Given the gravity of the report, no one made much noise. Now that global warming is widely accepted as scientific fact, public dialogue about climate change has slowed to a simmer. It seems that President Barack Obama’s enlightened stance on climate change has lulled the American public into complacency. The collective sense of urgency that characterized liberal America’s cry for environmental awareness during the Bush years is mostly gone. Sure, the task of mitigating and adapting to global warming is in the government’s hands now, but the issue is not bigger than us. Public awareness and urgency are as important as ever.
Consider the stakes. A three-foot rise in sea level would submerge New Orleans, Venice, Shanghai and Amsterdam, along with a third of Bangladesh. But surging seas are just one consequence of higher temperatures. Hurricanes will become more common. Water will evaporate faster from the hotter land, leaving extensive drought. Our understanding of weather systems is still so crude that some models forecast a greening of the semi-arid Sahel region of Africa while others predict that the Sahara will extend from central Europe to Somalia.
The ramifications for terrestrial citizens are profound. The tropics, home to a third of the world’s population, are especially vulnerable to climate change. Greater thermal energy will fuel fiercer storms and monsoons. The range of deadly tropical diseases will dramatically expand. Melting glaciers will cause long-run water scarcity. As aquifers dry up, farming will become impossible in two latitudinal dry belts, which will render much of southern Europe, south Asia and southern Africa uninhabitable. Tomorrow’s cities may be found in cool refuges like Siberia and northern Canada. All this may seem a bit farfetched, but the 4 degrees Celsius boost this century predicted by the International Panel on Climate Change, whose conclusions are usually conservative, will certainly not be like spring break in the Caribbean.
So is this the beginning of the end for humanity? “Humans will survive as a species, but the cull during this century is going to be huge,” says former NASA scientist James Lovelock, who predicts that less than a billion humans will inhabit Earth in 2100. Plenty of other scientists expect a catastrophe.
Every age has its doomsayers. Their arguments range from credibly rational — like Thomas Malthus’ prediction that we would return to subsistence farming when population growth outpaced food production — to patently absurd — like Nostradamus’ astrological doomsday prophecies. The problems of each passing age seem more grave and insolvable: This is different, this is bigger, or so the argument goes.
Yet, so far man has prevailed. The scientific tools needed to avert the next disaster are within our grasp. Depressing as it is, imminent catastrophe may be needed to compel action. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.
At the same time, we must be optimistically realistic. Admittedly, we may have finally created a problem bigger than ourselves. It is foolish to assume that since we have overcome once, we will overcome again. A certain amount of fearmongering is necessary to raise awareness of the magnitude of the problem. But there is no reason for the human species to perish: when backed into a corner, we’re smarter than that.
There is no question that radical social reorganization will be needed to cope with a warmer planet. “We need to look at the world afresh and see it in terms of where the resources are, and then plan the population, food and energy production around that,” says Peter Cox, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter. “If aliens came to Earth they’d think it was crazy that some of the driest parts of the world, such as Pakistan and Egypt, grow some of the thirstiest crops for export, like rice.” But just how that reorganization will be accomplished is the million dollar question. The archaic mindset that each nation must be self-sustaining in food, water and energy hinders global resource efficiency. But it is unlikely that political leaders will lay down their arms for the good of humanity.
In his first month in office, Obama signaled his readiness to tackle climate change. The much-maligned federal stimulus package includes $38 billion to promote the development of renewable energy sources, including tax credits for solar, geothermal and wind energy facilities. His recently unveiled federal budget plan assumes $78.7 billion in revenue from the sale of emission allowances in 2012. These moves have created hope that America will take the next international agreement on climate change, due to be signed in December, seriously. These are steps in the right direction, but we must do more. Time is of the essence.