Once again, I say that COVID-19 and global warming are the two most important world issues facing humanity today and while Carona Virus (hardly anyone uses that term anymore) is perhaps thought, by many, to be the more pressing problem, climate change could be the longer lasting and more severely challenging issue. Therefore, I will begin Part XLVIII with further discussion on that topic. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its Sixth Assessment Report recently to address the most recent assessment of the climate system and climate change. A central theme in the report focuses on the urgency for action and the dire consequences of inaction. For those of us in the Midwest, we can expect higher water and air temperatures. The following other changes expected to occur include:
- The Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the planet because of exponential loss of sea ice and the Arctic temperature change has changed the polar vortex making it”wavy”. The United States has received less frequent but more intense ice storms.
- Longer, hotter summers can be expected in the Midwest but many other parts of the world can expect much higher average temperatures.
- The growing season has lengthened up to 2 days per decade since the 1950’s. At first glance one might think this is good. However, coupled with precipitation changes, this may lead to changes in crop selection and more genetic alterations of maturity lengthy, drought resistant varieties and that may open another can of worms– the long-term effects of GMO’s.
- The hydrosphere (oceans, lakes, etc.) lithosphere (solid earth), and atmosphere (including the biosphere, that part of the atmosphere in which living organisms live) are very intrinsically related and when one is adversely affected, there is a ripple effect in the others. Consider, forest fires such as the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, the largest one in the US at 646 square miles or the Dixie Fire in Northern California. Huge areas burnt by fires and left barren of vegetation have become prone to flash flooding prompting flood watches in parts of seven states from Montana to New Mexico. Nearly 22, 000 firefighters and support personnel battled 91 wild fires covering over 2,813 square miles, mostly western states. Besides the obvious effect of hundreds of families that have been uprooted which has its own financial ripple effect through the local and regional economy; consider the biological / ecological effect on the ecosystem (producers, primary, and secondary consumers, and even tertiary consumers) and consider all the fauna that either die or are displaced, the length of time it takes for succession to occur, and consider how the food chain is disrupted resulting in food scarcity. Consider the fact that the tremendous heat generated by the mega-fires exacerbates drought conditions and the effect that the smoke with its particulates has on people’s health as it drifts eastward. For days we noticed the haze in the sky over Northern Illinois from those fires. Think about the fact that the very trees that have been planted in thousands of acres to curb climate change are being destroyed. And, think about the simple chemical equation that all this burning produces and releases carbon dioxide into the air–tons of CO2. Trees that were supposed to pull CO2 out of the air thereby reducing the greenhouse gas are instead contributing to CO2 buildup. The Oregon fire mentioned above which burned for about six weeks in late July and August wiped out 24% of a huge carbon offset project. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Chief Tom Porter, the blazes in the West took out years of work combating climate change. The heat generated by these forest fires just prolongs the heat wave thereby increase the chances for more fires.
For the skeptics and nonbelievers. the next sentences may be more important than the report’s content itself. The IPCC has compiled the data from hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies. That means that the sample size of data is something short of enormous, thereby ensuring that the reliability coefficient is high. That pretty well ensures that many views are included. See Essay II for more on the nature of science.
Also, for the doubters, you, like the rest of us are already being hit in the pocketbook by commodity changes in food, fire and flood insurance, cost of repairs, and environmental health, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Simply put, the message is the longer we wait to make major changes, the more drastic the consequences. Insurance Program (protects farmers from crop loss) produced the following
Year (s) Subsidies (averages)
2001-20h0 $4. 1 billion
2011 alone $10. 8 billion
2014-2018 $6.2 billion
219 and 2020 $6.2 billion
As predicted (by hundreds of research papers by some very brilliant people, many with PhD’s), we are now experiencing the gloom if not the doom of not listening or if listening of not believing those predictions. I still believe that a major reason, if not the major reason for so much disbelief / confusion is because of a lack of knowledge– based on research–not on someone’s opinion on social media… If you want information on something, go to a reliable source; go to a book, or a respected magazine or encyclopedia (online is about the only kind now except in libraries). Go to a reliable website but not to, say, Facebook. I encourage you, the reader, to read or reread Essay XXXVII.
From forests in California and other western states, we visit almond country in California’s rich San Joaquin Valley where a longstanding drought is threatening the almond crop. Climate change is having an effect on an area which produces about 80 percent of the world’s almonds which also happens to be California’s top agricultural export. The industry. already depends highly on irrigation.
Finally, from drought in California to flooding in Tennessee where at least 23 people were killed when 17 inches of rain fell in Humphreys County
To generalize, from Barcelona, Spain, a report, The Groundswell Report projects how the slow onset climate change such as water scarcity, decreasing crops productivity, and rising sea levels could lead to climate migration within a country by the year 2050 under three different scenarios. Under the most pessimistic scenario, the report forecasts up to 216 million people moving within their own countries across six regions which are:
- Latin America
- North Africa
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Eastern Europe
- South Asia
- East Asia and the Pacific
In the least serious scenario, 44 million people could be forced to move elsewhere in their own country.
These findings reinforce the potency of climate to force migration of humans within their country. The report didn’t consider migrating outside one’s country’s borders.
Essays XIII through XIX and XLIII through XLV also discuss Climate change.Featured image credit to DAVID MCNEW / GETTY IMAGE.
Note: I do not have a reference list for this essay. My apologies.