Not a Disaster for Everyone

The United Nations 2014 report (IPCC WGII AR5 Summary for Policymakers) on the massive continuing and expected costs to life, property and the environment are indeed staggering was released at the end of March. It reports with virtual certainty that accelerating threats to water supplies – regions experiencing sustained drought and growing fire dangers – melting ice fomenting rising and surging oceans and seas claiming increasingly once-habitable coastal lands, migrating disease-carrying insects, food shortages and increasingly violent storm systems are still very much part of the litany of disasters we have heard for years. The report is anything but subtle in their prediction that "increasing magnitudes of warming increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts."

The big news is that the timeline for even greater disaster is accelerating faster than predicted. Separately, some scientists are even questioning what heating the planet by 3 degrees might mean for the expansion of some of the earth’s tectonic plates (yeah, the ones that cause earthquakes). If were able to contain the emissions from the burning of fossil fuel, the report’s chair, Dr. Chris Field, suggests there is hope of mitigating this disaster. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a groundswell of tangible governmental efforts to implement this strategy where it matters most.

Everyone on earth is and will continue to be impacted by climate change. But for some, the impact could actually be positive. Just look at the above map (from BBC.co.uk, March 31^st) and you can see exactly what the impact will be on food production. While the majority of the planet faces an arid reality, those northern countries with impenetrable tundra in 2014, making access to natural resources exceptionally difficult and making agricultural viability non-existent, will be able to recapture highly productive farmland by 2050… and extracting oil and mineral resources will become so much easier.  Countries with vast tracts of baron tundra will soon be flooded with the riches! The biggest winners? Canada and Russia, both countries that are also beginning a dispute (along with Scandinavia and the U.S.) over the emerging Northwest Passage.

If, however, you look at the map again, most of the United States, Southern Europe, most of Australia (which seems to be burning up), southern Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and except for a thin strip of new farmland in Chile, Latin America will experience decreasing crop yields. Where poverty tracks highest in the world is also where we can expect some of the harshest reductions in food production. In fact, the greatest burden imposed by climate change will sit on those least able to defend against its pain.

To make matters worse, the melting tundra is releasing a huge tonnage of methane gas, the result of ancient decaying organic life trapped over the millennia embedded in frozen ground, which is accelerating the greenhouse effect that is the root cause of global warming. As harsh as the impact might be of rising levels of carbon dioxide (generated by the burning of fossil fuels), that methane is more than twenty times heavier than CO₂ makes this gas a huge environment threat. As methane is released for melting tundra, this creates a vicious circle of melting, releasing heavy greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere from the melt, increasing heat, which melts more tundra, etc. Further, as white ice (which reflects away the Sun’s rays) is replaced by darker seas and underlying land (which absorb the Sun’s heat), we can expect further acceleration.

Meanwhile, back in the developed world, we are bragging about how our fracking technology is pulling more oil out of once exhausted oil-generating land. The United States could actually become the world’s leading producer of oil as a result, eclipsing even the output of Saudi Arabia. While our engines are getting more efficient, the demand for coal-burning electrical plants has decimated China’s environment to the breaking point. Getting a handle on global warming draws a lot of rhetoric… but very little in the way of meaningful alternations in the consumption of greenhouse-creating energy alternatives. Mankind is about to pay mightily for its callous disregard of its own planet. Politely, neither Canada nor Russia are gloating about their approaching wealth… at least not yet.

I’m Peter Dekom, and wanton wastefulness is almost never rewarded by Mother Nature.