I magine with me for a moment.
At some point in the near future, the world experiences an immediate, global, and significant disaster because of global climate change. That is to say, the very basic necessities of human life--water, food, shelter--were to suddenly vanish or dramatically decline. Millions, perhaps billions, of people are displaced and live in refugee camps. A quarter of the human population die. Environmental terrorists begin to attack those whom they deem responsible, mainly environmentally devious industrial corporations and governments. Most target the United States, the only current country who has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. In response, the United States takes an isolationist policies to "defend" their resources at all costs. Other countries soon follow suit. Millions more die. After five years, half of the global population, three billion humans, have died due to diseases, starvation, and war.
Fortunately, nothing like the apocalyptic scenario has occurred thus far.
Of course, there have been pockets of environmental change in recent years. For example, the increase in frequency and force of tsunamis, hurricanes, drought, and heat waves, the melting of the polar ice caps, and the subtle rise of the ocean levels. Luckily, we, as a global civilization, have not experienced any major environmental calamity due to global warming or climate change.
However, and, in a sense, unfortunately, nothing like the apocalyptic scenario has occurred thus far.
Suppose something a tenth as tragic were to happen. Given the world's current response to the economic crisis, which would seem like a mosquito bite in comparison, it would be reasonable to assume there would be an equal if not greater response to a sudden and dramatic environmental crisis. But this is not how global warming works. Anyone who has seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth or has even read a bit about climate change can attest, the time line for a catastrophic event will not occur within the next few decades, but rather in decades that follow in the twenty-first century.
And herein lies the paradox of global warming: the action by governments, businesses, and individuals needed to stop, or at least lessen, such a scenario would not occur unless a tragedy of proportionate scale occurs; but if that tragedy were to occur, it would be too late to take action and most efforts to ameliorate the problem will be ineffective.
Perhaps Marcos, in his infinite scientific knowledge, can shed some more light on the issue and paradox.
*For a more detailed description of the effects of global warming according to the number of degrees the average global temperature rises in the next century, check out the synopsis of Mark Lynas' incredible book, 6 Degrees. His summation:
If [the environmental historical record] tell us one thing above all, it is this: that we mess with the climatic thermostat of this planet at our extreme - and growing - peril.
Mis Hermanos y Yo
17 years ago
2 comments:
It sure is cold as shit in Baton Rouge right now
This is indeed an interesting paradox.
People somehow convince themselves that the idea of a global catastrophe is preposterous. And, many that believe it will happen seem convinced that it will not effect them in that it will not happen until after their lifetime.
I wish my global warming colloquium was not as shitty as it was, because I would have remembered a whole lot more about this subject. However, I clearly remember scientists discussing the melting of the ice caps. There is a lot of hype surrounding this phenomenon. However, I don't think people understand the magnitude of such a problem.
Scientists are rather convinced that the sea levels are rising rapidly due to the melting of the ice caps. I read about some confusion over how much by when. So, I read in a few different papers that the sea was expected to rise 20 feet. In some papers it said over the next 50 years, and in others it said in the next 100 years. Either way, this is going to be huge. There are more than a few cities across the globe which will become uninhabitable. I am not entirely sure about the accuracy of these claims, but they make sense to me.
I am sure of this, however. We cannot STOP or REVERSE this rise within the next century (or even couple of centuries maybe). The fact is that there is an enormous amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. And, the major carbon sink on the planet is, you guessed it, the ocean. The uptake of carbon dioxide by the sea is a slow process. But that hasn't been a huge problem over the last few million years because, hey, we haven't been burning tons of shit. However, the last 100 years has put far more CO2 into the atmosphere than the seas can handle. So, it's going to take a long, long time just for the ocean to rebound and start chipping away at the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. All the while, we're putting more in (despite efforts to cut emissions and whatnot).
The point is, this rise in sea level will happen. I can't act like I know when, but that's irrelevant. The takeaway message here is that we cannot take this information and just say, "well, we're fucked anyway." What we need to do is say, "well, we have a bit of a problem on our hands. But, I'd rather not exacerbate it, so lets keep doing what we can to make this problem less severe and of shorter duration. How about that?"
We need to act. As shitty as this all sounds, we need to accept it, and do all that we can to fix the problem. I don't know if this will be anything like Tacitus describes. I don't know if half of the global population will die of disease, starvation and the like. But, I do know that this will be unlike anything human eyes have seen in the history of their existence.
So, let's kick the crap out of global warming, for our kids and their kids.
Ok. Startiiiinnngggg.........now.
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