When scientists determine whether another planet is able to sustain life, one of the things they look for is water in its three forms, liquid, solid, and vapor. Water is in fact a natural resource and is one of the primary components that maintain life on Earth. In fact, water covers about 70% of Earth’s surface! The problem is that only about 3% of this water is fresh water and of this 3%, about 68% of fresh water is stored in icecaps and glaciers, according to the USGS. What many fail to realize is that many people depend on the seasonal freezing and melting of these glaciers and icecaps as their fresh water source. Because of increased temperature and shorter winters, people find themselves with shortages of water. In addition, the fresh water stored away in the Arctic is melting into the ocean, leading to a decline in the 68% and 3% ratios previously stated. Some people believe that an increase rainfall will replenish the lands that suffer from drought. WRONG! According to Mann and Kump, “a combination of warmer water, more intense rainfall events, and longer periods of low river and stream flow will also exacerbate water pollution”(Dire Predictions, p 123). Throughout time, societies have gone to war resources, such as land, gold and diamonds. We are now in what people believe in war over oil in the Middle East. According to Mann and Kump, as well as many other scholars, water will soon become a source of war, because of its increase in scarcity, the displacement of people because of rising sea levels and severe drought, and the creation of accessible borders now becoming accessible in the Arctic circle due to the receding polar ice cap and Arctic glaciers. With the scarcity of water, and the potential increase of this scarcity, I do not understand why people still waste so much water. I do not understand why people cannot just simply turn the water of while brushing their teeth and shaving, which saves up to 7 gallons of water a day, why people ignore leaky faucets, and most mind blowing, why people would build ski resort in the middle of a desert! Instead of wasting so much water in the desert, and at ski resorts that lack snow, why don’t we just use those snow machines and cover the exposed Arctic Eurasia, where “each decade the snow-free period… increases five or six days, exposing dark ground that absorbs sunlight more effectively than snow”, land that is being eroded at increasing and what should be alarming rates (Mann & Kant, p 138). “On average, the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the globe as a whole, and the region’s vast land masses are warming at five times the global temperature” (Mann & Kant, p138). I was not aware of this until I read Dire Predictions and I am very sure I am not the only person. We need to begin educating our country, both through books such as Dire Predictions, and through school’s science curriculum’s, so that people are more aware and can elect government officials that actually plan to do something about it, and not just slightly skip the topic of global warming just to fulfill the criteria for being a well-rounded politician. I feel that because the U.S is not directly feeling the heat of global warming, we do not feel an incentive to act, and ignore those who are suffering the most, forgetting that we too will one day be in the same position if we fail to act quickly. Saddening, yes. Surprising, no.
Tags: climate change, Drought, water, Water shortage
Connection between global warming and droughts is very intuitive. Yes, heat leads to droughts. Yet, linkage between global warming and storms or floods is not so obvious. It is understandable that when the earth is hotter, glaciers melting will cause sea level to rise. Nevertheless, that sounds like a very gradual and adaptable progress. Why storms, sudden floods and all the weather-related damages we see on the TV from time to time?
A closer look at direct consequences of global warming reveals its indirect connection to storms and floods. Firstly and obviously, global warming causes glaciers in Greenland and the arctic to melt which rises the sea level. Physically, in higher temperature, water also expands, effectively increasing the volume of the current sea water. As the temperature goes up, water also evaporates more. On top of that, hot air is capable of holding more water vapor. The latter two properties combined mean that there is more water in the air, which is the necessary condition for heavy rainfall and the build-up of storms. In addition, a study by NASA asserted that as a result of global warming, there is higher frequency of extremely high clouds, which are directly linked with formation of storms. The same study suggested that with the current rate of temperature change, there will be 6% more storms every decade. Finally and probably most importantly, a rise in sea surface temperature helps to sustain and intensify storms after they are formed. The energy in this warm water helps storms travel further distance and cause greater damages. In a nutshell, increase in global temperature, through many processes and feed-back processes, causes storms and floods to happen more often and with greater severity.
As a resident of Vietnam, I have seen increasingly frequent and devastating storms. Vietnam is a tropical country with 3444 km coastline. This natural location makes it prone to tropic storms and floods (video embedded of a common street flood). In 2006, there were 10 typhoons in the region with three directly affecting Vietnam. In 2007, the number of direct hits increased to 6. Every year hundreds of people are killed during these typhoons in Vietnam. When I was in high school in 2006, we had three days off because of a storm going onshore in my province, which is usually not affected. People in the area were advised to put rocks on their tin roof, which is popular in Vietnam, to prevent it from being blown away in strong winds. Some neighbors sent their children to sleep with us for the night because my house was just rebuilt at that time so was supposed to be more weather-proof. That night went by slowly as we anxiously waited for the storm to be over while listening to the increasing death statistics on the radio.
At the time I did not link floods and storms to global warming, or think about them as human-caused disasters. I thought they were just natural phenomenon that we had to deal with. Yet, global warming has been proved to increase those disasters. Pointing out the link between storms and global warming helps demonstrate the urgent and severe nature of the situation, prompting countries to act and reduce their environmental impact.
David Keith’s Unusual Climate Change Idea
In the video in the link above (thanks to the fabulous TED.com), David Keith asks the question: Is geoengineering a moral hazard?
Geoengineering involves the use of technology to counteract climate change at the source or impact levels. Some ideas include iron fertilization (inject iron into the upper ocean in order to increase the rate at which plants intake CO2) and carbon capture (extract carbon from fossil fuels when they are burned and then inject it into the deep ocean). Keith’s idea, a modified version of the solar shield (inject sulfates into the atmosphere to create clouds that bounce sunlight away from the planet), mimics the natural atmosphere by moving finer particles of sulphate out of the stratosphere and higher into the mesosphere, where they would achieve much longer lifespans as compared to statospheric sulphates, which fall out very quickly. Keith could even make the particles migrate to position themselves over the poles, where they would be most beneficial in keeping the ice caps from melting.
Oh, and it’s “absurdly cheap.” You could create an ice age at the cost of only 0.001% of GDP. “We have a lot of leverage,” he says.
So what’s the problem?
Keith’s argument is that geoengineering (which is cheap, quick, and effective) leads people to believe that the gravity of the climate change situation is not as heavy as it is. Keith also fears that it will be seen as an alternative to emissions reductions, which it is not. Just as steroids are not a legitimate alternative to real body building, geoengineering will have negative side effects, namely a change in the composition of our atmosphere.
Geoengineering, as addressed in Mann & Kump’s Dire Predictions should be seen as a scheme of last resort, not a miracle dietary supplement. But it is possible for single countries or even scientists to economically change the state of the atmosphere for the entire world. Keith asks the question: if China were to need for fast change in order to prevent negative effects on global warming, what would stop them from doing so? 
We are essentially playing God, and a very bigoted god at that. As geoengineering knowledge becomes increasingly widespread, we have a bunch of little gods running around the planet, altering it to be the way that they want it. This would be, of course, horrible, and would have to be governmentally controlled. But even individual governments would not be enough (because then you still have many little gods trying to keep the world right for them). We would need a global government and we’d need it fast.
And even then we risk changing the climate system completely. Keith argues that if in 2075, after climate change peaks thanks to serious emissions reductions made now, even then geoengineering may be necessary if the results of not geoengineering would be worse. Again, perspective is an issue, because we have to ask: worse for who? Does it matter who it would be worse for? It may sound a little Nietzschean, but could we sacrifice the low-lying island nations instead of risking the alteration of the atmosphere? Could the results of an altered, and therefore unpredictable atmosphere, be even worse?
We may have to begin to think like nature herself (or Charles Darwin & the Romantics) that the individual life is less important than the duration of the species, or the natural order as we know it, because if we know longer know the rules of nature’s game, we no longer know how to play.
David Keith
Read all articles by Brett Shollenberger on this blog!
Read articles by Brett Shollenberger in Dickinson Magazine!
Read Brett Shollenberger‘s blog!
Tags: Brett Shollenberger, climate change, geoengineering, morality
Within the global warming debate, there is a tendency to focus on the delayed affect that climate change will have on our way of life. However, the carelessness of the American way of life coupled with the affects of global warming have already been felt and our bound to intensify with time.
Currently, a heated political debate about health care is in progress throughout the United States. According to the National Coalition on Health Care, the United States is spending $2.5 trillion on healthcare, which is 17.6 percent of the gross domestic product. This amount is more than any country and has been steadily rising each year, leading many to argue in favor of reform.
As a student interested in the field of public policy, I have closely followed this debate, with a particular emphasis on urban areas such as Los Angeles and Chicago. As this video shows, the impact of smog on human health can be particularly harmful. Health Effects of Smog
The bad air condition along with the affects of global warming can be best seen in the book Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. In this text, Eric Klinenberg describes the severity of the Chicago 1995 heat wave: “The heat index, which measures the temperature that a typical person would feel, could top 120 degrees” (1). Believed to be caused by global warming,
The effects of global warming can and are being felt, especially in lower-income communities. Courtesy of MSNBC.
what made this situation worse was that many of the lower-income residents of the city had no cool place to go to. For that reason, many died and others were hospitalized with heat-related illnesses.
Poor nations and areas, such as inner cities, have inadequate access to resources such as air conditioning and clean water, and for that reason they are the most likely to suffer as the climate continues to warm up. Millions of these people are without health insurance and as the climate rises they are likely to costs the government trillions of dollars in health insurance bills.
Although many public policies need to be instituted to improve the conditions in inner cities, one way to address this issue is to implement climate change policy. This can be a positive step in reducing health care costs, improving inner-city communities, and cooling the planet. So if we can knock out three huge issues at once, my only question is what’s stopping us?
Tags: Chicago Heat Wave, Health Care Debate, Inner Cities, Lower-Income Communities, Public Policy, Smog
In Dire Predictions, Mann and Kump describe the effects of climate change on human systems. Impacts include: decreasing availability of freshwater, degradation of ecosystems, social unrest resulting in conflicts and war, increased transmission of disease, sea level rise- the list goes on and on. Essentially, climate change will impact every sector of human life. The impacts will be unique to individual bioregions, and because of this, most steps taken towards adaptation and mitigation must be designed regionally.
Projected affects of climate change on world crop yields
The projected effects on agricultural production illustrate the differing effects of climate change based on location. Changes in climate will affect soil structures and health, growing seasons, irrigation needs, plant tolerances, pest and disease frequency and severity, the plant species we grow and the animal varieties we raise. Scientists postulate that while many regions will suffer yield loss due to the combination of substantial temperature rise and drought, other regions may experience an increase in production. Observations have shown that high latitude regions are warming and will continue to warm more quickly than temperate regions. Due to this trend, effects of climate change on agriculture in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, the arctic and Australia will be largely negative. Regions like the United States and parts of Europe however, may benefit from the extended seasons a slight increase in temperature might bring.
Is is almost certain however, that substantial warming will result in negative impacts for food production around the world. As the earth warms disruption in our current food system are projected to become more and more frequent leading to food scarcity and malnourishment. Because nourishment is an integral part of human life, and because over 800 million people around the world are already undernourished, food security is a hugely important issue.
St. Croix Cattle selected for their ability perform under local environmental conditions
Adaptation discussions revolve around shifting planting schedules and reevaluating growing locations, as well as planting and raising more resilient and regionally appropriate plant and animal species. As mentioned above, these changes will be largely place dependent. Open technology sharing will play an important role in the dissemination of knowledge surrounding sustainable agriculture that currently resides in individuals, technology, and institutions. Policies surrounding the distribution of resources and food surplus will most likely need to be rethought, especially as socio-economic disparities between countries continue to increase.
Agriculture is estimated responsible for over 13% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. This is due, in large part, to our unsustainable farming techniques and our dependence on fossil fuel based fertilizers and pesticides but a large chunk of that 13% can be attributed to the distance our food travels. Our global economy is very efficient in the sense that it provides with a large range of foods from all over the world. The fact that here in Carlisle, PA we can drink Belgian beers and eat Swiss chocolate is testament to that; but the system is very inefficient when it comes to fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. The harvesting, processing, packaging, storing, transporting and other steps involved in getting food from field to our plates are extremely dependent on greenhouse gas producing energy.
As climate change discussion becoming increasingly common and increasingly urgent, the impacts to our food systems can be an important and effective educational tool. Food is part of everyone’s daily life. As people begin learning about how their food is produced, who is producing it, where it is coming from, and what is in or on it, chances are they might apply this process of thought to other parts of their lives. Food literacy is becoming increasingly popular around the world and is supported by movements like Slow Food, Community Supported Agriculture, and farmers market initiatives. Check out Madison’s 100 mile Food Map, a project created by four students at the University of Madison.
As momentum surrounding healthy, fresh, local foods grows and awareness of climate change increases, supper might just lead us towards a cooler future.
Tags: adaptation, agriculture, climate change, Danielle Hoffman, developing countries
Your Comments