovertible fact, human culpability has been slightly more difficult to conclusively prove, at least as the primary cause. Still, it’s clear modern man has played a significant role in melting the glaciers and sending the Maldives the way of Atlantis.
Consider this: worldwide, the combustion of fossil fuels adds about 21.3 gigatones of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, outstripping the natural capacity of plant life and the oceans to absorb CO2 by about 10.5 gigatones. That is an enormous and grossly unnatural quantity of a potent green house gas to add to the atmosphere on a yearly basis, and all of it has a human origin.
Time isn’t just running out for a good chance to prevent the worst consequences of climate change; fossil fuels, the workhorse of the modern world and the root of humanity’s contribution to global warming, are quickly running out. Within the next few decades, major sources of the world’s energy will run dry, starting with oil and ending a decade or two later with coal. On our current path — not seriously developing renewable, clean energy alternatives — Iraq and Afghanistan will become mere preludes to much larger wars for the remaining resources. Millions will die by strife and starvation all because we chose to avert the struggle and sacrifices required to build a sustainable society today.
That is the heart of the problem. Any intellectually honest person can understand and have confidence in the consequences of doing nothing. However, it’s a far taller order to find the courage to do the right thing and struggle for the dramatic changes in lifestyle, industry and consumption essential to overcoming the 21st century’s greatest threat.
Sam Stevenson ([email protected]) is a graduate student in public health.
