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Species, Habitat and the Economy - Outlook is Not Good!
Is Climate Warming the Bandit or a Savior?
It All Depends on Who You Ask.
The following discussion represents a synthesis of the current news, headlines and information relating to global warming and Arctic climate change.
By Max Casebeau, BA Business Administration and
Jacqueline Bradish, BS Biology, MS Waste Management & Environmental Science

The World Conservation Union and the United Nations Environment Programme report that the rate of species extinction has increased 50% in ten years to 150 species a day (up from 100 a day) and habitat has not shown any improvement. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that 30,000 polluted streams were documented in 2004, up from 21,000 just ten years ago.

Fifty major environmental policy changes have been made by the Bush Administration to date. The environmental community has become stuck in the quagmire of government inaction, enforcement that is non-existent and the fact that the Administration simply will no longer share critical habitat survey information. (For example, official Clean Water Act reporting has been withheld from Congress for 4 years and the EPA is gutting air pollution standards under the guise of the Clear Skies Initiative.)

The Canadians released a new species at risk list that contains 73 more threatened species on January 25, 2005. The World Conservation Union, two months earlier, indicated that 15,000 more species are at risk in their comprehensive Red List report.

The numbers are indicative that we are going in the wrong direction -- despite the best efforts of all the environmental organizations -- and are both disappointing and disheartening.

What is going on?

The reasons for the decline in environmental quality range from non-enforcement of environmental laws to climate change.

On November 8, 2004 the ACIA announced completion of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Report which described the findings of a long-term study of climate change using factual data, indigenous knowledge, computer models and more. The results of this report concern not just the Arctic Region, but the whole world -- including Antarctica. The earth is warming. On average by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, but in the Arctic the temperature increase is much more drastic -- as much as 14 ⁰F in some places. Sea ice is melting in the polar region and permafrost is melting on the tundra in the far north. Glaciers are melting all over the Arctic rim and elsewhere around the world. This melt has been occurring for the past 10 years or so and has recently begun to accelerate. The General Accounting Office (GAO) has announced that 168 native villages will have to be moved as a result of melting permafrost and rising sea levels.

The Caribou (Reindeer in Europe), Musk Ox, Snowy Owl, Polar Bear and other Arctic animals and plants are having a very tough time right now. Animals depending on sea ice to reach food supplies are facing declines in birth weight and infant health and increasing infant mortality because the sea ice is breaking up earlier and earlier each year. Also of significant impact, the composition of Arctic ecosystems is changing. Grazing animals are finding their food chains being disrupted as are marine species and land and sea birds. The new Canadian species at risk list takes these factors into consideration. The other 7 nations involved in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States of America) are currently developing their threatened species lists based upon the findings of their report. The World Conservation Union will have an even more definitive list prepared in 6 months or so. It is not only the Arctic species that are imperiled however. Plants and animals in every region are under threat from increasing surface, air and water temperatures.

While scientists are mostly in agreement with the conclusions reached by the ACIA report, they disagree over the pace and timing of the consequences of the warming world -- most importantly, how much the global temperature will increase, how fast it will increase and how this will translate into melting Arctic ice and the subsequent rise in sea levels around the world. Computer models have been generated to see what might happen under three different scenarios. The outcomes were of course different. Some have sea ice, glaciers, and Antarctica and Greenland, melting much faster, the others were slower. Greenland and Antarctica are the real question marks because there is so much water locked up in those huge continental ice fields. Sea level increase is the subject of great speculation, which ranges from 3 to 20 feet depending on how fast the ocean heats up and how much the atmosphere warms (which will make the ice melt even faster). Results from the very latest, most accurate climate prediction model (released in January 2005 and powered by a network of 90,000 PCs across the globe), indicate that global warming may in fact ramp up average temperatures by 20 degrees Fahrenheit in less than 50 years.

It may be that we are already feeling some of the sting of the climate and temperature change without realizing it. Florida of course has been especially hard hit this year with hurricanes that simply dominated the rainy season. Texas and the rest of "tornado alley" in the U.S. have been battered by unusually severe storms. Weather patterns are increasingly unstable all over the planet. Idaho and the rest of the American West are in the 7th year of severe drought and worldwide surface temperatures just keep going up and up and up. Southern species are migrating rapidly to higher elevations and latitudes and are streaming northward. Flowering plants and trees have begun to flower as much a week earlier in the last few years. Bird species are migrating earlier. Populations of a wide range of wildlife and plants are being disrupted. Populations of sensitive species are in decline across the board -- from amphibians to sea birds. All of these events may be a signal of what is to come.

What does it mean?

It is indisputable at this point that the rapid and increasing pace of global warming is directly related to human activities -- particularly deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels. A truly disturbing estimate is it will take about 1,000 years to restore the atmosphere as we knew it (if the activities contributing to the problem are curtailed immediately). Perhaps even more alarming is the fact that the U.S. is responsible for a third or more of the emissions causing this problem, yet our Government is displaying extreme recalcitrance at addressing the issue.

It is possible that we may be on the brink of catastrophic climate change and that time may be running out to halt and reverse this disaster. Around the world nations, scientists, activists, organizations, peoples, individuals, businesses, religions, governments (from the majority of countries), world leaders and others are attempting to cooperate with one another, increase awareness and find real solutions to the problems we are facing. Innovative technologies, ideas and cooperative political agreements such as the Kyoto Treaty are beginning to emerge (though not without opposition and attempts by the Bush Administration to silence the facts, pretend as if nothing is awry and prevent discussion of the issues).

Consider this example: a proposal was made recently to plant tree seedlings. According to scientists, if we were to plant trees across an area the size of Texas, we may be able to curtail the excess carbon dioxide (CO₂₎ that is the major cause of the greenhouse effect which is resulting in global warming (trees absorb CO₂ and release oxygen thereby reducing CO₂ loading in the atmosphere and increasing oxygen).

Unfortunately the United States, which is the major contributor to fossil fuel related global warming, is largely uninvolved with these efforts (with the exception of private sectors, some state governments and a few politicians). Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, many in the U.S. continue to deny that global warming is actually occurring (such is the case with the Representatives from Alaska -- the very area in the U.S. most threatened by global warming). United States participation in the Kyoto Treaty has been conspicuously absent since it was proposed several years ago. The U.S.'s continued opposition to the accords and reluctance to take any real steps to curb global warming since the Arctic Climate Assessment Report went public on November 8, 2004 is not only embarrassing, but seems to be driven either by ignorance or a contrary agenda that believes environmental concerns and the survival of life on earth are a lower priority than corporate bottom line profit concerns. According to the shipping and oil industries a warming climate is good news. British Petroleum (Beyond Petroleum), for example, is thought to be budgeting $19,000,000,000 for oil exploration. The Arctic Ocean may be open to shipping within 20 years or less thereby realizing the dream of a northwest trade passage from Europe to Asia. There is some suggestion that the Bush Administration is ignoring the rising danger of global warming because of the potential for economic gain. But this begs the question -- how many more millions of tons of greenhouse gases will be added to the atmosphere by these new activities and what impact will this have on an already unbalanced climate? Meteorologists and Oceanographers state that the Gulf Stream and water circulation patterns in the north Atlantic Ocean may be significantly disrupted by rising sea levels and increasing temperatures thereby affecting the European weather, possibly even triggering another ice age.

Ironically, the relatively small economic benefits that may be gained by expanding trade routes and developing new fossil fuel resource are dwarfed by the rising financial costs related to climate change such as losses due to extreme weather and costs incurred by the forced relocation of entire communities, cities and states from low lying coastal areas as sea levels rise (the GAO estimates a cost of 100 - 400 million dollars to relocate Kivalina --  just one of the Alaskan Native Villages that are being forced to move due to climate change). There are also hidden costs to consider in terms of the inevitable political and social upheavals and destabilization that will occur -- caused by the forced migrations of humans and the increasing scarcity of resources such as water and farmable land (also ironic given the tremendous political, military and financial efforts currently being put forth by the Bush Administration to quell global violence and terrorism and increase U.S. security).

What should the United States do?

At the moment there is no U.S. government plan to solve these problems, only more of the same rhetoric and policies that have increased energy prices almost 50% in many areas this past winter -- costing billions in excess expense for transportation and utilities. It is time to find real solutions to these real problems. The U.S. should sign on to the Kyoto Protocols (to cut back on fossil fuel emissions dramatically and immediately). Congress needs to make alternative energy resources attractive and provide incentives for use -- such as offering tax credits for those people in the U.S. that install solar energy for their home needs, like hot water and lighting. We also need to reduce dependence on oil and other fossil fuels -- particularly foreign oil such as that from Iraq -- thereby reducing global warming and pollution problems and increasing our security and safety here at home. Wind power and home solar power could be brought online within 3 years and readily tied into our existing power grids. Large and small-scale municipal and industrial solar power (central boiler farms) could be brought online within 5 years. Hybrid automobiles (gas/electric) must be made readily available (until hydrogen fuel and other alternative fuels for automobiles and trucks become more commercially available). We must continue to promote methane gas technology for powering livestock industries and as a source of commercial power. We must continue to support the development of biomass, solar, hydro and other renewable energy technologies for home, municipal and commercial use. Not only would these alternative energy sources reduce global warming and pollution but they would create huge new industries (like solar cell manufacturing, solar mirror construction, solar farms, etc.) providing a vast array of jobs and economic benefits worldwide. The U.S. should taking the lead.

Ultimately though we, as concerned citizens, must take action -- with or without federal sanctions or tax credits and simply get on with it. We must elect to invent, invest in, support and utilize whole new industries based solely on alternative, renewable, environmentally sound technologies. If we vote with our dollars, big business and government will quickly fall in line. The Kyoto Treaty can be honored by every choice we make as individuals in the same spirit of global concern and participation that motivated the citizens of the United States to help the victims of the deadly tsunami that recently struck southeast Asia. This spirit of global cooperation on our part is of particular importance given that it is the lesser developed nations (such as those in Africa and the island nations) who will be the hardest hit by the effects of our warming world and that our country is the major culprit responsible for the problems. It is also crucial that the well being of all people is taken into account and that the solutions we apply do not become a part of the problem.

The time to reduce production and emission of the greenhouse gasses that are stealing our future is NOW.

SOURCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

©2005 Center for Environmental Education and Information, Sun Valley, Idaho.

Newspapers are invited to use the above editorial. Simply e-mail CEEI@cox-internet.com for permission.

Sun Valley, Idaho's Center for Environmental Education and Information has two web "super" sites that document the threatened and endangered species in North America and related habitat and pollution issues. CEEI tracks the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts and lists all the reported 30,000 polluted streams in the United States (www.wcei.org and www.esew.org).

CEEI reaches 12,000 high schools and 3,400 colleges and universities in the U.S. It has been nominated as the "most important environmental web site in the United States" three times by the UN and Sunset magazine.

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