EVENT
Gemma has posted a diatribe on environmental issues here. I share virtually all of her concerns, and posted a lengthy comment that I’ve now decided to post here as well:
Over the last month I was doing indexing at work for a reference text on the oceans, and I read a lot about this subject.
There are weird variables that come into play, but since there’s no precedent, there’s no way to know how extensive their effects will be. For example, global warming would lead (as some argue it already has) to an increase in storms and cloud cover, which are one of the more effective reflectors of sunlight and heat… that could potentially dampen (pun) the greenhouse effect.
But there are other concerns that hadn’t even crossed my mind before. If you look at a globe, Europe is unusually temperate for its latitude… it corresponds to parts of Canada and Asia that are cold almost year-round. The gulf stream, one of the most powerful ocean currents, moves across the Atlantic toward Europe from the tropics and is a large part of an explanation for Europe’s mildness. If, however, a lot of arctic ice melts, it would cool the northern waters as well as diverting much of the Gulf Stream. So while the tropics get hotter and hot, Europe could enter its own mini ice age.
Another deep (pun) concern has to do with world hunger. Many fisheries are strained to the limit now, and many edible saltwater fish species are only maintaining population through careful monitoring. However, (beyond the obvious and justified concern for coral reefs and kelp forests) most of these salt water species rely, directly or indirectly, on upwellings… regions where nutrient and sediment rich deepwater rises to the surfaces the surface, feeding plankton that are the bottom of the oceanic food chain. But regional warming of seawater retards the upwellings. That’s why the Peruvian economy is decimated whenever there’s an El Nino event; because they rely on the anchovy fishery, and about 90% of the anchovies die off.
And of course, the increase in storms is also a massively huge worry on its own. I’m fairly confident that wealthy port cities like New York and Tokyo can cope with a gradual rise in sea level. On the other hand, tiny Bangladesh (half the size of Illinois with half the population of the U.S.) is inundated (literally a third of the country is underwater) every time there’s a particularly bad monsoon. If global patterns change for the worse, a lot of already stricken places are going to be in even worse truoble.
On the plus side, I’ve discovered the Velvet Underground.
I don’t know the timescale of when all this will come to a head, but it’s hard to be optimistic in the face of what seems overwhelming evidence that things are getting out of control… and to think that if we stop our destructive activities, now, today, things will continue to get worse for centuries at the least.
If people are around in two thousand years, they will doubtless look at us as the most decadent and reckless of civilizations.
I’m increasingly more concerned with the environment than any other issue confronting us today.
END OF POST.