When I listen to news items now I am constantly stunned by the lack of contact with the reality of a warming world displayed by the mainstream media, and, as a consequence, by the general public. Doesn't take much to set me off, and the other night it was just an increasingly common phrase. Referring to a particularly savage storm the newsreader said - 'even if this particular storm isn't the result of global warming' and then went on to some cliche paying lip service to the idea that while everyone knows that global warming is real there is still much 'debate' about what is going on exactly and, of course, you can't ascribe any particular event to GW. You know the kind of thing, very reasonable, very fair and balanced, quite innocent really? But, as I said, it doesn't take much to set me off these days.
So here is what I want to know. Exactly what 'event' or series of events is the mainstream media going to be finally allowed to attribute to global warming? And, perhaps even more importantly, when are they going to use such a 'decisive' event to finally project the present into the future and warn people about what is coming?
Let me give you a for instance. I was reading about rising sea level the other day, to make sure I hadn't been misunderstanding something. The discussions in the media are always along the lines of 'New York' being swamped by 2 meters of water, or whatever figure is the latest calculation for whatever date in the future. Brings hoots of laughter from the deniers with their heads under the blankets, scared to see the real world. 'Ha, ha, hasn't happened yet, when's it going to happen then? This year, next year, some time, never?'
Well I don't know when 'it' is going to happen. Depends what 'it' means of course. But pick an arbitrary figure for the maximum depth that New York is going to be flooded by when all the land-based ice in the world has melted. If that is 'it' then it is going to take a while, how long depending on a lot of not fully understood physical and geographical processes and their interactions. But surely that isn't the point at which Fox 'News' finally throws up its collective hands and says 'ok, you win, you were right about global warming, we were wrong. Whaddya going to do about it?'
You see before that point, that 'it', there is a gradual death of a thousand cuts that will be inflicted on coasts everywhere. Each mm higher in sea level results in high tides reaching a bit higher up the beach, each storm surge that is a bit stronger that starts from a higher sea level smashes further into coastal sand dunes, wetlands, coastal developments, artificial canals lined by condominiums, undermines roads, floods fancy shops and restaurants built on sea front parades. Every mm. We are going to see, over the next few decades the most expensive real estate of every country being gradually lost. Retirees are going to see their homes topple down cliffs as erosion undercuts them. And natural areas important for fisheries and tourism, such as mangrove swamps, sand dune ecosystems, and coral reefs are also going to gradually be destroyed.
Sometimes destruction will happen fast, like Katrina, but most of it will be a gradual wearing away, a nibbling at the coast. And to answer the British meteorologists, whose words were recently seized upon by deniers everywhere, no, we can't say anything about particular extreme events, but so what? In a very real sense, EVERY climatic event of the last 20 years, and the next 100 years, is the 'result of', is affected by, global warming. And they will continue to be so until the levels of CO2 are brought back to the levels of 1990 or less.
At what point in the sequence of small and large events destroying coastlines does a new King Canute say 'Stop, enough, this far and no further' and at what point do Fox News and all the other denier enablers begin reporting the King's words?