As the Senatorial election season nears an end, we have yet to hear any mention of campaign promises or calls to action regarding climate change. What is shaping up to be possibly the most devastating global occurrence is taking a back seat to more local, myopic issues like the economy, immigration, state and national debt, and, perhaps above all, calumnious political mudslinging. While most of these issues are very important, they are less likely to wipe a nation off the face of the Earth in 24 hours.
According to Dr. Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s (NCAR) Climate and Global Dynamics Division, global climate change will result in severe and prolonged drought across North America and other continents including Eurasia, Africa, and Australia by 2030. In fact, Australia already experienced an unexpected and unpredictable dust storm in September of 2009. The plume of dust shrouded the eastern coast of Australia with a red-orange blanket that dropped temperatures and was visible from space. There is very little mention of its possible link to climate change (dailymail.co.uk).
"We are facing the possibility of widespread drought in the coming decades, but this has yet to be fully recognized by both the public and the climate change research community," says Dr. Dai. "If the projections in this study come even close to being realized, the consequences for society worldwide will be enormous." (ens-newswire.com)
This means 1930s-Dust-Bowl-type natural disasters or worse. I would venture to say that we would not be ready for another Dust Bowl, as evidenced by our “preparedness” for 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 hurricane that devastated the northern Gulf Coast which is an area that is not unfamiliar with multiple hurricanes per year (hsph.harvard.edu). Even with scientific data showing that hurricanes would worsen with increased climate change over the decades, Louisiana was still disturbingly underprepared. What makes us think a giant dust storm sweeping across the United States will phone ahead for reservations?
Overall, I think we are paying less attention to this issue than is warranted. The recent economic downturn left an overpoweringly bad taste in our mouths and the unemployment rate and national deficit are still top priority. As Peter Applebome of The New York Times puts it, “anything portrayed as a tax is a loser this year, hence the fate of cap-and-trade” (nytimes.com). As Republicans sweep into their Senate seats this November, their opposition to cap-and-trade legislation will ensure its location on the back burner, at least temporarily (npr.org). It may take another natural disaster to incite a greater sense of urgency among our public and politicians. Hopefully, all we need is a strong enough economy in order to advert our attention to the more distant future. I think time is running out and our current focus on clean energy, although helpful, is simply not enough. At the very least, politicians can voice the need for improved evacuation and refuge strategies. Preparation for the worst should begin now.
In response to Ms. Winters’ Climate Change on the Back Burner, Stir as Needed I would like to add my opinion to this discussion. She is correct that more attention needs to be paid the issue, but I am going to demonstrate how it is going to be almost impossible to accomplish anything.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, Climate Change is a very real problem and needs to be dealt with. On the other hand, climatology as a discipline seems to be still in its infancy and I’m not entirely convinced that we really understand the full implications of Global Warming.
Certainly predictions such as those coming from Dr. Aiguo Dai are worth heeding, but we should be careful to make sure that there is strong consensus from climatologists before instituting policy. Even he admits that most climate change experts don’t really recognize his projections yet. The 2009 Australian dust storm, while the most dramatic in 70 years, is not unheard of. See the Melbourne dust storm of 1983. The problem with being an expert in a field such as climatology is there is going to be a huge incentive to exaggerate dire predictions for the purpose of gaining all important attention and research money. So while I do agree something needs to be done about Global Warming, I would like to see Dr. Dai’s predictions supported elsewhere.
As far as what to actually do about Global Warming, Ms. Winters is right in saying that this issue is going to be tabled for quite sometime. Between a focus on fighting debt, and a government and populous that is generally opposed to dealing with this problem, we are very limited to what we can do. Furthermore, as the US produces about 1/5th the world’s carbon dioxide, there is a great burden of responsibility on this country with respect to the issue of Global Warming. Yet at the same time, that means we have a major economic incentive to ignore the problem. China, the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide (still at about 1/5th of the world’s CO2) also has major economic incentive to hope this problem goes away.
So between more immediate political problems, economic disincentives, apparent conflict within the scientific community, and general public disbelief, this problem is not going to take care of itself on a political level. Even presuming the above problems did not exist, there would still be the question of exactly how to go about fixing global warming. Is it too late? Have we already reached critical pollution mass? What sorts of programs will stop this looming disaster? What sorts of programs will just protect us? What is feasible? Assuming still that we could coherently answer these questions, there is still the matter of funding. What would it take? How much would it cost?
So, whatever is coming, balmy winter temperatures or weather Armageddon, it looks like our countries’ citizens and politicians will do little to stop it. It will take powerful grassroots movement. It will have to be so forceful, so insistent, that people have to take notice. Or not. No pressure.
In the end, I just hope its bad science.
That’s what I hope.
It’s not what I believe.