The Laws of Unintended Consequences Add Up – Like the Panama Canal

  Map of ships waiting to use the Panama Canal

It took a decade to build after the French failed in their initial efforts. Yellow fever had to be tamed, having taken thousands of lives, but US supervision of construction efforts prevailed, and the Panama Canal opened in 1914. That shortcut revolutionized international trade. In 1999, the United States transferred the Canal Zone to Panama, and that vital waterway, expanded and improved, has been a lifeline to shipping for well over a century. But as climate change has spread its ugly dragon’s breath to every corner of the world, this waterway has not escaped its ravages.

You might think that with melting glaciers and contracting polar ice caps, the canal would be overwhelmed with excess sea water… and perhaps some day that indeed may be the case. But reality, which hits consumers directly in the wallet, is entirely different. The Canal Zone and the surrounding Panamanian land and regional lakes are suffering from the same drought (aridification?) that plagues so much of the world. And believe it or not, the canal itself has become so shallow that ship traffic to and within this the Pacific/Atlantic corridor has slowed to an expensive crawl.

As LZ Granderson, writing for the September 18th Los Angeles Times, noted, the Panama Canal is slowly running dry: “A slight competition between transit and human consumption… That’s how Ricaurte Vásquez Morales, an official with the Panama Canal Authority, described a possible water crunch in the region as a historic drought threatens the trade route he oversees.

“Although the canal connects two oceans, its operation depends upon fresh water from a nearby lake, which has been dwindling during a 20-year drought. As a result, there is not as much water for vessels to sail through — or for local communities to drink.

“In August, the average wait time for ships went from less than a week to nearly a week and a half, creating a bottleneck. At one point more than 160 ships were hanging out waiting for a Panama official to swipe right… Today that number is down, but … part of the relief came from using more fresh water.”

We’ve seen how the Colorado River and its two dammed lakes, Mead and Powell, are perilously drained in what is clearly an obvious state of permanence that even an occasional major storm system cannot repair. Literally holding about one-third of their capacity. See also my September 13th Water, the Southwest and Post-Hilary Reality blog. That same level of contracting supplies of fresh water also plagues Panama, steadily for the last two decades. Particularly the large Lake Gatun, from which the canal draws fresh water to ensure that the waterway is sufficiently deep to permit major ship traffic. Less water means that ship traffic has to slow to a crawl in order to avoid hitting bottom. Granderson continues:

“[This] this lake in Panama is key for global supply chains — as if they need one more problem. The pandemic’s effect on the supply chain was a major contributor to last year’s spike in inflation worldwide. The canal sees roughly 40% of global cargo ship traffic. I wonder what’s going to happen to prices if Panama doesn’t get more rain soon?

“I also wonder what’s going to happen to the local residents facing a ‘slight competition’ for fresh water… According to NASA, this summer was the hottest on record. Last month was the fifth straight in which ocean temperatures set record highs. The United Nations estimates that the increase in natural disasters displaces more than 20 million people worldwide each year.

“Evidence of human influence on climate change is so pronounced even Fox News moderators brought it up during the first debate of the Republican presidential primary season… Sadly Vivek Ramaswamy provided the most memorable response: ‘The climate change agenda is a hoax.’” Ships with full crews, using up fuel even in relatively stationary position, cost money. And those costs are simply passed on to consumers.

But as Republicans blame Democrats for inflation, they ignore so many variables for which they are directly responsible: the multiple trillion-dollar deficit increase resulting from a misguided 2017 reduction in corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%, the $7B deficit hit from the Trump era, continuing defense spending for huge naval vessels that are obsolete upon delivery (see my September 16th Does Size Matter? blog) and, most of all, pretending that global warming simply does not matter (it’s purportedly just a natural cycle) despite the litany of billion-dollar climate change-related disasters and intolerable heat waves. The shallowing Panama Canal is just one more unintended consequence.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the ostrich-head-in-the-sand approach to climate change doesn’t really work and most certainly does not tame the laws of physics or the wrath of mother nature.