Mohammed Nasheed knows what global warming means, because he sees it every day. He survived years of imprisonment and torture to lead his country – the Maldives – to democracy. But now, as its president, he is being forced to watch as his homeland is wiped from the map. With each year that passes, the rising sea claims more land, and at the current rate it will claim everything.
He knows why. We know why. It is because we have released massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we aren't stopping. Unless we turn around – fast – the Maldives will be gone.
Today, he has a final plea. President Nasheed says: "Copenhagen can be one of two things. It can be an historic event where the world unites against carbon pollution in a collective spirit of co-operation and collaboration, or Copenhagen can be a suicide pact. The choice is that stark."
If we fail, the story of the Maldives will become our story. A ream of scientific studies now suggest we could be on course for 6°C of global warming this century. It doesn't sound like much at first. But the last time the world warmed by six degrees so fast was at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago. The result? Almost everything on earth died.
The only survivors were a few shelled creatures in the oceans, and a pig-like creature that had the land to itself for millions of years. The earth was racked by "hypercanes" – hurricanes so strong they even left their mark on the ocean floor. Oxygen levels in the atmosphere plunged to 15 per cent; low enough to leave any fast-moving animal gasping for breath. These six degrees of separation stand between us and a planet we do not recognise and cannot live on.
The fever of denialism is natural. This is so far outside our experience that is seems intuitively untrue, wrong or even mad. I desperately wish the deniers were right: I would jump on the next flight to Tahiti for a month-long party. But the scientific consensus is overwhelming – as strong as the consensus that smoking causes lung cancer, or HIV causes AIDS. The deniers are a discredited fringe with virtually no scientists currently working in the field. If you release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere on an industrial scale year after year, the world will get much warmer, and many of us will die.
I have seen it happen. In the past few years, I have reported from three places where global warming is having a catastrophic effect – the Arctic, Bangladesh and the borders of Darfur. I spoke to Inuit who are watching in disbelief as their historic hunting lands disappear and the ice sheets crumble into the sea. I stood on the drowning coast of Bangladesh as villagers pointed to a spot in the middle of the sea and said: "That is where my house was."
"When did you leave?" I asked.
"Last year," they said, shaking their heads.
But it was in Darfur that I got the plainest glimpse into a much warmer world. The settled farmers and the nomadic pastoralists had developed a peaceful way to share the water supplies of the area – but then, in the 1990s, the water started to vanish. As one refugee put it to me: "The water dried up, and so we started to kill each other for what was left." (The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has said this is due to global warming, summarizing the reports of his leading scientists.) When the things we require to survive vanish – water, food and land – we don't wait to die. We kill for them.
Whenever the scientific consensus is accurately described, the deniers cry that we are being "alarmist". There is a difference between being alarmist, and being alarmed by the facts. To know what we know and carry on pumping out warming gases wouldn't just be foolish. It would be a crime. Yet even politicians who understand the science don't believe there will be progress at Copenhagen, because we must adhere to "political reality." People aren't ready to make changes; there's still a sense this is a vague problem for future generations; the US Senate won't pass a bill; and on, and on. But in a conflict between political and physical reality, physical reality will win. You can't stand at the edge of a super-charged hurricane and shout: "The focus groups say I can't deal with you yet."
Others complain that we who want to prevent the catastrophe mustn't be negative or scare people; we should "stress the positive". Yes, there are positive opportunities to grab: it's a chance for us all to come together in a common cause and to be a great generation, remembered as heroes by history. But it would be patronizing and bizarre to start there. In 1936, Winston Churchill and George Orwell warned about the rise of Nazism. They didn't sugar-coat it. They didn't wrap it in feel-good homilies. They treated people like adults. A terrible threat was rising, and it had to be stopped. This is our position today. This is our choice. We can make history – or we can commit suicide.
Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent. To read more of his articles, click here. For an archive of his writings on global warming, click here.
Follow Johann Hari on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johannhari101
It doesn't matter if climate change is real or not. Finding the solution to this problem will require unprecedented global cooperation, awareness and openess. It will radically transform the way we extract, produce and consume resources. It will deliver an understanding of how we affect the planet, and in turn, our selves. It will herald unprecedented technologies of peace, prosperity, and sustainability.
Now who in their right mind doesn't think that this is finally a war worth fighting?
So you are saying that if climate change (and I hope you are referring to AGW, since the "climate" has been changing non-stop for eons) is not real, we must find "solutions"?
Why? If it's not real, then aren't we wasting valuable time & resources to fight a non-existent problem?
Whether or not these are the cause of climate change or caused by climate change, or a species of barbapapa deep under the earth's mantle is immaterial, because an end to fossil fuels and the development of sustainable living will ensure that we can march into the 22 century with the knowledge we did the right thing. If the planet is still warming, then the strategies we develop will only be complemented by the hard work on solving the other pressing issues.
You grossly misunderstand geologic processes, the dynamics of the biosphere, and climatological research. Of course, this is the case with most of the global population not directly affected by climate change. Unfortunately, by the time that this occurs, things will have progressed beyond a tipping point. Climate change can be slowed, reversed and affected precisely because it is a human spurred phenomenon.
http://www.vegetarianfriends.net/issue60.html
So, I repeat, explanation for what?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/11/a-note-from-richard-lindzen-on-statistically-significant-warming/
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If there were a 10-degree rise in temperature on Eastern Antarctica, it would result in massive snow and ice. The increased humidity causes the precipitation. Eastern Antarctica, the biggest section of Antarctica and the coldest (-100 F) benefits from rises in temp in what we call the winter months, and which is summer for them.
Try at home with two glasses. Leave one uncovered and the other covered with two ice cubes of the same size using the same volume of water. Which one melts first? That is what is happening on a global scale. Any cooling from polar waters will be very temporary and localized. The difference between the earth and the glass, in terms of temperature effect is of course scale. The temperature changes are more modest in terms of degrees, the time it takes for the system to adapt completely is longer, and the results catastrophic.
I think what you refer to is the chance that the melting poles might change the north atlantic current, and thereby the jet stream. This has been hypothesised, but is far from proven. It might (read, might) incurr a short cooling period, but the overall trend would continue, because the CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) would still be in the atmosphere, due to cars, industry, fossil fuels, livestock, concrete and a myriad of other human made and human affected processes.
Video clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McsZ1U20W0M
The full show transcript:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/31/lkl.01.html
The total percentage of CO2, the total composition of the air, in the atmosphere is .03%. Dont forget you exhale it every few seconds.
People are in denial because it would force them to reevaluate everything they do and all they have taken for granted, and require enormous changes. Using only the example of transportation, if 'green' were suddenly the rule, people would be forced to by new vehicles, and the over-abundant wave of motorhomes would come to a standstill. Ordinary gas stations would be forced to close, leaving people out of business, etc. Whole industries involving transportation would be forced to change.
That's the best way to start... But I know of almost no one brave enough to face that sort of change. We've are childishly comfortable, making most people unable to face different possibilities. Even if it means preserving the planet and the life on it.
I've given up on those in denial at this point. I can only move forward doing what I can in whatever way I can. Maybe it will make a difference. I hope so.
Are you "brave enough to face that sort of change"?
If we concentrated our greatest resource, humanity itself, on addressing the coming shortfall, we would maximise our chances of survival. But that would require a monumental change in our perceptions. Something some of us are attempting to achieve.
By pointing out that if your explanation is demonstrably valid, you should have no difficulty whatever in explaining any contradictory material. Otherwise, what you have is a belief. Which is something science itself frowns on.
May I present you with some facts?
We are told that the arctic sea ice is disappearing at an alarming rate. We are NOT told of 2 successive years of rebound. We are NOT told that the Antarctic sea ice is holding its own over the same period. We are not told that Antarctic sheet ice is growing.
We are told that the Maldives will disappear in a 100 years. We are NOT told of the wave cut bench dated from the 20th century which is now a foot above sea level where it was formed.
We are told about the flooding of a delta plain in Bangladesh. We are NOT told that when rivers deposit sediment in a delta, there is both land gain and land subsidence associated with that process.
We are told of the climatic changes in Darfur. We are NOT told of the effect of dramatic increases in population and water usage.
We are told that GCC proponents are not alarmist. But you piece goes on to say --- (The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has said this is due to global warming, summarizing the reports of his leading scientists.) When the things we require to survive vanish – water, food and land – we don't wait to die. WE KILL FOR THEM.
Global Climate change is real. There was some sporadic warming in the 20th century. But for humanities sake put it in its proper context. We do NOT need fake science.
A one foot bench in the Maldives has nothing to do with climate, and it most certainly will not save it from a meter to several meter increase in sea level.
Darfur has been drier for 3 deades. Period. And by quite a lot.
If the process you describe in Bangladesh had not been upset by seal level rise from global warming, then it would have created a homeostatic condition.
So much for your "facts."
Watch a real scientist from MIT with 30 years of research under his belt show the evidence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwM_B4-5gaE
As I wrote above, the NYT reported the discovery of a lake the size of Lake Erie under Darfur in 2007.
A one foot bench in the Maldives is BECAUSE THE LAND moves as well. Responsible oceanographers involved with responsible climate change research will tell you this.