Grim news about global climate changes for Earth Day

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

As we approach Earth Day 2004, news of global climate change is

disturbing. Headlines last week predicted another six years of severe

drought throughout the west, with high risk of major wildfires in

Southern California. Here in Huntington Beach, we have had only 6

inches of rain since last November, about 9 inches less than normal.

Yet in Huntington Beach and throughout Southern California, new

houses keep going up and water-demanding landscaping replaces native

plants that flourished on minimal rainfall.

In March, scientists in Hawaii reported that atmospheric levels of

carbon dioxide reached record highs last year. People put carbon

dioxide into the atmosphere mostly by combustion of carbon-based

fuels. Burning gasoline in automobiles, burning natural gas at

electric power stations, and even burning wood in a fire ring at the

beach contribute to rising levels of carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that causes the earth to retain

more heat from the sun. More carbon dioxide means higher

temperatures. Temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic have already

risen precipitously. Glaciers and ice sheets are melting, causing

ocean levels to rise. We will see 7-feet-2 high tides in Huntington

Beach twice this year, with continued increases in high tide levels

predicted for the future. Get some sandbags for Huntington Harbour

and Sunset Beach.

The story of climate change in the distant past is written in ice

cores and pollen counts. What the data tells us is that when climate

shifts, it does so with surprising suddenness. For example, the

planet can be plunged into a new ice age within the span of a decade

or two. It seems counterintuitive that global warming can set off an

ice age, but that is exactly what some scientists are now predicting.

And that brings us to our next headline in the news, the scariest

one of all. Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall are two futurists who

were hired by the Pentagon to outline possible results of global

climate change. The two prognosticators wrote “The Weather Report

2010-2020.” In their scenario, major global climate changes occur in

the next five to 15 years.

They start with the assumption that global warming melts Arctic

ice. The influx of fresh water into the upper North Atlantic slows

down the ocean conveyor belt, a complex of currents that drives

seawater circulation around the globe. The ocean conveyor belt pulls

warm water northward from the Tropics. This current is what keeps the

temperature of northern Europe moderate. If the ocean conveyor belt

slows, the northern hemisphere is plunged into another ice age.

Schwartz and Randall postulate that temperatures will rise in the

short term, then plunge as the ocean conveyor belt shuts down. These

global climate changes will result in severe disruption of weather

patterns with massive crop failures and food shortages. Major

droughts will result in decreased availability of fresh water, and

more extreme storms will increase demand for energy while

simultaneously limiting access to energy sources. These changes, the

authors predict, will massively disrupt the fabric of society.

As resources become scarcer, people will go to war over what

remains. Whenever humans in times past have been faced with a choice

between starvation and war, they have always chosen war. Presumably,

the Pentagon is now preparing for such a possibility.

The last time the ocean conveyor belt shut down was about 12,700

years ago, a geologic time period called the Younger Dryas. At that

time, the planet was warming up after the last great ice age of

20,000 years ago. Redwood forests flourished here in Huntington

Beach, mammoths and ancient bison roamed the land, and early humans

competed with saber-toothed cats and dire wolves for game animals in

what is now Orange County.

As the planet began to warm, the melting ice sheet that covered

most of North America created a huge glacial-melt lake in Canada

called Lake Agassiz. This enormous lake covered 133,000 square miles.

It extended south into Minnesota and North Dakota and drained through

the Mississippi River Valley. Then a catastrophic event occurred in

Canada that affected the entire world for over 1,000 years. A land

failure caused the entire lake to dump suddenly into the North

Atlantic.

The huge influx of fresh water into the Atlantic altered ocean

currents, shutting down the ocean conveyor belt within the span of a

decade. It plunged the planet back into another ice age that lasted

1,300 years. Shortly after the end of the Younger Dryas, most of the

huge mammals of the Pleistocene ice ages went extinct.

After 10,000 years of relatively stable climate that has allowed

civilization to develop, we are poised once again on the brink of a

major change in climate. Some would say we’re over the brink. The

planet is warming, the ocean is rising and carbon dioxide levels

continue to increase. An article in the January issue of Nature

predicted that 1 million species, a quarter of all species alive,

will be at risk of extinction by 2050 if global warming continues on

its present course. Climate change now rivals habitat destruction as

the biggest threat to life on Earth.

As we celebrate Earth Day 2004, it is painfully obvious that we as

a society cannot maintain our current way of life. Either we change

it deliberately, making rational and careful choices, or natural

forces will change our lives for us more harshly than we can imagine.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].