Many of you are used to seeing my colored Christmas lights year-round. People tend to check to see if they are lit, in order to tell if I'm in the office. But on May 29, I took them down.
In the May 2007 LSA News, I mentioned the problems Australia's farmers have been facing as they try to cope with crippling drought. This month I have taken down the lights and turned off my space heater, which means you'll be seeing me around the office in a coat since the HVAC is apparently not working correctly (has it ever?). Although I have spent my adult life trying to be conscientious about energy use, recycling, and so on, I have ramped it up after reading Mark Lynas' Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. If you followed my link to the article in the UK Guardian last month to read about "Six Steps to Hell", this is the book that article was based on.
Also on my reading list over the Memorial Day weekend was Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, which grew out of a series of articles in the New Yorker. The library doesn't own Six Degrees yet; I had to get it through interlibrary loan. We do have Field Notes, at KNIGHT QC981.8.G56 K655 2006. We also have Lynas' first book, High Tide, at KNIGHT QC981.8.G56 L98 2003. It too is grim, heavily-footnoted reading.
Each book looks at the current state of research into climate change. Kolbert's is written in a more "popular" style. Lynas' are more obsessively thorough. All point out the same things that many scientists have been pointing out fruitlessly for some time now: we have affected the climate, the changes are now under way and visible, those changes are not small in importance, and their effect on humanity will not be benign. We are devastating the natural world upon which we depend for survival. The amount of carbon dioxide and methane currently in the air is higher than it's been for 650,000 years, yet many of us continue to live as though this doesn't matter.
When I say "we", I'm referring primarily to the "first-world" countries. We have led the way in fossil fuel use and in living unsustainably. But right behind us are coming up a host of other countries, like China, who see how we live and want the same. (China is actually set to outpace the rest of the world in pollution before too many more months.) For those of us who have children or grandchildren, or who dislike thinking of Earth becoming the second Venus in our solar system, this is a sobering thought, and these books make sober reading. Their conclusions, based on current science, are depressing. For anyone who loves the beauty of the natural world, wants to work for the betterment of their fellow humans, or just dislikes the idea of widespread starvation in sweltering conditions, the time for personal and political action on this issue seems to be overdue. Our actions over the past century have already doomed certain species, islands, and rivers to extinction.
As I write this, the news is that my country's current administration has, in the lead-up to the June G8 meeting, opposed the draft proposals on greenhouse gas emissions by Germany. The BBC online reports that "Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to use Germany's presidency of the G8 to secure a major climate change deal, including: agreement to slow the rise in average temperatures this century to 2C, a cut in global emissions by 50% below 1990 levels by 2050, [and] a rise in energy efficiency in power and transport by 20% by 2020." But, "White House aides have made clear Mr Bush will oppose demands for the US to cut emissions and join a global carbon trading system". Continuing his administration's policy of lip-service and foot-dragging, Bush doesn't want to set "goals" til the end of 2008, and insists that technology will solve all the problems. China, India, and Russia "had also expressed their own reservations". Great Britain, as a small island already noticing the impact of more flooding and the movement of species, seems to be far more aware of the urgency than the United States. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands floating houses are being built. They aren't designed to stand up to the hurricane-like storms that some predict will become more common in Europe, however.
According to Lynas' research, as reported in the Times Online,
When temperatures were last between 1 and 2C higher than they are now, 125,000 years ago, sea levels were five or six metres higher too. All this "lost" water is in the polar ice that is now melting. Forecasters predict that the "tipping point" for Greenland won't arrive until average temperatures have risen by 2.7C. The snag is that Greenland is warming much faster than the rest of the world—2.2 times the global average. "Divide one figure by the other," says Lynas, "and the result should ring alarm bells across the world. Greenland will tip into irreversible melt once global temperatures rise past a mere 1.2C." The ensuing sea-level rise will be far more than the half-metre that the IPCC has predicted for the end of the century.Since a great part of the world's population lives along coastlines, the resulting forced migrations and ensuing misery could be vast. Remember Hurricane Katrina? That was only one city. What if people in five or six cities the size of London or New York were looking for new homes, all at the same time? Glaciers supply drinking water to billions of people. Many of us in Oregon and the west rely on snowmelt for water, but along with a warming environment comes a decrease in snowpack. A number of people around the world are set to lose access to much of this water in the near future. Lima, Peru, is about to experience major problems—within this decade, by some accounts. Imagine Oregon, or any other country or state, full of desperately thirsty and hot people, some of whom may ironically have lost their homes to flooding, mudslides, or sea level rise. How long before any type of civic order would break down, or martial law be imposed?
We last saw temperatures 2C higher than today's about 3 million years ago. Our very distant ancestors were alive back then. Given the destructive nature of our species, I'm not sure whether to hope our descendents will still be around three centuries from now. The problem is, so many other species may be gone by then too, along with much of the beauty of this earth we have taken for granted.
Lynas and Kolbert point out that we still have a very small window of opportunity in which to prevent global warming of 2C or higher. On June 7, 2007, climate change and what we can do about it will be the topic of discussion at a free event on the UO campus. It sounds like it will be interesting and informative: "Thursday, June 7, 2007:
Why are we failing to respond adequately to climate change? What can we do to really make a difference? These are some of the topics explored in Professor Peter Walker's Environmental Sciences class, "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Nature and Society" this spring. The class will conduct a free "teach-in" on climate change from 7 to 9 p.m. in 100 Willamette Hall. Global Warming: What You Need to Know, What You Can Do will feature UO President Dave Frohnmayer, who recently signed the University Presidents' Climate Commitment, Mayor Kitty Piercy on the Mayor's Climate Challenge, Prof. Pat Bartlein on climate science today, Prof. Greg Bothun on alternative energy, Law Prof. Mary Wood on climate policy, as well as information from the class on what we can do."
The Basics of Climate Prediction
Some climate
change myths.
marklynas.org
A map of Global Warming: Early
Warning
Signs
A "Climate Map of
Europe 2071" showing where some European cities would be located on today's globe
with tomorrow's temperatures
Billions Face Climate
Change Risk and Climate Change Around the
World from the BBC online
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
A handy-dandy Carbon calculator
Some links detailing what you can do about global warming on the personal level:
Union
of Concerned Scientists
About.com
Time Online has ideas for 51
Things We Can Do to Save the Environment. They don't put a lot of emphasis on
political action but do have some handy suggestions.
Senator Gordon Smith's page
Senator Ron Wyden's page
Congressman Peter DeFazio's page