From Tahrir Square to the streets of New York, citizens worldwide are protesting the status quo. In a world where the gap between rich and poor is widening, where corporate influence carries disproportionate weight, and where we are rapidly spending down nature's capital, the public is saying "Enough!" Is this a passing fad, or long-term trend? The realities of climate change and rising CO2 emissions suggest we're in for a bumpy ride ahead.
Consider these facts:
Ocean acidification, warming and hypoxia are damaging life at the base of the ocean food chain. This, combined with the decreased resilience of marine ecosystems as a result of overfishing, marine pollution, resource extraction and other stresses, means that the 3.5 billion people who depend on the oceans for food increasingly will go hungry.
Those who rely on land-based sources of food are not likely to fare much better. According to a report by the FAO, "An increasing number of countries are reaching alarming levels of water scarcity and 1.4 billion people live in areas with sinking ground water levels. Water scarcity is particularly pronounced in the Near East/North Africa and the South Asia regions and is likely to worsen as a result of climate change in many regions." At the same time, the report notes, "Satisfying the expected food and feed demand will require a substantial increase of global food production of 70 percent by 2050." This projection does not include the increasing demand for food crops used in biofuel production, which will only make matters worse. Studies show that climate change is already impacting food production, and is responsible for price increases of around 20 percent in recent decades.
Remembering the riots which erupted in Egypt, Bangladesh and Haiti in 2008 when food prices reached their all-time high, the potential for increasing social unrest is substantial.
Clearly, any way you look at it, climate change represents a threat to global security. Not just in 2050, but right here, right now.
Read the full version of this essay in the 2012 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Observer Yearbook. Read the full piece here.
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The UN largely disagrees. Supply hasn't been the problem. Demand is the primary problem. "Demand continues to outstrip growth in supply".
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/011/aj284e/aj284e00.pdf
Note that demand includes biofules.
Closely related is the price of energy itself. Fossil fuels are a diminishing resource whose price is easily inflated by business manipulators. That's a one-way street to higher energy costs, which exacerbates the other food production problems.
Carbon-free, or at least carbon neutral, energy is the way to go. Although power sources like solar and wind will no doubt be affected by the changing climate, they will still be available. Building the tools we need to convert those resources to useful energy is already cheap enough to be competitive with fossil fuel, and it's only going to get cheaper.
Fossil fuel energy = increasing price that benefits very few people.
Carbon-free energy = decreasing price that benefits everyone.
Why are we still arguing about this?
And while extreme local weather is statistically not terribly significant in the big picture,people do tend to find it much easier to understand the concept of global warming when it provides a reasonable explanation for the extreme weather that they see happening.
In the mean time, people who are as dependent as babies on FOX, Rush, and Beck for information will be left in the dark as long as their benefactors can maintain that state for them.
Some can not understand the science and ask questions.
Some refuse to accept the science because they know more than scientists.
Some are paid to deny the science and create misleading distractions.
MOst are concerned and seek information and ways to educate those who lack the knowledge to make an informed choice.
The most interesting are those who need to pretend that climate science is wrong but use a computer to tell everyone that climate science is a hoax as if climate science is not 'real science'.
I imagine in the years to come some of us will wonder what happened to those who so strongly denied the science. Will their children ask them or will they deny ever having questioned the science.
I suspect if there was a wager involved, few of them would be willing to post the funds and bet against the science.
Póg mo thóin
And a Pogue Mahone back atcha (I prefer the slang, workingman's version)