THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF VIRTUALLY ALL MODERN TECHNOLOGY, from combustion engines to rockets, nuclear power, and telecommunications, has occurred within the last 150 years. And the effect has reached the atmosphere itself.
Certain molecules in the atmosphere, including water and carbon dioxide, allow sunlight to pass through them but tend to reflect infrared or heat. Thus, like glass panes in a greenhouse, the gaseous molecules act to heat the Earth. The unprecedented increase and accumulation of human-created greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, CFCs) could cause forest die-off, desertification of farmland, and higher sea levels. And yet Canada, the United States, and other countries do little to reduce the output of the gases. The reasons for reluctance to reduce greenhouse gases are obvious— a serious effort will require a large investment, changes in lifestyle, and a fundamental shift away from the relentless priority of growth.
Some people question the seriousness of the dangers. The greenhouse effect is exaggerated, they argue. Fluctuations in global temperature have occurred in the past, and extinction is normal, since 99 percent of all species that ever lived are now extinct. These two points fail to consider the rate of change. The warming that ended the last Ice Age occurred at the rate of about a degree every millennium. The coming rate of change could be several degrees per century. And in the past, extinction rates may have been a species or two per year, while, according to an estimate in February 1993, we may be losing more than five species per hour!
A more serious criticism of people concerned about global warming is the lack of hard evidence to back up their fears. The fact is that naturally occurring greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane have been increasing in the upper atmosphere while new ones like CFCs have been created and released. Most climatologists believe that warming is already happening and will accelerate in the coming decades. But our ignorance about the factors that influence weather and climate is so great that it is impossible to make a realistic scientific prediction.
Because of those uncertainties, the Marshall Institute, a right-wing think tank in Washington, D.C., published a paper in 1989 that concluded that the temperature increase already observed over the past century has resulted from the sun’s natural variations. With greater evaporation and cloud formation, the article suggested, the Earth would be shielded from sunlight and actually become cooler. The business magazine Forbes used the report to excoriate environmentalists for their alarmist exaggerations, while then–U.S. president George Bush was persuaded to oppose the imposition of any targets to limit emissions.
The Marshall Institute report had a widespread influence. An editorial in Canada’s Globe and Mail (October 12, 1990) headlined “What We Don’t Know About Global Warming” warned that action to avert global warming would have vast economic repercussions. Citing the Marshall Institute report, the editorial concluded, “In the absence of more solid information on the dimensions of the danger, the proposed insurance premiums seem out of proportion to apparent risk.”
The interim report of the Canadian Parliament’s all-party Standing Committee on Environment that was tabled in 1990 put the issue of global warming into its proper perspective. While acknowledging the uncertainties of climate prediction, the committee members “nonetheless accept the argument that the precautionary principle must apply in so vital a situation. By the time scientists have all the answers to these questions, global climate may have been driven by human society to the point where the answers are largely academic.” The report goes on to warn of the reality of atmospheric change and sees “no validity in the argument that governments should delay acting until more detailed information on the likely effects of global climate change is gathered…. If the skeptics are correct and climate change is less of a problem than most scientists anticipate, the policies which we are proposing will still return many benefits, both environmental and economic.”
The report indicated that some countries were already acting. “West Germany has adopted the target of reducing CO2 emissions by 25 percent in 2005 from 1987 levels; Denmark and New Zealand will attempt to reduce CO2 emissions by 20 percent in 2000 from 1990 levels … the Committee concludes that the Toronto target—a 20 percent reduction in the 1988 level of CO2 emissions by 2005—is the minimum that Canada should strive for as an interim goal.”
Back in 1979 at the first World Climate Conference (WCC), experts wondered whether human-induced global warming could happen. But by 1988, enough was known to lead delegates at the Toronto conference to propose what has become a standard by which to ensure a country’s seriousness in addressing climate change. A year later, at a meeting in Holland, the European Community favored a formal agreement to reduce emissions but was opposed by the United States, Britain, Japan, and the Soviet Union. The American delegation argued that the threat of global warming was still not certain, citing the report by the Marshall Institute. None of the authors of that report attended the Geneva Conference in 1995, where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was unequivocal in its conclusion about the scientific basis for global warming. Bert Bolin, chairman of the panel, said that his committee’s findings “buried the Marshall Report for good.” The IPCC documented the increase in atmospheric content of human-produced greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution. They concluded with certainty that this “will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface.”
The IPCC report stated “with confidence” that the relative effect of different gases can be calculated and that carbon dioxide (mainly from burning fossil fuels) has been responsible for over half the enhanced greenhouse effect and will likely remain so in the future. Since atmospheric levels of long-lived gases adjust slowly over time, “continued emissions … at present rates would commit us to increased concentrations for centuries ahead. The longer emissions continue to increase at present-day rates, the greater reductions would have to be for concentrations to stabilise at a given level.” In other words, it’s far easier, cheaper, and faster to act now than to wait till later when even more gases will have been added to the upper atmosphere.
The IPCC suggests that CO2, nitrous oxide, and CFCs have to be cut by “over 60 percent to stabilise their concentrations at today’s levels.” That won’t be easy, but we haven’t even begun to try. Several studies, including a government-commissioned Canadian document, have shown that there are huge environmental and economic benefits from cutting back on emissions. In Geneva, Thomas Johansson of Sweden reported that the United States could cut CO2 emissions by 20 percent by the year 2000 and save a whopping U.S. $60 billion a year. He found that countries as diverse as Sweden and India could also reap enormous benefits from energy conservation. Around the world, countries are wasting energy and, in the process, adding greenhouse gases unnecessarily to the atmosphere.
Of all industrialized countries in the world, Canada has the poorest per capita record. With only 0.4 percent of the world’s population, Canada generates 2 percent of all greenhouse gases. With near unanimity of expert opinion, Canadians have no excuses for delay.
If greenhouse gases aren’t brought into equilibrium, the consequences will be catastrophic. For the web of life on Earth, even small shifts in average global temperatures will have huge repercussions. The atmosphere and air quality will change. Climate and weather will become even more unpredictable, and global patterns of snow, ice, and permafrost will be altered. Water supplies will be interrupted, and saltwater intrusion will contaminate drinking water on the coasts.
Terrestrial ecosystems will be affected even more than those in the oceans because water temperature changes more slowly. In a forest ecosystem, each species will respond differently. Some will flourish, whereas others will die out, so the collection of organisms will change. Agriculture will be thrown into chaos as growing areas, rains, and seasons are transformed unpredictably.
Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Australian Medical Research Council concluded that the effect of global warming on human health will be disastrous. For populations already at the edge of starvation, food shortages and increased costs will exacerbate their malnutrition and vulnerability to diseases. In the northern industrialized world, skin and eye diseases will increase, as will the incidence of tropical parasites and diseases.
The most predictable consequence of warming is the effect on the oceans. When water warms, it expands. When a mass of water as large as an ocean heats up even a bit, sea levels rise. As a result, ocean currents are changed, marine ecosystems altered, and plankton populations affected. Warmer oceans will increase the intensity of tides, storms, erosion, saltwater intrusion in aquifers, and corrosion of underground subways and pipes. A sea level rise of a few centimeters will greatly affect human societies. Coastal areas will experience storms of greater intensity and frequency. For people living in lowland deltas of Bangladesh, Egypt, and China, and on coral islands like the Maldives and Seychelles, the results will be disastrous. Permanent flooding will create millions of environmental refugees.
Fifteen of the twenty largest cities in the world are built next to oceans. The cost of countering sea level rise will be vast. Holland’s famous storm barrages to prevent a recurrence of the killer flood of the 1950s cost over $8 billion, an amount that will be dwarfed by the efforts to protect cities and beaches around the world.
In New Orleans, we can glimpse the horrifying consequences of sea level rise. First let me remind you that marshes are vital parts of ecosystems that support many life-forms, including fish, mammals, and birds. But 50 percent of U.S. marshes have already been destroyed, and 40 percent of what remains is located in southern Louisiana around New Orleans. Today, Louisiana is losing 40 hectares (100 acres) of marsh and farmland a day to flooding.
Flying over what not long ago were rich marshes, we can see the expanse of green change to a series of ponds that become larger and larger. There is evidence everywhere of abandoned human effort—systems of levees, dams, and pumping stations that were used to keep back the rising water. Like modern-day King Canutes, people spent years raising levees, pumping longer and harder, and repairing breaches in dikes, only to retreat and abandon fields, houses, roads, and machinery. Their drowned dreams and hopes remain visible from the air.
Louisiana’s loss of land began with the failure of people to pay attention to nature’s rhythms as an essential part of the Mississippi delta. The delta was often flooded by hurricanes or river overflow. So in 1936, the Army Corps of Engineers, which is probably on a par with the World Bank for its ecologically destructive acts, completed an elaborate system of levees to stop the Mississippi from flooding. It may have been good for people’s property, but it killed the delta. Over thousands of years, the Mississippi moved across the delta, flooding, carving new channels, tossing up mud banks, and replenishing the soil. Once channels were fixed, as oil, gas, and water were pumped from beneath the delta, it sank. Fishers in the area are enjoying a bumper yield of shrimp, crabs, and fish, but what they are doing is harvesting the organic material from the marshes. The rich soil that accumulated over thousands of years is now being broken up and flushed to sea, thereby fertilizing the waters and creating a short-term bonanza that will peter out.
Although sea level rise is occurring with astonishing speed in geological terms, it is invisible to most people. In spite of our capacity to plan ahead to avoid danger, we don’t react to incremental change, only to major disasters like hurricanes or floods. Already sea level rise is a real problem in cities such as Venice, New York, Miami, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Osaka. We will be forced to pay enormous sums to counter the effects of this rise and protect cities in the industrial world, but developing countries will not have the money. And even worse, we don’t appear to have learned from the lessons of New Orleans. The main conclusion from the 1995 climate conference in Geneva is that we know too little to make accurate predictions about the effect of rising temperature. But we can say with absolute certainty that cycles and regularities, like monsoon rains and seasons that people have relied on for tens of thousands of years, will no longer be dependable, while at the same time the topology of the Earth’s ecosystems will change.
We are on the edge of a global catastrophe, and it’s time politicians took the warnings of scientists to heart. We need vision and leadership—for the sake of our children