Addressing Global Warming: Can We Adapt? Should We Try?
How to confront future rising sea levels, droughts, intense heat waves, and other catastrophes stemming from continued global warming? There are really just three options on our menu. We can: 1) try to reduce future fossil fuel use to prevent catastrophic warming; 2) allow the planet's climate to worsen and suffer the consequences; 3) we can try to adapt to the consequences of global warming. In short, we can try to mitigate, we can simply suffer, and we can try to adapt.
For many problems society faces, all three options make sense. As we write, the San Francisco Bay Bridge is shut down because of structural damage. In response, construction work (mitigation) is underway to repair the damage, commuters are jammed up (suffering) on alternative bridges, and extra service (adaptation) has been provided on mass transit. Is global warming like bridge failure? Can a combination of mitigation, suffering, and adaptation get us through the crisis? We'll focus here on adaptation.
Adaptation is certainly being taken seriously. At the recent legislators' forum in Copenhagen, domestic political representatives from the 16 largest economies agreed on a slate of changes to limit greenhouse gas emissions. They also agreed, however, that $100 billion would be needed yearly to help developing nations adapt to climate change.
Confidence in adaptation exposes a fallacy of how people perceive global warming and its consequences. If only global warming were just a bridge failure, a single typhoon, an earthquake, or some other temporary, locally contained condition. With enough stored water and food, one may be able to adapt to the chaos that ensues in the aftermath of a major storm or earthquake. And when stored supplies run out, surely aid will come from elsewhere.
But global warming is a truly historic development. Unlike an earthquake, it is localized neither in space nor in time, for all practical purposes. Humanity has started a planetary process of worldwide change, of ongoing, accelerating and often unpredictable climate change. Unpredictability will impede adaptation.
Examining proposed adaptations shows how futile adaptation can be to a changing climate. For example, agriculturalists argue that we must and can come up with drought resistant crops. But there is a limit to just how drought resistant our food crops can become to the ever more severe and pervasive droughts and floods predicted to result from climate change. We will need to design ever more resistant food crops to both droughts and floods -- is that really possible? How about salt resistance as irrigation waters become more saline from rising sea levels? Simultaneously, can we continue increasing production to feed ever increasing numbers of humans?
In another example, many coral biologists predict the extinction of coral reefs, a major human food source in some tropical areas, by mid-century due to climate change. This is leading some researchers to develop plans for cryogenically preserving coral polyps, which can then be replanted, presumably when the oceans become more livable. But ecologists recognize that coral ecosystems are intricate webs of life. Simply replanting coral will not revive a reef, any more than a few stored pigment samples from a deteriorating Mona Lisa will allow one to recreate it, once a suitable canvas becomes available.
How shall we adapt to the predicted rise in sea levels from global warming? The prospects for coastal residents and coastal infrastructure worldwide are grim. Adaptation would be to move to higher ground or to build sea walls. The cost of doing either worldwide is unthinkable, and the practicality of the latter is questionable. Do we build walls to protect us against 2-foot or 10-foot higher seas? Although the former is more likely, both rises could possibly occur in this century if global warming continues unchecked. Imagine the economic cost of walling off the Atlantic seaboard to protect us from 10-foot higher waters! Imagine the loss of coastal ecosystems that would result!
Adaptation is a convenient and comfortable belief. Soothing the consciences of the highest emitters, it is also a temporary "feel-good" band aid for the world's poor, who will be affected the most by this ongoing change. The danger of believing in adaptation, however, is tri-fold: 1) it lures people into a false sense of complacency, weakening the urgency needed to solve climate change quickly enough so as to forestall an avalanche of catastrophic climatic effects; 2) it fosters a false sense of what climate change is and how it can be solved; 3) it can divert needed time and money from mitigating climate change. As it is, this danger is increasing. According to a recent PEW poll, within the past six months the percentage of US citizens who think there is solid evidence that the earth is warming because of human activity has declined from 47% to 36%.
Some forms of adaptation are also humane goals that we should be striving for anyway: we should continue to protect people from tropical diseases, and help increase sanitation in developing nations. We should learn to grow crops with less water, and grow food nearer to consumers. But adaptation should not become a slippery slope that increasingly diverts resources from mitigating climate change. A city would do well, for example, to use funds to transfer to renewable clean energy, rather than build an ultimately ineffective sea wall.
Nature cannot be negotiated, and the developing scale and breadth of climate change will not yield to adaptation. Nor is nature affected by polls. The only thing that will make a physical planetary difference and truly prevent the suffering that will accompany global warming is decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, and this is where most of our efforts and resources must be focused.
As Fox News, the Obama administration and Jon Stewart participate in distracting media wars, the real news is that we continue to burn fossil fuels, and our planet continues to undergo important and ominous climate change.
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We can never really adopt to climate change. There are just too many myriad changes in our environment resulting from climate change to adopt to encompassing everything from tropical diseases migrating north to species extinction to sea water acidification.
Deniers please do not respond. Spend your time reading some science!
"Merkel calls for strong deal on climate change"
"German Chancellor Angela Merkel marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by exhorting the world in a speech to Congress on Tuesday to "tear down the walls of today" and reach a deal to combat global warming."
"In the first address by a German chancellor to Congress since Konrad Adenauer in 1957, Merkel put special emphasis on the need for a global agreement on climate change — one she said she hoped could be forged at an international conference next month in Copenhagen."
""We have no time to lose," she declared."
"After their White House meeting, Obama said, "The United States, Germany and countries around the world, I think, are all beginning to recognize why it is so important that we work in common in order to stem the potential catastrophe that can result if we continue to see global warming continue unabated.""
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/11/03/national/w001757S29.DTL#ixzz0Vpt4KfOt
It is good to see conservative leaders and liberal recognize the pressing need to adress climate change before the effects of it and climate refugees are at our doorstep. These leaders are very prescient and know one ignores science at their own folly!
Global warming is real!
Don't forget- we also need to identify the people and groups most responsible for global warming, and prosecute them for crimes against humanity.
Shout out to John Harte:
I studied this sort of stuff under you years ago. My deep thanks for everything I learned from you - you and John (you know, that other John) were/are the best. (BTW I've still got your textbook "Consider A Spherical Cow" and still reference it from time to time.)
Here's a holding plan. ENERGY ... RENEWABLE ENERGY!
1 ¢/kWh surcharge on ALL electricity = $38,000,000,000 per year!
No wars = $75,000,000,000 per year!
SUM = 113 GW of wind = 23 GW solar PV installed PER YEAR!!!
that is,
SUM = 2000 BILLION kWh of electrcity PER YEAR SUM = power for ALL e-cars (100% NO GASOLINE)
Then:
100% No Gasoline = $700,000,000,000 PER YEAR saved on foreign oil
REPEAT = 100% employment = revitalized manufacturing = millions of jobs
AND you know what?
80% reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions 100% electrical energy to power all sectors: residential, commercial, industrial, transportation. A new green world in the US with energy to burn (pardon the pun). WE CAN do this in 15 years with a Marshall Plan commitment. If we do it, they will follow,
Yes, I follow that! Well, not really!
I sure would like to see the government present a detailed transition plan, complete with milestones and key technologies, before they start legislating the transition.
"A very interesting survey of earth scientists by the University of Illinois recently found that 97 percent of those who publish original research in climate science agree that humans have caused significant global warming."
http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/climate_change/global_warming_basics/rahmstorf_climate_sceptics.html
162 American physicists have written a letter to the APS, asking for a revision of the APS' position on AGW. Five of those physicists have written a letter to the U.S. Senate, stating there is no consensus on AGW. "You can do physics without climatology, but you can't do climatology without physics."
The physicists are the really smart guys. Hopefully someone will listen to them.
The official position by the 47,000 member American Physical Society (APS):
__________________________
Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.
The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.
Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
Yes, me too because the 47,000 other members of the APS just re-confirmed their climate change policy last year which states....
"Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes."
"The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Physical_Society
and what percentage of those who publish on "climate science ", ( somehow I find it hard to believe objective ) are under the auspices of grants and programs and endowments from the warmist and climate fixing consensus
We should be prepared to adapt to climate change, whatever it is. However, this article assumes that the only kind of climate change possible is Global Warming. This article ignores the growing amount of physical evidence that climate change is occurring, but it is a cooling, not a warming, of the earth.
The sea level data at tide stations all over the world indicate that the modest, steady rise in sea levels that occurred in the 20th Century have been replaced with a slower rate of increase, or even a drop in sea levels. For example, in places as diverse as Fremantle, Australia, or San Francisco, California, USA, the sea level measurements peaked in 1998 and have dropped irregularly since then. If sea levels continue to drop, harbors will need to be dredged to allow ships into port. Other adjustments will be needed if the earth continues to cool.
Public funds should be allocated to deal with alternative climate trends, not only one possibe trend.
Such false statements!
"This article ignores the growing amount of physical evidence that climate change is occurring, but it is a cooling, not a warming, of the earth."
It is a lie! "The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record," said NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt. "Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming."
The AP sent expert statisticians NOAA's year-to-year ground temperature changes over 130 years and the 30 years of satellite-measured temperatures preferred by skeptics and gathered by scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Thus, both surface temperatures and satellites showed warming!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wires/2009/10/26/ap-impact-statisticians-r_ws_333941.html
Actually, only the NASA data corroborates your conclusion. You might find this interesting, if you are capable of considering alternative viewpoints.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2077
The sea level measurements peaked in 1998 and have dropped irregularly since then."
"Over the past century, sea level has risen nearly eight inches along the California coast, and general circulation model scenarios suggest very substantial increases in sea level as a significant impact of climate change over the coming century."
http://www.pacinst.org/reports/sea_level_rise/report.pdf
Sea rise "data has shown a more-or-less steady increase in Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) of around 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/year since 1992. This is more than 50% larger than the average value over the 20th century."
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_15.html
Even local tide stations show rising sea levels, even when not yet corrected for glacial rebound...
For example, at La Jolla...
The mean sea level trend is 2.07 millimeters/year.
At San Diego...
The mean sea level trend is 2.06 millimeters/year.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9410170
If people will click on the nice link to the San Diego tide station data (above), they can see for themselves that the three highest sea level measurements occurred in the 1980s, the early 1990s, and around 1998.
The most recent sea level measurements are lower than most of the 1990s measurements.
Under the theory of AGW, we should have been seeing an accelerating rise in sea level during the first decade of the 21st Century. Instead, the sea level has moved down a modest amount. Tide station data such as the San Diego data should be checked all over the world, to see if there are any traces of "accelerated sea level rise" occurring.
Richard2: "This article ignores the growing amount of physical evidence that climate change is occurring, but it is a cooling, not a warming, of the earth."
Lie - the overwhelming weight of evidence in indicates that the earth is warming.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14527-climate-myths-global-warming-stopped-in-1998.html?full=true
Richard2: "San Francisco, California, USA, the sea level measurements peaked in 1998 and have dropped irregularly since then"
Lie - the trend in San Francisco, as with the oceans more generally, is an increase in sea level.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9414290
If you look at the San Francisco graph, just take your hand and cover up everything before 1990. Now look at the last 20 years. The very slight uptrend has moderated. Now look at the last 10 years. The trend has moderated.
There is no evidence of the projected accelerated sea level rises that climate models projected ten years ago. The models have failed to predict the trend of the past ten years.
Richard2: "the growing amount of physical evidence that climate change is occurring, but it is a cooling, not a warming, of the earth."
False - the earth is still warming.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14527-climate-myths-global-warming-stopped-in-1998.html?full=true
Richard2: "a drop in sea levels."
Also false - even the data you cite demonstrate as much. That you evidently think otherwise is you incorrectly confusing short-term variability with long-term trends.
Only a vegetarian society can sustain this planet. Why adapt when we can solve the problem.
Great piece.
But, historically, doesn't adaptation, on a biological and social level, tend to be an individual, and not a collective response? Few societies have adapted successfully. Individuals, under duress, will sort out their options and act accordingly, some successfully.
It's likely to be individuals who'll deal with the consequences of climate change, on a local, personal level. Unless our present societies turn history on its head and manage to lead change.
When there are earthquakes, tsunamies, floods and whatever the disaster the response is always a collective one. We are complex enough to organize ourselves into agencies like FEMA that used to work before the very individual oriented Bush took office. Societies build roads and bridges and not individuals. Even when our ancestors spread out from Africa they did so as bands of people working and socializing together.
The solution to the climate change issue is elegant in its simplicity, has been tested over millennia, and works without fail. It is also the same solution for every other social and environmental problem facing us. One way to look at it is that we allow the planet's climate to worsen and, as a result, nature solves the problem.
The good news is that we do not have to do anything to implement it. Our ignorance and arrogance has pretty much insured its implementation, which may be underway at this very moment, and is likely to gather speed in the next few decades.
The bad news is that the solution will require a somewhat painful transition with an unknown outcome. It will be under the direction of nature, and can euphemistically be described as a "population recession" aka: massive untreatable illnesses coupled with starvation and a failure to reproduce. A personal estimate for a sustainable worldwide population is a reduction from 7 billion to say 2 billion humans.
Once the smoke clears, those humans still standing (if any) will be in the enviable position to start over to treat nature with the respect she deserves. Other species that have failed to do so are extinct. You see, our planet is not in trouble, we are. In our absence, nature has millions of years to cleanse herself of our legacy, regenerate, create many new species, and perhaps evolve an improved human model.
Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com
Pretty grim and sad assessment. But alas you have evidence on your side. Something like 95% of all species have gone extinct often due to catastrophic climate change or other catastrophic reasons. Since we are from nature and subject to its principles, we cannot expect any special absolution. We don't seem to have the moral, economic or political will to radically change our way of life and because much of the causal factors for climate change are already dialed in, we will be forced to live with any adverse consequences ahead of us.
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