A changed climate
By: North County Times opinion staff - | ∞
Two polar bears stand on a chunk of ice in the Arctic off Northern Alaska in 2004. Climate scientists say global warming has begun, is ‘very likely’ caused by humans and will ‘continue for centuries.’ Officially releasing a 21-page report in Paris on the how, what and why the planet is warming — although not offering any tips on what to do about it —- the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave a bleak observation of what is happening now, and an even direr prediction for the future.
Canadian Ice Service / Associated Press
Our view: It's time to buckle down to reality of global warming; hard choices loom
San Diego County's terrain is often described as a coastal desert, a wonderful term that not only captures the land we live on but also the geological features marking our borders to the west and east. On Friday, history's largest collection of Earth, atmosphere and ocean scientists told us that we should expect both coast and desert to encroach upon our settled communities in the coming century, thanks to the buildup of carbon in the atmosphere.
The time is past when global climate change could be dismissed as a "liberal" issue, or even a political one. The phenomenon grimly described Friday by a team of 3,700 researchers from around the world, including several from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, must be seen as a matter of survival. For we have built, and in all likelihood, overbuilt in this coastal desert with too little concern for the fragility of the ecosystem on which we rely.
In a year in which climate change hit the mainstream, Friday's release of the summary of the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is the latest high-water mark. But what we do from here is of even greater importance.
Folks who take the growing scientific consensus about global warming seriously have in the past been labeled "alarmist" or "Chicken Littles." Skeptics have pointed to reported growth in Greenland's glaciers, or a few loud and credentialed critics of the global warming theory. Much fun is had harkening back to the dire predictions of a coming ice age that magazine covers trumpeted 30 years ago.
But it's no accident that many are confused about the state of the scientific debate over global warming; that doubt has been sown on purpose. Much as the tobacco industry funded sympathetic scientists for decades to foul the political arena with favorable research, the colossal carbon-generating industries have sunk millions into polluting public policy debates over global warming. We the media have also poorly served you by too often portraying the debate as more balanced than the science has long supported.
And those glaciers in Greenland? The last year has seen unprecedented melting in its ice sheet, so much so that the estimates of sea level rise reported Friday are already too conservative, many scientists say.
Sea levels in the Pacific off California's coast rose 7 inches during the last 100 years, and are expected to rise another 2 feet in the coming century. Not coincidentally, the United Nations' sponsored panel found that Arctic sea ice has been shrinking about 8 percent each decade since 1979. If you thought North County's beaches already looked starved of sand, keep watching. Ditto for the crumbling bluffs and straining sea walls.
Perhaps even more worrisome, the buildup of carbon dioxide is making the oceans more acidic, threatening the corals and plankton that underpin the incredibly complex and important marine food chain.
But if our problem to the west will be a surplus of water, that won't be the case to the east, scientists say.
Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that 2006 was the hottest year in the continental United States since records began being kept in the late 1800s. All 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1990, including six of the seven hottest since 2001. While the world's average temperatures got hotter by 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last century, average temperatures in San Diego County are expected to rise between 4 degrees and 8 degrees over the next 100 years.
Hear the chilling words spoken Friday by Scripps professor Lynn Talley, lead author of one of the report's chapters: "We may drown, but we'll probably burn first." Other Scripps scientists tell us that those hotter temperatures could trigger 30 percent more wildfires in Southern California before the century is out. More burning trees means more carbon escaping into the atmosphere, just one of the many feedback loops strongly suggesting that global warming will only accelerate as the 22nd century looms.
We will have a harder time finding the water with which to douse those fires, and more importantly, quench our thirsts. Between 70 percent and 95 percent of the water we use is pumped through pipelines from the Colorado River and Northern California's massive State Water Project. Most of that water starts out as snow, but warming temperatures are already giving us more rain and less snow. But snowmelt is the cornerstone of our water storage and delivery system; we don't have enough reservoirs to hold the rain we need down here.
The list of dire implications from Friday's report goes on, regrettably.
But as important as it is for us to grapple with the report's frightening facts, it is even more important for us to ponder the policies we must pursue. The overwhelming majority of experts in climate-related fields tell us that we can't stop the changes coming to our climate, but we can lessen their effects and buy time while we seek solutions.
In coming weeks, we pledge to examine some of the responses being considered on the local, state, federal and global levels. But please, read the summary released Friday. It can be found online here . We're going to need the combined intelligence, ingenuity and actions of the entire North County, California, United States and planet Earth population if we're to solve this one.
We're all in this together.
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Freddy wrote on Feb 3, 2007 9:18 PM:As it is with alm ost all the present conditions that the power brokers threaten with should have been face years and years a go. Look at the current roads and political and economic local conditions. What has been done, or will be done? Besides the current global warming is not from man, but from the physical displacement of the earth as in the symptoms of earthquakes. Consider this: the poles are shifting. You scientist, check that out. Now you all may have a good laugh, but you may need to repent and let God be God and get right with him. Where is the man when you need him with the long white beard and robes with the sign reading, "repent Now!" ?
Reardon wrote on Feb 3, 2007 10:05 PM:A few quick questions, the answers will determine the validity of the argument. What is the Earth's temperature today? What was it on June 3, 1933? How about March 11, 1534? Novemner 17, 820 AD? How much CO2 is in the atmosphere, in metric tons? How much of that is man made? No, I do not know the answer to any of these questions and neither does ANYONE else! ANYONE!
Marcus wrote on Feb 3, 2007 10:45 PM:I have an idea: let's cripple the entire American economy by trying to pass ridiculous standards that will do little, if anything, to touch the world-wide matter of human contribution to global warming (the level of which is still up for much debate in the serious scientific community), while China, India, and other nations throughout the world continue to pollute at unprecedented levels without so much as a peep from American and European liberals. This is precisely why the Kyoto Agreement was never signed into law: an international body dictating standards to the United States that others throughout the world did not have to follow. Nonsense! No one seems to understand that the earth heats and cools naturally, independent of humans. How much of a contribution does volcanic activity play in earth’s temperature? What about that giant ball of gas at the center of the universe? No, I didn’t mean Al Gore. You know; the sun. Doesn’t that have something to do with how hot it is on our planet? The point that scientists and climatologists, or as I like to refer to them, "scientologists", were only thirty years ago predicting a world-wide freeze is important. Is man's contribution to global warming overestimated? Can we really take seriously a group of people that claim that cold, hot, dry, wet, windy, and calm conditions are ALL evidence of global warming? We are experiencing record cold this month. It's all because of global warming. It's unusually rainy this month. It's all because of global warming. Boy it sure is warm this summer. It's all because of global warming. If only I could be fortunate enough to live in a fantasy world, my principal theory about global warming would be supported by any and every possible outcome. If only capitalism would stop working so damn well, socialism could work and we would all be equal. If only white people would just stop their vast yet invisible conspiracy, no black people would be in jail. If only we could just give carpool passes to everyone who drives a Toyota hybrid vehicle, the world would be a better place. If only…
Floyd wrote on Feb 4, 2007 3:23 AM:Conditions are not constant, which is why we have summer, fall, winter, and spring that continue to repeat. 30 years ago, the trend was cooling. Now the trend is warming. 30 years from now, the trend will likely be cooling again. Expand the range of data analysis over, say, 3 or 4 centuries and report back.
Pinky wrote on Feb 4, 2007 6:58 AM:Anger, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
Howiek wrote on Feb 4, 2007 7:15 AM:I’m afraid that, for the most part, they do have the answers to your questions Reardon! You need got off the “In-denial” train and realize that this planet is changing and mankind is the cause of it. Just imagine for a moment what it would be like to look out over San Diego Bay—the bay front now around “A” street, and observe a wide-open bay and the waves washing over what used to be Lindbergh Field! By the way, Coronado would be now underwater since its mean elevation is only 3 ft. There are a couple of irrefutable facts, regardless of what caused them “Global Warming” or “Climate Change”, the earth and seas are warming and the seas are rising, and that trend will continue for decades.
Carl Sagan wrote on Feb 4, 2007 8:28 AM:What is the temperature that the earth should be right now? No scientist has ever answered that. Also, where is it written that the earth must remain the exact same temperature forever? We are at the end of a small ice age. The earth will warm up. Then we will enter another small ice age after that. It will cool down. It has happened millions of times over billions of years since the earth was formed. Nothing unusual about that. Remember that the earth was experiencing global warming between the eighth and twelfth centuries. This allowed the Vikings to inhabit the previously uninhabitable Greenland where they grew grapes for crying out loud. And they didn’t drive SUV’s over there either.
Howiek wrote on Feb 4, 2007 8:30 AM:Ummmm Floyd! Let’s think about your comment. Look back 3 or 4 centuries and check back? This planet wasn’t using fossil fuels then and there were a lot less people living this planet. I suspect they were using a lot of wood for heat! Your argument has a few flaws in it, part of which is a serious case of denial. Further, they—scientist and researchers, have been tracking the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere for well over 60 years and it has shown a steady increase, year after year after year! Try again!
Ron wrote on Feb 4, 2007 9:32 AM:Let's forget about the facts behind all the name calling..."Chcken-little, Denialists, or Alarmists. Or Bill Clinton's refusal to sign Kyoto, or the 1997 Senate vote of 95-0 against enacting it, and then Kyoto was used as a battering-ram against Republicans and George Bush. Let forget about the fact that, "Scientific Consensus" is not science. Let's just forget all about the political pandering, or angling, or fear tactics, let's set those aside for the moment. The Believers, how are they acting? How have they lead the way by example to enlighten the rest of us? Well, I don't quite know what the count was, but we had a whole lota scientists flying to Paris for this conference. Al Gore is jet setting around the world in private jets selling his movie. That is how they are showing us the way. Hypocrites! And today, we are treated to this editorial, from on high, by the NC Times. How are they curbing their carbon footprint? Are all of the vehicles used to deliver their papers hybrids, or using alternative energy? How much power is used to run their printing presses, and where does the power come from? It that power delivered by fossil fuel, or bio-diesel? My point is, it is encumbent upon those believers to show us the way, and live by they tell us they believe.I'll be willing to change my energy consumption when I see the following: The NC Times delivery driver using a hybrid or alternative energy vehicle. Or Al Gore stop flying around the planet in private jets to sell his movie. Or when the Chicken Little's change their energy consumption. When they do that, then I'll think about it.
Jeff wrote on Feb 4, 2007 10:32 AM:WOW, what an honor to reply to Mr. Sagan. You are talking about ice ages and warming that takes place over millions of years, the problem is that we are a biological blip on a very large calender that can only exist within a very, very narrow unaltered path. The slightest deviation is extinction.
Reardon wrote on Feb 4, 2007 11:32 AM:Howiek -- water lapping at "A Street" is just the start of it! in the past, it has lapped at Alpine! And it will someday, again, man or no man -- cars or no cars. Read The Rise and Fall of San Diego, written in 1999 by Professor Abbott, professor of Geology at San Diego State since 1970. (He wrote this well before the current kafuffle about Global Whatever.) He writes that the mean average temperature of San Diego today is 61 degrees, but during the most recent Torrid Age it was an estimated 73 degrees. He writes that the delta between high and low sea level is 650 feet, and that we are currently at the 400 foot level. (And we are worried about the seas rising a few inches or a few feet -- it is normal that the seas rise and fall, geologically, HUNDREDS of feet!) I am afraid that everyone believes that history began the day they were born, but that ain't so!
Randy wrote on Feb 4, 2007 1:59 PM:If one fails to blindy believe the global warning from the Ivory Tower, then count me as as a skeptic or denier, but don't forget that professional environmentalists and grant-grabbing climate scientists might lose their jobs over this debate. Unable to gain traction with its anti-war diatribes, the Democrats fallback position is to scare everyone with global warming. George Orwell wrote: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
Pazook wrote on Feb 4, 2007 7:44 PM:It is really hard to believe the denial and ignorance rampant...but then look at the lone driver SUVs on any given morning. Get over it...Global Warming is real, it's here, and you and I have to live with it...and do something!
Cal wrote on Feb 4, 2007 8:14 PM:Why is it that conservative bloggers seem to think scientists have trumped-up the global warming data to get grant money? A scientific conspiracy?? No, a Global Mad Scientist Conspiracy bent on ruining our economy by controlling our thoughts about the environment. Ooooooh Scary! Get Randy some aluminum foil. If profit was there motivation, there's plenty of weapons programs to which they could prostitute their skills. I say nay nay. Scientists are just giving us the facts about the climate shift and man's clear influence on the warming patterns. You skeptics are like so many turkeys who don't believe there's a Thanksgiving.
Paul wrote on Feb 5, 2007 8:00 AM:Read to the following article on the Sun's heat output. www.washtimes.com/world/20040718-115714-6334r.htm
John wrote on Feb 5, 2007 9:10 AM:The Washington Times is the Fox News of print media. Sorry Paul -get us a credible reference to link to.
Paul wrote on Feb 6, 2007 6:06 AM:Why did the polar cap on Mars melt last yeat? Verifiable in a past issue of Scientific American.
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