Death, destruction and the end of civilization seem pretty inconvenient to me . . .

Thanks in no small part to the spectacular success of “An Inconvenient Truth” – which was built on years of foundational work by thousands of researchers, investigators and journalists, as well as Gore’s own study and writings over the years – the American public is rapidly awakening to the irrefutable existence of the climate crisis. That’s the good news.

Here’s the bad news:

as dramatic as it is, “An Inconvenient Truth” is not nearly inconvenient enough. The climate is spinning out of control significantly faster than popular climate thought-leaders are telling us. The consequences of our inaction are far more dire, and we don’t have anywhere near a ten-year window to act. Note that lead NASA climate researcher Jim Hansen appended “at most” to the words “ten-year window” in his September 13, 2006 forecast (1). Over a year has passed since then, and so far our progress is not good at all (2).

Imagine an entire nation of communities devastated like New Orleans, subject to chronic flooding, wildfires, mudslides, heat, droughts, crop failures and tropical disease invading formerly temperate climes (3). Extreme weather events are occurring across the U.S. as well as the rest of the world, and the log of climate disasters is growing longer every day. What will it take to wake us up – all of us, including the global warming crusaders?

Retirement Is Closer Than You Think

The Climate Unravels Before Our Very Eyes

Carbon dioxide (CO2), a simple ubiquitous molecule that is metabolized by plants and normally harmless to animals, is already wreaking climate havoc at today’s concentrations. As we continue to pump it and other less well-known but significant greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at increasing rates (3% more emissions per year since 2000, as opposed to 1.1% more per year in the 1990s (4) ), climate events give us a taste of how beyond our control are the consequences of our activity. We are headed in precisely the wrong direction, mindlessly blazing the path to a planet largely inhospitable to higher life forms, and certainly hostile to anything resembling human civilization.

If there’s one thing that’s reliably predictable about climate science, it’s that the scientists have consistently underestimated the rapidity and extent of the effects of elevated greenhouse gases. Some of what was expected decades hence is happening today. Some of what is happening today was hardly imagined in 1990. If current predictions prove to be as conservative as those to date we’re on red alert, even if most of us don’t know it.

The February 2007 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that if we continue on our current path, average planetary temperature could increase by as much 11.5° F by 2100 (5) That is eleven times the planetary temperature increase due to human activity that we have seen so far. And more recent studies indicate that the significant elements of IPCC estimates are conservative (6) In desperation, some scientists are uncharacteristically beginning to appeal directly to the public.

We may be able to address global warming with intervention now. We don’t know if now is soon enough — but if it is, would we act? Consider that when faced with a choice between planetary life and death we might well choose death: doing what’s necessary to continue our earthly existence is excessively inconvenient. Imagine that, preserving our life support systems is simply too much trouble!

Trash

A Public Forum for Wishful Thinking

Last December Marty Meehan, then a Massachusetts Congressman, convened a public town meeting on climate at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell. Organizers expected two hundred people or so; a few weeks before the date three or four hundred had signed up so they reserved a larger space. A couple of escalating space reservations later the grandest facility on campus was drafted, and over a thousand people filled the hall beyond capacity. We, the People, really want to know what’s going on.

The politicians held forth with their obligatory gab and the scientists reported on the grim and grimmer state of the planet. Finally our newly minted pro-earth governor(7), Deval Patrick, took the stage and assured us, to resounding applause, that with the high-tech and capital resources in our fine Commonwealth we can lick global warming and maintain our way of life! We can have our cake, eat it too, swim in it, give it away, consume it all without end: let us eat cake!

And that is what Al Gore, environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, The Nation magazine and many others (more about them in future posts) are failing to tell us: We can’t go on living this way.

We say or do anything to deny that for all intents and purposes we have to discard our current cherished American way of life, our way of endless expansion, consumption and pollution. And we can’t simply settle for a dollop of sacrifice, we have an entirely different (and likely much improved) civilization to build. If we don’t find another way for ourselves, invoking all the care and sensibilities of which we are capable, nature in its indifferent fury will do it for us. Shopping our way out of this problem is not an option (8).

(Beyond Inconvenient to be continued next time – stay tuned for Part II!)

If Bell Rings . . .

Copyright 2007 by Adam D. Sacks, all rights reserved.



1. “Warming expert: Only decade left to act in time,” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14834318/.

2. For a comprehensive and current look at climate reports and articles from a wide variety of sources, see Ross Gelbspan’s website, http://heatisonline.org/. A closely related problem, peak oil, is covered at Richard Heinberg’s website, http://www.richardheinberg.com/.

3. “Things we projected to occur in 2080 are happening in 2006. What we didn’t get is how fast and how big it is, and the degree to which the biological systems would respond,” [Harvard medical climatologist Paul] Epstein said in an interview in Boston. “Our mistake was in underestimation.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050401931.html

4. “Global and Regional Drivers of Accelerating CO2 Emissions Emissions,” Michael R. Raupach, et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences vol. 104, no. 24, 10293,
June 12, 2007, http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/104/24/10288

5. IPCC, Working Group I, Summary for Policymakers – Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, February 2007; Table SPM-2, A1FI Scenario, p. 11.

6. For example, see “Climate Change and Trace Gases,” James Hansen et al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2007) 365, pp 1925-1954, May 18, 2007, http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/l3h462k7p4068780/fulltext.pdf; and “Global and Regional Drivers of Accelerating CO2 Emissions,” Michael R. Raupach, et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences vol. 104, no. 24, 10293, June 12, 2007, http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/104/24/10288.

7. If you’re wondering how a governor could be anti-earth, just ask our previous one, Mitt Romney.

8. George Monbiot puts it brilliantly in his article, “Eco-Junk.” http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/07/24/eco-junk/.