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In simple
terms, degrees of alarmism might be attributed to “the geology clock”. A timely
new entry to our ongoing discussion.
kwc Yelling
'Fire' on a Hot Planet
By Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times
Magazine, Sunday, April 23, 2006 Global warming has the feel of breaking news these
days. Polar bears are drowning; an
American city is underwater; ice sheets are crumbling. Time magazine proclaimed
that readers should be worried. Very worried. There are new hot-selling books
and a batch of documentaries, including one starring former Vice President Al
Gore and his climate-evangelist slide show that is touted as "the most
terrifying movie you will ever see." Are humans like frogs in a simmering pot, unaware that
temperatures have reached the boiling point? Or has global warming been spun into an "alarmist
gale," as Richard S. Lindzen, a climatologist at M.I.T. wrote in a recent
Wall Street Journal op-ed article? There is enough static in the air to simultaneously confuse,
alarm and paralyze the public. Is global warming now a reality? What do
scientists know for sure and when are they just guessing? And what can truly be accomplished by changing behavior?
After all, there are still the traditional calls to limit heat-trapped
greenhouse-gas emissions, but a growing number of experts are also saying what
was once unthinkable: humans may have to adapt to a warmer globe. Here, an
attempt to shed a little light in all the heat. What We Know Between the poles of real-time catastrophe and nonevent lies
the prevailing scientific view: without big changes in emissions rates, global warming
from the buildup of greenhouse gases is likely to lead to substantial, and
largely irreversible, transformations of climate, ecosystems and coastlines
later this century. The Earth's average surface temperature rose about 1 degree
over the 20th century, to around 59 degrees, but the rate of warming from the
1970's until now has been three times the average rate of warming since 1900.
Seas have risen about 6 to 8 inches globally over the last century and the rate
of rise has increased in the last decade. In 2001,
a large team of scientists issued the latest assessment of climate change and
concluded that more than half of the recent warming was likely to have been
caused by people, primarily because we're adding tens of billions of tons of carbon
dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, mainly by
burning coal and oil. There is no serious debate any more about one thing: more of these gases will cause more
warming. Dr. Lindzen, who contends any human climate influence is negligible
and has long criticized those calling global warming a catastrophe, agreed on
this basic fact in his article. At the same time, few scientists agree with the idea that
the recent spate of potent hurricanes, European heat waves, African drought and
other weather extremes are, in essence, our fault. There is more than enough
natural variability in nature to mask a direct connection, they say. Even
recent sightings of drowned polar bears cannot be firmly ascribed to human
influence on climate given the big cyclical fluctuations of sea ice around the
Arctic. What Is Debated The unresolved questions concern the pace and extent of
future warming and the impact
on wildlife, agriculture, disease, local weather and the height of the world's
oceans — in other words, all of the things that matter to people. The latest estimates, including a study published last week
in the journal Nature, foresee a
probable warming of somewhere around 5 degrees should the concentration of
carbon dioxide reach twice the 280-parts-per-million figure that had been the
norm on earth for at least 400,000 years. This is far lower than some of the apocalyptic
projections in recent years, but also far higher than mild warming rates
focused on by skeptics and industry lobbyists. As a result, by 2100 or so, sea levels could be several feet
higher than they are now, and the new normal on the planet for centuries
thereafter could be retreating shorelines as Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets
relentlessly erode. Rivers fed by mountain glaciers, including those nourishing
much of south Asia, could shrivel. Grand plans to restore New Orleans and the
Everglades would be rendered meaningless as seawater advances. Manhattan would
become New Orleans — a semi-submerged city surrounded by levees. In summers,
polar bears would be stuck on the few remaining ice-clotted shores around the
largely blue Arctic Ocean. Projections of how patterns of drought, deluges, heat and
cold might change are among the most difficult, and will remain laden with huge
uncertainties for a long time to come, said M. Granger Morgan, a physicist and
policy expert at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. For example, while computer simulations of the climate
consistently show that the centers of big continents are likely to grow drier,
and winters and nights generally warmer, they cannot reliably predict
conditions in Chicago or Shanghai. What's the Rush? By the clock of geology, this climate shift is unfolding at a
dizzying, perhaps unprecedented pace, but by
time scales relevant to people, it's happening in slow motion. If the bad stuff doesn't happen for 100
years or so, it's hard to persuade governments or voters to take action. And there is the rub. Many scientists say that to avoid a doubling of
carbon dioxide concentrations, energy efficiency must be increased drastically,
and soon.
And by midcentury, they add, there must be a complete transformation of energy technology. That may be why some environmentalists
try to link today's weather to tomorrow's problem. While scientists say they
lack firm evidence to connect recent weather to the human influence on climate,
environmental campaigners still push the notion. "The issue clearly has an urgency problem," said
Billy Parish, a founder of Energy Action, a coalition of student groups.
"Maybe I'm just a paranoid that sees global warming everywhere, but the
here-and-now effects do seem to be mounting, and I think we need to connect the dots for people." A Gallup survey last month shows that people are still not
worried about climate change. When participants were asked to rank 10
environmental problems, global warming was near the bottom, far below water
pollution and toxic waste (both now largely controlled). Without a connection to current disasters, global warming is the kind of problem
people, and democratic institutions, have proved singularly terrible at
solving: a long-term threat that can only be limited by acting promptly, before
the harm is clear. Problems that
get attention are "soon, salient and certain," said Helen Ingram, a
professor of planning, policy and design at the University of California,
Irvine. Stressing the problem's urgency could well be
counterproductive,
according to "Americans and Climate Change," a new book by the Yale School of
Forestry and Environmental Studies. The book notes that urgency does not appear to be something
that can be imposed on people. Moreover, it says, "Urgency is especially prone to being discounted as
unreasoned alarmism or even passion." Among its recommendations, the Yale book suggests something
radical: drop the reluctance to accept adaptation as a strategy. Adaptation to climate extremes has long
been derided by many environmentalists as defeatism. But, the book says, adaptation may help people
focus on the reality of what is coming — and that may motivate them to cut
emissions to limit chances of bigger changes to come. Actions could range from developing drought-resistant crops
to eliminating federal insurance and other subsidies that have long encouraged
coastal development. Could stressing adaptation work? The Yale group calls global
warming "the perfect problem" — meaning that a confluence of
characteristics make it hard, if not impossible, to solve. Its impact remains
clouded with scientific uncertainty, its effects will be felt over generations,
and it is being amplified by everything from microwaving a frozen dinner to
bringing electricity to an Indian village. "I wish I were more
optimistic of our ability to get a broad
slice of the public to understand this and be motivated to act,"
said David G. Hawkins, who directs the climate program at the Natural Resources
Defense Council, a private group. In an e-mail message, he wrote: "We are sensory organisms; we understand
diesel soot because we can smell it and see it. Getting global warming is too
much of an intellectual process. Perhaps pictures of drowning polar bears (which we are
trying to find) will move people but even there, people will need to believe
that those drownings are due to our failure to build cleaner power plants and
cars." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/weekinreview/23revkin.html |
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