OPINION: Global Warming is Here
Written by Jim Rettig
Global warming is here. It’s not pretty, and we’re late to the game.
About 20 years ago I spoke at an Eastside Audubon meeting outlining what I understood to be the critical issue: the burning of fossil fuels was polluting the atmosphere and warming the Earth. I mentioned the work of Dr. James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who alerted Congress in 1988 that global warming was here and would get worse. This was cause for alarm and I began to read more about the issue. Before the Industrial Revolution, the CO2 count in the Earth’s atmosphere was 280ppm. To prevent future catastrophic changes in the weather, scientists stated we needed to keep that number below 320ppm. Sadly, we didn’t.
Soon thereafter, Al Gore began a movement based on his book, An Inconvenient Truth, and Bill McKibben and others founded the 350.0rg movement to warn us all in various ways that we must keep that CO2 number under 350ppm. We didn’t meet that goal either. Today the number is over 411ppm, and our planet’s temperature has increased by at least 1.2 degrees Celsius. Scientists, including James Hansen, tell us that in order to avoid disastrous new weather patterns, we must not let the temperature rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius beyond the pre-industrial average, which means we have until about 2030 to turn this around. Early this year I finished reading David Wallace-Wells’ book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. In it he discusses elements of chaos that will only increase unless we act now and in big ways. Here’s a list of what he stated will happen if we continue to ignore the crisis:
Economic output will decrease because people don't work well when it is hot, and more people will die from heat related problems;
Some agricultural lands will be unable to grow traditional crops, causing overall amount of food to diminish, and people will die for lack of food;
Polar ice and Greenland’s ice will continue to melt causing low-level islands to disappear and coastal cities to be flooded. Many will drown or become climate refugees;
Wildfires will increase as the world gets hotter and the air we breathe will get dirtier from ash and smoke, and people will die from the fires and respiratory issues;
The amount of fresh water will decrease due to glacial melting and smaller snowpacks;
Oceans will die from rising water temperatures and cause food chain disruptions. This will impact coral reefs, fish, other sea creatures, algae, and sea birds;
Tropical diseases and illnesses will spread, and habitat ranges for mammals and birds will shift putting many out of sync with foraging and breeding patterns;
Conflict and ethnic strife will increase as people become radicalized because climate disruptions lead to droughts and crop failure;
Some may call all the above climate alarmism. Well, I confess that I am alarmed! I have three grandchildren, ages 16, 6, and 2. I want them and their parents to have a future. And you want yours to have one too. Perhaps the first thing to do is to recognize, that we are part of and dependent upon the natural world, as our Native American sisters and brothers have told us since 1492. We must care for it by making that care the top priority. After all, it is the only home we have.
So, what to do? Many people are pushing us toward a carbon tax to power us past coal and oil and bring an end to fossil-fuel capitalism. Others, such as the renowned entomologist E. O. Wilson, are taking the lead to put away from human activity 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030, known as “30x30.” Further, in E.O. Wilson’s book, Half Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life, he argues that biodiversity is one of the keys to our survival and that the loss of biodiversity “should be considered unacceptable by civilized people.” He goes on to say that “biodiversity cannot be saved by the piecemeal operations in current use alone. It will certainly be mostly lost if conservation continues to be treated as a luxury item in national budgets.” He urges the nations to put away 50% of all land and ocean waters by 2050 in order to ensure a biodiverse future and cooler temperatures. The platform of the Democratic Party includes a plank called the Green New Deal, a grand plan for tackling climate change.
Don’t fall into despair. Stay hopeful. Get involved if you’re not already. Vote for candidates in any office who will make the care of Mother Earth a top priority. If we have the political will, we can make big changes. Start or keep working and we can save the future for our grandkids.
Photo credit by Brettski on Flickr.