My daughter Chiara, age five, is a member. So is my goddaughter Emily, age twenty-two. So are the thousands of Pakistani children now suffering after record monsoon rains left 20 percent of their country -- an area the size of Great Britain -- under water.
In fact, every child on earth born after June 23, 1988 belongs to what I call Generation Hot. This generation includes some two billion young people, all of whom have grown up under global warming and are fated to spend the rest of their lives confronting its mounting impacts.
For Generation Hot, the brutal summer of 2010 is not an anomaly; it's the new normal.
One wouldn't know it from most media coverage, but the world's leading climate scientists have concluded that last summer's rash of extreme weather -- including record heat across much of Europe (especially Russia) and the United States -- was driven in no small part by man-made global warming. Of course no single event can ever be definitively attributed to global warming; weather results from many factors. But according to the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, the extraordinary heat, rains, drought and flooding that occurred this summer fit the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's projections of "more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming." In other words, dangerous climate change is no longer tomorrow's problem; it is here today.
But for most of us, the other scientific shoe has yet to drop. Aside from a fundamentalist few, most people around the world, in rich and poor countries alike, accept that climate change is real and has already begun to occur. Nevertheless, many non-specialists still do not grasp the most fiendish aspect of the climate problem: we can't turn it off.
No matter how many solar panels, electric cars and other green technologies we humans may embrace, the fact remains that more severe climate change is locked in for decades to come. The reason is the physical inertia of the climate system: the fact that carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere for centuries. Even if global greenhouse gas emissions were magically halted overnight, sheer physical inertia would keep average global temperatures rising for another thirty years at least, scientists say.
Not every future summer will be as punishing as 2010 was, but more and more will be. Members of Generation Hot who live in New York City, for example, will endure roughly twice as many extremely hot summer days in the 2020s as they do today, according to the New York City Panel on Climate Panel, a group of scientific, government and business leaders advising the city government.
Growing enough food will also be a challenge. Corn, one of the world's key staple crops, does not reproduce at temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit. During the 20th century, the breadbasket state of Iowa experienced three straight days of 95 F temperatures once per decade--not a big problem. By 2040 Iowa is projected to experience such hot spells in three summers out of four.
It's not that we weren't warned. I date the beginning of Generation Hot to June 23, 1988 because that is when humanity was put on notice that greenhouse gas emissions were raising the temperatures on this planet. The warning came from NASA scientist James Hansen's testimony to the U.S. Senate and, crucially, the decision by the New York Times to print the news on page 1, which in turn made global warming a household phrase in news bureaus, living rooms and government offices the world over.
As the father of a five year old, it infuriates me that Hansen's warning, and countless subsequent ones, has gone unheeded. As a journalist, I have helped expose some of the tactics that energy companies and their allies employed to block action. Often the cynicism has been breathtaking. For example, the science advisers to the corporate-funded Global Climate Coalition privately told the group's board of directors -- way back in 1995! -- that the science behind climate change was "well established and cannot be denied," a fact the board then censored from the group's public outreach materials. Last July, lawmakers in Washington refused to pass modest climate legislation even as the northern hemisphere sizzled under what will likely be the hottest summer on record.
"This was a crime," Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the climate adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, told me, referring to the past two decades of global inaction. But the wrong people are being punished. My daughter and her peers in Generation Hot have been given a life sentence for a crime they didn't commit; they will spend the rest of their lives coping with a climate that will be hotter and more volatile than ever before in our civilization's history. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of this crime continue to reap record corporate profits, win political re-elections and get invited onto national TV and radio programs.
The battle to prevent climate change, feeble as it was, is over. Now the race to survive it has begun. If humanity is to win this race, we must change the way we think about the climate problem. Humanity has left behind what I call the first era of global warming -- when we argued about whether it was real and how to stop it -- and entered a new, second era of the problem, where the paradigm has shifted in a fundamental but still largely unrecognized way.
In the second era of global warming, the traditional goal of climate policy -- limiting global emissions -- is more important than ever but no longer sufficient. To be sure, we need to reverse global warming, and quickly -- before the earth passes tipping points that could trigger irreversible climate change. At the same time, however, we must now prepare our societies for the many impacts already in the pipeline. In short, we face a double imperative: we must live through global warming even as we halt and reverse it.
A handful of cutting-edge leaders around the world have taken this lesson to heart and begun to put in place protections against the projected impacts, including better sea defenses, more efficient water supplies and improved emergency and health care systems. Probably the most far-sighted work is taking place in the Netherlands, which has launched a well-funded, politically tough-minded 200 Year Plan to adapt to climate change. (No, 200 is not a typo.) Most countries, however, like most private companies and local communities, are doing little or nothing to prepare for the storm bearing down upon them.
It's now September, the end of summer, and my five year old has started kindergarten. It's a huge transition, as every parent knows. Meanwhile, the oldest members of Generation Hot are embarking on their own huge transition. Now 21- or 22-years-old, they are leaving childhood behind for the adult world of work, marriage and children.
But a third transition, just as huge, awaits each and every member of Generation Hot. One of the key facts of the 21st century is that climate change is going to get worse, perhaps a lot worse, before it gets better. Like it or not, the kids of Generation Hot will have to learn how to cope with the consequences -- not only for their health and economic prospects but their emotional well-being.
Many members of Generation Hot are active in the climate fight, but they cannot succeed without much more help from their elders. The threat of nuclear annihilation -- the other great peril of the last fifty years -- called forth a powerful movement of parents, especially mothers, that eventually helped convince the superpowers to choose a safer course. Now, parents across the country and around the world should mount a similar campaign to preserve a livable future for our children, the precious young people of Generation Hot.
"In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims...record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries...As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."
-TIME MAGAZINE, 1974
Meanwhile, the actual scientific literature from the 1970s, as opposed to Time Magazine and the popular press, clearly shows that the "coming ice age" hypothesis never enjoyed the kind of consensus within the scientific community that enhanced greenhouse warming does now, or even than it did in the 1970s. Even then published papers on greenhouse warming outnumbered those on aerosol-induced global dimming and the threat of onset of a new ice age.
But hey, never let the facts get in the way of a global warming/climate change denial talking point.
It's "global climatic upheaval". Got it?
Exusian's comment doesn't hold true and has been examined...see the title "A Climate for Change" that nullifies this and other false assumptions. If you wish, Deutsch Bank hired Columbia University to review these claims that global warming is just "normal" and their conclusion was it was due to the increase of carbon base emissions from human activity.
Unfortunately, the public perception is such, that it lacks the facts and still "hopes" it's not their fault. Thus, taking comfort in continuing living the so-called "good life"!
Hopefully, young people will act and speak out like the 60's protesters to avert further inaction.
By the way where are the 60's generation NOW? Sleeping in comfort!?
We need more ecologists on the side of human life. Thanks Mark.
Not to mention that our last winter froze chickens in Arkansas. Maybe we're "generation hot" half the year?
And FYI, natural changes in atmospheric CO2 play an amplifying feedback role in both the warming and cooling of the glacial-inter glacial cycle, which is why we can be absolutely certain that changing CO2 directly will change climate.
Unfortunately, the last time the atmosphere contained 389 ppmv of CO2 was sometime between 10 and 15 million years ago, during the much warmer mid-Miocene, long before the genus Homo had evolved.
I thought warming is supposed to delay snow fall?
What America, Canada and China do share is people; people who want heated homes, working electricity, and meals that aren't 99% homegrown rice. Face it; corporations make fun bogeymen, but the problem is that the goals of the green movement demand that the human race return to 19th century technology and lifestyles, and people are not going to put up with that.
But our weatherman was wrong about it going to rain yesterday so maybe there is a chance your wrong about our impending doom. But if not at least if you believe in something after this life it wont scare you so much
Episodes of extreme heat seem to come suddenly and more frequently - like opening the door on a blast furnace. Episodes are lasting longer as the recent one in Russia did.
Then there is the "tipping point" scientists speculate about. This could come in form of a sudden shift to much higher temperatures - a new permanent plateau of high temperature.
I'm not sure how we can "prepare" for sudden permanent temperatures worldwide high enough to kill food crops. Some scientists say polar regions may be habitable and migration there might save humanity. Human migrated successfully during ice ages.
Finally, I can't remember the number, but I recall it takes much longer for CO2 to come out of the atmosphere than this article states. James Hansen doesn't see it coming out - ever. He feels if we continue business as usual with man made CO2 emissions, at some point earth itself begins to give off even more CO2, a more powerful green house gas, methane, turning earth into another Venus with temperature of many hundreds of degrees (over 400F).
I would like the best scientists to debate whether survival, assuming business as usual, is possible or not possible. That is the key question because media, industry and governments are never going to do anything to stop CO2 emissions. Based on Kyoto, Copenhagen and the Cap and Trade attempts how can any rational person say otherwise?
Get yourself two books from actual scientists (they both published in 2009) - James Hansen and James Lovelock. You seem to be a cynic thinking everything is about a secret plan by someone to make money from what they say and do.
There are people out there who operate from different motives from Fox "News" and Limbaugh. Like doing actual hard scientific work. Stop thinking about "marketing and branding" and start thinking about saving your skin, and that of your family and grandchildren. Its past time to put the political football away, Mr. Style.
and if you want "de-politicalization" of this, why don't you stop mentioning FOX every ten seconds? you've probably not spent one second watching that network, and have no idea what you're actually complaining about. newsflash: Olbermann and Hannity are the same exact guy. unless you're a moderate, you're the same silly media-aping rhetoric-swallowing fool as the FOX watchers you bemoan.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7972013/IPCC-report-raises-fresh-questions-over-Dr-Rajendra-Pachauris-leadership.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS142269825620100924
You know, if you look past the alarmists and see what's really fueling an agenda, you might notice that the rich keep getting richer and the poor...well, you know the rest. Furthermore, it is not longer Global Warming nor Climate Change...it's new and improved....
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Right-Has-Field-Day-With-New-Global-Warming-Term-5067
Yes...we now have Global Climate Disruption. Different package, same people standing to make a fortune.
And, just one more thing...why is it the people who are screaming the loudest about Global Climate Disruption are the ones that think they don't need to curb their carbon use...because, after all, they need to save us poor, ignorant peons...so they should be able to, instead of conferencing over the internet, fly themselves, their family, their friends, and anyone else they deem worthy of an exclusive vacation, all over the world to 'talk' about the effects of the less worthy of us...
Mr Hansen and Mr. Lovelock thank you...
"Not every future summer will be as punishing as 2010 was, but more and more will be."
Chilling, isn't it? Some summers will be HOT, but some summers will be REALLY, REALLY HOT.
Fanned and faved.
What evidence more do you need? We may not have all the answers on global warming but do you want to keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere just to see how much worse things get?
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100908/tts-climate-warming-science-ice-c1b2fc3.html
...have you noticed that I haven't gone to Fox News to get my info...nor have I stayed exclusively at Huffington...you might want to try reading all sides of issues that are important to you...information is power.
That CO2 lags temperature by 800-1000 years in the ice core record does not mean that CO2 does not cause warming--we know with total certainty that it does, it means that CO2 did not ***initiate*** the warming that ended the glaciations in the ice core record.
Which is exactly what is expected since we already know that what initiates the warming are small changes in the shape of earth's orbit and the tilt and wobble of its axis. Then as the ice sheets melt less incoming sunlight is reflected back out to space, which makes it a bit warmer still. And the atmosphere warms it can hold more water vapour, which makes it warmer still. And as permafrost melts it emits CO2 and methane, which makes it warmer still. And as the ocean slowly warms (it takes 800-100 years to warm to equilibrium with the newly warmer atmosphere--the main reason for the lag in the ice core record) it can hold less dissolved CO2 and becomes a net emitter to the atmosphere rather than a net absorber (as it now is), which makes it warmer still.
These are called amplifying feedbacks, and without them the changes in Earth's orbit would not be sufficient to end a glaciation.
Maybe I should try it instead of reading actual scientists.