We proceed into the chapter on Global Climate Change in "This Moment on Earth." By now, most of us know the basic facts on global warming from Inconvienient Truth, these diaries, or other such works. John Kerry's chapter is an excellent overview of these facts and is an excellent reference to debunk and global warming denial arguments.
But the three things that we need to keep in mind when debating this issue are these. First of all, this is a matter of life and death, not a matter of debate. Human-induced climate change is now settled fact. Secondly of all, anytime a Republican wants to freak you out about terrorism, we should simply point out that there are a lot more important things to worry about than terrorism. Thirdly of all, human-induced climate change is happening right at this moment -- it is not something that will happen five or ten years down the road.
First of all, this is a matter of life and death. If the ocean rises merely 16 feet, the cities of New York, DC, London, and Bombay will all be flooded. Secondly of all, if the sea level rises 23 feet, the whole state of Florida will be flooded under. If that were to happen, it would make what has already happened a mere blip in history.
There would be upheaval, wars, tensions, strife, and the general breakdown of law and order as people who were once well-off will have all the difficulty in the world adapting. In the 1930's, the Dust Bowl forced numerous people from Oklahoma to migrate to California to work. They were derided much the same as Mexicans and Latinos are now. They were sneered at, called "Okies," and given only the kind of menial labor and wages that were just enough for them to survive. The kinds of upheavals that would result from the migration of billions of people all over the world from global warming would dwarf these struggles.
In 2004, Science Magazine did a review of 928 peer-reviewed studies about climate change over the last 10 years. Every single one of them endorsed the position that human-induced climate change is happening. Every single major scientific group has accepted this theory as well. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has proved a similar consensus worldwide.
This kind of scientific consensus has pushed the theory of global warming denial into the realm of junk science, along with outdated notions such as eugenics, aliens on Mars, and the belief that the universe revolves around the earth.
For Global Warming Deniers, Dr. John Holdren of the Woods Hole Research Center explains the burden of proof that global warming deniers have to meet in order to prove their case in Kerry's book, pages 122-123:
"To be credible," he said, "the skeptics about human causation of current global climate change would need both to explain what alternative mechanism could account for the pattern of changes that is being observed, and explain how it could be that the known, human-caused buildup in greenhouse gases is not having the effects predicted for it by the sum of current climate science knowledge (since by the skeptics' assumptions, something else is having these effects). No skeptic has met either test.
One of the common arguments being advanced by global warming denialists is the admission that climate change is happening but that the sun is causing this climate change. That meets the first test, the establishment of an alternative mechanism for climate change. But it does not meet the second, the explaination for how the known human-caused buildups is not having the effects predicted for it. In other words, the existance of solar effects on the weather does not rule out human-induced effects on the weather.
Since this is a matter of life and death, this should affect the way we vote. In the primaries, we should vote for the candidate who best understands the urgency of reversing the cycle of global warming. John Kerry argues that even in the best-case scenario, it might take generations to completely reverse the cycle of global warming. But the fact of the matter is that nobody thought that the Hudson River would ever be suitable for fishing again. Politics is not just about the art of the possible, but about pushing the limits of the possible as well. But in the general election, as Democrats, we should understand that any Democratic candidate would be better than any Republican candidate in reversing the cycle of global warming that threatens us all.
The 2008 elections are coming up, and all of the Republican presidential candidates want you to be as scared of the terrorists as possible because they want you to cling to them as the big daddy figure that will protect you against the Big Bad Terrorists. The entire implication of their frame is that this is the thing that we should be afraid of most. But what is more important as a matter of priorities -- stopping the killing of 3,000 people in a future 9/11, or stopping the upheaval of billions and killing of millions as a result of global warming 50 years down the road as a result of rising sea levels?
The fact of the matter is that ever since 9/11, the Republicans have used these terrible events as a smokescreen to divert from the much more urgent problem of figuring out how to stop the problem of irreversible climate change. Exxon has funneled millions of dollars into astroturf right-wing think tanks while until recently, James Inhofe has used his position in the senate to suppress any meaningful discussion on how to create a sustainable society that does not throw massive amounts of Methane, NO2, Ozone, CO2, and halocarbons into the air. Through these astroturf think tanks, the Republicans have systematically passed off GOP propaganda as science while ignoring the real science that is out there.
And on top of that, there is the compliant media, which broadcasts numerous phony terror alerts, fake arrests of the 50th Al Qaeda Number Three, and the latest phony military offensives in Iraq. So, what are viewers supposed to be afraid of more -- global warming, or terrorism? In reality, what is more urgent -- the need to deal with this climate crisis, or Bin Laden?
And yet for every crisis, there is an opportunity. After the Civil War came the massive industrialization of this country and the rise of the railroad, which led to the growth of many small towns in the country. The Second World War, in which our country's existance was at stake, lifted us out of the Great Depression and created a 25 year run of prosperity in this country. The Sputnik launch in 1957 spurred us to go to the moon. And this is no different than all of the other challenges that we have faced as a country.
If we create a new economy based on light rail, public transportation, wind power, solar power, and alternative fuels as well as cutting our carbon use, we can reverse the cycle of global warming and create a new era of prosperity in which everyone will have a job, all students get an equal opportunity to succeed in life, and everyone who wants to join a union can do so. If we do all this, we will succeed not only in reversing the cycle of carbon emissions, but in creating a society in which work is rewarded and not just wealth.
The fact of the matter is that incremental change will no longer be good enough to avert catastrophic climate change. Already, 90% of our living organisms are at risk according to a UNEP report in summer 2006 thanks to the pollution of our oceans; if unchecked, 35% will be extinct in 50 years. Overfishing has resulted in the collapse of one third of our fishing stocks, and all of them will we gone if we do nothing. Last year, there were 130 heat-related deaths in California; in 2003, record heat in Europe killed 35,000 people. New York City is now hit by five times as many two-inch rainstorms now as it did in the 1950's. North Dakota had massive flooding and frost in 2005 and then record droguht in 2006, which affected millions of acres of crops as well as millions of livestock.
The point of all this is that the worldwide climate change that has been predicted by science has already started to happen. A single isolated event like Katrina will not in and of itself point to global warming. However, when paired with all of the other extreme weather events around the world, along with the fact that most of the glaciers in Glacier National Park that were there 100 years ago are simply not there anymore, no reasonable person can deny that climate change has already started to take place on this world. And based on the science, no reasonable person can argue anything but that this change is human induced. And no reasonable person can argue that this is not a matter of life and death.
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