Who’s connecting the dots on
Spaceship Earth? Remember the dots of 9/11? They were all out
there, yet the best minds of our government’s intelligence
apparatus could not connect them. Too bad; a tragedy might have
been averted.
The dots on Spaceship Earth are accumulating
every day and represent a threat even greater than terrorism. It is
called global warming, and it portends disaster far greater for far
more people. Are we failing to take notice of them and ignoring the
warning signals that could save us?
Most folks with good
common sense look at the world, try to make sense of it and ask:
What’s going on? The dots are there but between manipulative
politicians, avaricious corporations and pseudo-scientists, the
public is more than slightly perplexed. What are they to believe
from the mixed signals they are receiving? Certainly, there is no
leadership coming from the highest echelons of our government. Some
lip service is given but nothing that deals with hard
reality.
The reality is that our environment is changing
all around us. All you have to do is look. In Wyoming, my favorite
trout fishing holes when I was a kid more than 50 years ago are now
filled with carp. The water has warmed, and the trout are leaving
or dying. In Oregon, trout researchers have documented the movement
of trout up to cooler waters at higher elevations.
The
little pika — rock rabbit or cony — as some call them, found only
in the higher elevations of the Rockies and in Asia, are losing
out. Research is indicating that they can’t stand the heat.
Evolved in the high, dry elevations, they aren’t adapting
fast enough and there is no place for them to go.
In the
tropics of Central America, researchers have found a shift of bird
life. Birds that once thrived in the trees at lower elevations have
moved to the mid-elevations; and birds that once flourished at
mid-level are being forced by rising temperatures to the highest
elevations. Those at the top have nowhere to go and are dying out.
As in the case of the pikas, a living organism that has evolved in
a particular ecosystem cannot readily and quickly adapt to the new
conditions, even if it is only a few degrees rise in
temperature.
How many of those subtle, and not so subtle,
changes are affecting us? The record heat wave which scorched
Europe in August 2003 killed an estimated 35,000 people. France
alone suffered 14,802 fatalities.
As I sit here in
central Wyoming, it seems a beautiful and peaceful place. But on
close examination, a grim scenario is playing out. Just as
climate-change scientists have predicted, there is an increase in
insects and disease. West Nile virus was unheard of in the United
States until 1999. In 2002, there were 4,165 cases of the disease
and 284 deaths. As of Sept. 16, six people have died in Wyoming —
one in my town of Lander.
Drought is in its fourth year
with no end in sight. To compound that problem, the Wind River
glaciers that provide much of the late-season water in the streams
are receding at an alarming rate. (So are most glaciers around the
world.) Dry rivers and raging forest fires are expected to be a
part of the future.
Ironically, Wyoming and the
West’s vast carbon fuel supply of coal, oil and natural gas
are contributing vast amounts of carbon dioxide to the greenhouse
effect of global warming. In addition, the search for and the
recovery of gas and oil is all but destroying many square miles of
open lands that wild animals need to survive.
A study done
by scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory earlier this year
concluded that huge reductions in fossil-fuel carbon emissions will
be required by the middle of this century. One of the authors, Atul
Jain, a professor of atmospheric sciences, said, “To reduce carbon
dioxide emissions and avoid dangerous interference with the climate
system, we must switch to alternative, carbon-free energy
sources.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists has said, “We
believe that climate change represents the greatest environmental
challenge of the 21st century. It is the one environmental issue
that affects all others, one that casts a long shadow on the future
of our planet.” Let’s hope it’s not too late to pay
attention.
Tom Bell is a contributor to Writers
on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). A former
wildlife biologist and rancher, he founded the newspaper in 1970,
in Lander, Wyoming, where he lives today.
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