I wonder how many ET readers are aware that we’ve just experienced a series of exceptional months of global weather. Bad weather has caused utter devastation around the world.
We’ve had catastrophic floods in Pakistan, mudslides in China, heat waves in Russia, a three-month drought in Brazil, and extreme rain and storms in Australia. Surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean are currently about one and a half to two degrees above normal.
And in the UK, during the last couple of weeks, southern counties have experienced torrential rain, flash floods and gale force winds.
Globally record temperatures have been set in 17 countries.
The world is the hottest it has been for the last million years! In the Canadian Arctic archipelago channels that are usually choked with ice at this time of year are now vast expanses of open water or patchworks of tiny islands of melting ice.
Weather experts are especially concerned that new patterns of air movement in the Arctic could disrupt the Northern Hemisphere’s jet streams — which are apparently weakening and moving northward. This could alter storm tracks, rainfall patterns and food production far to the south.
Despite all of these events I suspect that some people will still deny the existence of climate change/global warming.
Thomas Karl, a prominent climate scientist in the US government, is extremely concerned about our weather.
A few days ago he said he believes there is a strong connection between such events and climate change and that humans are having a major effect.
The bad news is that climate policy around the world is gridlocked. The US Senate decided last month that they wouldn’t push for approval of a climate bill.
In Canada, Australia, Japan and countries across Europe, the global economic crisis and other near-term concerns have pushed climate issues onto the back burner. Powerful special interest groups have also poured millions of dollars into spurious ‘‘research’’ to cast doubts about climate change. It appears that many of us are more than happy to accept any excuse for not changing our lifestyles.
But whatever people choose to believe, global warming will still be a major threat to the continuance of life as we know it on planet earth.
Professor Richard Alley, from the Pennsylvania State University, recently warned that “What is going on in the Arctic now is the biggest and fastest thing that nature has ever done’.
Additionally he warned that the entire ice mass of Greenland could melt if temperatures rise by as little as 2C which would unleash a global sea level rise of up to 23ft (7 metres).
Robert Bindschadler, a research scientist at the University of Maryland, says: “While we don’t believe it is possible to lose an ice sheet within a decade, we do believe it is possible to reach a tipping point in a few decades in which we would lose the ice sheet in a century.”
So what can we do to avert such a catastrophe? Unfortunately most of our politicians seem to be pre-occupied with the financial crisis.
It appears that only some kind of devastating climate shock, such as a major crop failure or severe floods dislocating millions of people or a severe drought affecting an economically critical region could get us back to an effective climate policy. All of these are likely as time unfolds and they would cause great human misery. Could we even then ramp down carbon emissions from automobiles and energy production sufficiently quickly?
Obviously it would be preferable to take concerted action now. The future of our planet will hinge upon what actions we take during the next few years.
Let’s hope our decision makers understand the seriousness of our situation and take actions earlier rather than later.
Richard Olive,
Beauvale Gardens,
Gunthorpe,
Peterborough