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Global Warning - Oct 18, 2005 - Printable Version
- As the World Burns
by Robin Buckallew
As the long, hot Texas summer draws to a dusty, droughty close, I wearily raise my head to greet the incoming cold front that heralds the belated approach of fall. Memories of summer press down on me - a summer collecting plant specimens and surveying biodiversity as we suffered through one Texas August after another. While only 31 days actually had the distinction of bearing the name of August, the August weather began in May, with 100 degree temperatures before the month was nearly half over. August stretched nearly all the way through September, finally giving way to a welcome cooling that will bring an all too brief autumn before winter comes to pay a call. Day after day, climatologists and meteorologists logged temperatures that were several degrees above average. Day after day, I searched in vain for that misguided individual who once decided that it was actually possible for humans to live in Texas. Day after day, the plants died off in the sun-baked ground, in many cases withering and perishing before they even had chance to set seed. Is this what the future holds? A steady succession, day after day, month after month, of August? Withering plants and cracked, dry soil? Parched throats and heat exhaustion? Air conditioners working overtime? For the first time ever, I heard the words crossing nearly everybody's lips without a sign of a sneer - Global Warming. Debate about global warming has been heated, if you'll pardon the pun. Facts and fallacies abound, studies proliferate, and data accumulate at lightning speed. The vast majority of climate scientists now accept the reality of global warming, but debates continue about how warm, how soon, how widespread, and the extent of human culpability. Independent climate studies, government climate studies, industry climate studies - we are engaged in a battle of the brains, and for those of us who are not climatologists, it can often feel like we are awash in a sea of technical jargon linked with graphs and charts that leave us feeling hopeless, helpless and unable to make heads or tails of it all. Studies have been published from sources as diverse as the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to the United States Pentagon. In spite of the overwhelming evidence, skeptics in the fossil fuel industry and at the highest levels of government continue to deny that there is a problem. The general public, however, is beginning to believe. They are beginning to ask questions. Soon, they will begin to demand answers, then they will begin to demand action. My only fear is, by then, it may be too late.
For several years, scientists who have agreed on the reality of global warming have disagreed on the consequences. Dire predictions of ecosystem failure from some have been met with rosy forecasts of increased crop production and enhanced recreational opportunities from others. Studies of the effects of increased carbon dioxide and increased temperature have been ambiguous, to say the least. Models and laboratory experiments suffer from the disadvantage of not being able to factor in the effects of many variables. Now, the BBC has published a real-life study done under real-life conditions. The findings are frightening in their implications.
Many scientists had predicted that the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have a positive effect on plant growth, with the increased carbon dioxide being taken up by the vegetation and converted through photosynthesis into increased plant biomass. Some of the most wildly optimistic predictions read like sci-fi literature in their predictions of super-sized veggies and enormous fruits. Other scientists were somewhat more cautious, predicting that, while there might be enhanced growth at first, this would level off as plants approached saturation. As a botanist, I frequently found myself confronted by belligerent students armed with the "facts" about how global warming would actually be a positive thing, and we should encourage more carbon dioxide emission, not restrict it. Patiently, I endeavored to point out to them that there are many factors in addition to increased carbon dioxide - there is increased temperature and decreased rainfall. These would have to be factored into any model, and to date had not been promising in the predictions that have been made. I also pointed out to them that there are many places where carbon dioxide is not a limiting factor, where the plants are limited instead by water, temperature or soil nutrients, and increased carbon dioxide would not likely enhance plant growth under these conditions, since the plants already had enough carbon dioxide to support the maximum growth that the other ecological conditions would permit. In spite of everything, however, the studies remained ambiguous, mostly for lack of information and the need to predict possibilities that had not yet occurred. Until now.
In 2003, Europe suffered through a massive heat wave, with temperature six degrees Celsius above normal. Deaths ran into the tens of thousands. The increased heat, along with the limited rainfall, was a real life condition, affecting real life plants. Scientists set up studies to measure the flow of carbon dioxide, water and energy between the atmosphere and the ground. These studies resulted in some shocking findings. It seems that throughout that summer, the plants in Europe were releasing more carbon dioxide than they were taking up. As a general rule, the photosynthesis the plants do consumes carbon dioxide, the sun's energy is converted to a usable form of energy and stored as starch, and then the plant releases oxygen. In addition, plants also perform the same metabolic processes as other living things, in which they metabolize the energy to fuel their bodily processes, and then respire out carbon dioxide. Usually, plants take in more carbon dioxide than they breathe out. In an average year, the European plants have a net effect of 125 million tons of carbon removed from the atmosphere. This has been held out as a hope for relief from increasing carbon dioxide concentrations, as countries rush to plant trees to offset carbon dioxide emissions. In the summer of 2003, however, the net result was 500 million tons of carbon released to the atmosphere. Instead of removing excess carbon dioxide, they were adding more. In addition, figures from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization showed a decrease of 20% in European crop yields for 2003. The implications of this study are tremendous. As the plants release more carbon dioxide than they take up, the concentration in the atmosphere will grow even greater, causing still more warming. As the world warms, frightened citizens will crank their air conditioners ever higher, adding still more greenhouse gases, leading to still more warming. The resulting feedback loop could end up repeating itself in perpetuity - at least until it reached the point of its final lethality, at some unknown, possibly not that distant point in the future.
Meanwhile, the news from North America is equally devastating. The warming trend has hit hardest in the Arctic, and Alaska is beginning to warm at a rate unmatched anywhere else in the world. Although the worldwide average land surface temperature has increased by one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, in Alaska, the temperatures have risen 3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past five decades. Villages that have long relied on the permafrost to support them are sinking as the permafrost thaws. Wildfires seasons have been increasingly problematic, as beetle infestations leave the forests dry as tinder and heat-induced stress have caused a weakening of the forest, leaving the forests more susceptible to fire hazard from lightning strikes. The beetle infestations have occurred because the warmer weather is causing a delay in winter insect die-offs. Buildings are sinking, roads are buckling. One village on a barrier island is being moved inland as their town sinks into the ground. In addition, the water has heated up, which throws off the salmon cycles that have been established for millennia. A salmon-loving parasite has begun to thrive in the warmer waters. The decimation of the salmon population could have far reaching implications for the lives of not only the indigenous human populations, but also the native animal populations, such as the polar bear. As the ice and snow disappears, the dark surface of the ground and of the sea is exposed, and absorbs more solar heat, causing yet more warming. In addition, the permafrost acts as storage for a great deal of methane, which is released as the permafrost melts, and adds still more to the greenhouse effect. Once again, this could become a feedback loop cycling into perpetuity until it finally reaches critical mass, resulting in fatality for many species.
The news around the world has not been good. As the world is buffeted by storms and fires, ravaged by wind and water, no one wants to hear more bad news about global warming. We feel overwhelmed, angry at the messenger, and often defiant and combative. We feel we are being asked to give up everything we hold dear. As plants gasp for breath in Europe and villages sink out of sight in Alaska, it becomes harder and harder to just dismiss these as isolated incidents in remote areas that will never effect us. Often, the daily news leaves me gasping for breath, unable to think, staggering like a drunk as I struggle to take it all in. Much of what I once believed has been shown to be a sham. My worldview has been shattered, and I have had to rebuild it from scratch. Meanwhile, the news of the warming and the melting gets buried amidst the chest-beating over rising gas prices as America battles with the impending DTs from oil addiction and potential withdrawal pains. The editorial pages and the letters to the editors provide a constant drumbeat of demand for getting gas prices down. Consumers howl in pain and anger as their bank account continues to dwindle while feeding the SUV. I hear little from any side about conservation, about walking, about taking buses or trains. Some people have begun trading in their monster Hummers for compact cars that will get better gas mileage. Unfortunately, this is not enough. It may ease the pain on your pocketbook. It may make you feel noble and sacrificing. It will do very little to ease the true pain of the planet, to reduce the horrific impact of our bad decisions.
We must begin to think in the long term - the very long term. The choices we are making will have effects in the far future. The gases emitted from the original Model-Ts are still in the atmosphere. It is the effect of those emissions that we are feeling today. The carbon dioxide from the Kennedy motorcade in Dallas in 1963 will have implications that will take effect decades after that fateful day. The impact of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Hummer won't be felt until his grandchildren are grown. We have been foolish. We will pay the price. The price will be steep. It is time, however, to think ahead. We are already sticking our children and our grandchildren with the tab for the financial crises that we have created; must we also leave them a legacy of a continually warming world with no hope for relief? The time for thinking it over has ended; the time for action is here. Let us not party while the world burns.
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