Melting More than Your Heart

Water and energy – and the interrelationship between them – are the big environmental issues facing our children and grandchildren. Rainfall patterns have shifted, as many of us can testify, dropping more precipitation in our eastern states and less in the west… and wreaking havoc in floods around the world (e.g., Pakistan) while drying out in other agricultural areas of the planet (e.g., northern Kenya and Somalia). Access to diesel powered pumps has siphoned off the water in our massive Ogallala Aquifer (the underground body of water from the Dakotas to north Texas – once the size of Lake Huron – that irrigates much of our grain belt) should be dry in 30 years at current usage rates; we could have a new dust bowl in a few decades.

And the more we burn fossil fuel – an exhaustible resource that some serious academics believe will not be commercially replaced in economically sufficient quantities by the time that we run out of readily available sources of that category of fuel – we do indeed appear to be creating a thicker layer of atmospheric gasses making the planet act like a greenhouse, changing temperatures significantly enough to melt glaciers – a very clearly established reality with a huge data base of unequivocal supporting evidence. Sea levels are rising, but how much by when is anything but clear.

Part of warming seas is reflected in the rise of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico (clearly, warmer water creates more and larger hurricanes, since this natural phenomenon is the product of air and water of differing temperatures interacting; typhoons are the Asian equivalent), and if the decimation of coastal vegetation from the area in and around the Mississippi Delta is not reversed, there will be little in the way of slowing or stopping the kinds of storm “surges” we have seen in that region from continuing to move inland. Those mangroves living in the Delta waters have been slowly dying; their numbers are not enough to stop the vicious surges anymore.

The November 13^th New York Times examined the most recent scientific research concerning the water temperature and glacial melting in Greenland, and the numbers were troubling. Utilizing a helicopter, hovering above the area where temperature reading are taken, scientists took their measurements: “To the right, a great fjord stretched toward the sea, choked with icebergs. To the left loomed one of the immense glaciers that bring ice from the top of the Greenland ice sheet and dump it into the ocean.

“Hanging out the sides of the craft, two scientists sent a measuring device plunging into the water, between ice floes. Near the bottom, it reported a temperature of 40 degrees. It was the latest in a string of troubling measurements showing that the water was warm enough to melt glaciers rapidly from below…. ‘That’s the highest we’ve seen this far up the fjord,’ said one of the scientists, Fiammetta Straneo.” But what does it mean? Three feet of higher seas by 2100, some experts claim, or double say others since there will be fewer icy white patches to reflect the Sun’s heat away, with darker oceans absorbing more heat? No one is sure.

Even at three feet, we’d lose beaches and coastal zones, have more devastating coastal flood and lose a lot of fresh water that is inland near the oceans: “In the United States, parts of the East Coast and Gulf Coast would be hit hard. In New York, coastal flooding could become routine, with large parts of Queens and Brooklyn especially vulnerable. About 15 percent of the urbanized land in the Miami region could be inundated. The ocean could encroach more than a mile inland in parts of North Carolina… Abroad, some of the world’s great cities — London, Cairo, Bangkok, Venice and Shanghai among them — would be critically endangered by a three-foot rise in the sea.” The Times. At six feet, the consequences for coastal regions would be staggering; but no one is sure exactly what the correct assessment should be.

However, at least one man with political power is not concerned, according to the November 10^th theStar.com: “U.S. Representative John Shimkus [R- Ill.], possible future chairman of the Congressional committee that deals with energy and its attendant environmental concerns, believes that climate change should not concern us since God has already promised not to destroy the Earth.” Citing God’s pledge to Noah after the Great Flood (Genesis 8:21-22) and Matthew 24:31 suggesting that only God will determine when the earth will no longer serve man, Shimus said: “The Earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This Earth will not be destroyed by a Flood… I do believe that God’s word is infallible, unchanging, perfect.” TheStar.com also noted: “On [November 9^th], Shimkus sent a letter to his colleagues burnishing his credentials by saying he is “uniquely qualified among a group of talented contenders to lead the Energy and Commerce Committee.”

Great comfort, John, but exactly why are killer floods and hurricanes/typhoons increasing and why are glaciers already melting in unprecedented numbers and amounts? Clearly, mankind is better advised to prepare for the expected changes and do their best to slow down the continued devastation of the ozone layer which burning fossil fuels seems clearly to augment. Or you can just trust in John.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is hard to remember how much we need to do environmentally when we are mired in an economic struggle for our very standard of living.