23/09/2005 - Nature's revenge
on the oil industry? A refinery in Lousiana
destroyed by 150 mph (240 kph) winds.
By now we all know the science: no single
hurricane can be blamed on climate change,
in the same way that no single cigarette can
be blamed for a cancer death. But as devastating
as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita may be, their
wrath is nothing compared to the devastation
that climate change will wreak on our planet
if governments fail to address our world's
oil addiction.
The United States alone is responsible for
a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide emissions.
If we carry the smoking metaphor forward,
the entire world is suffering from the passive
smoke of America's fossil fuel habit, and
the symptoms of cancer are coming soon, if
they're not already here.
The American people are also suffering from
their government's failure to take urgent
steps to curb global warming. Katrina and
Rita are stark reminders of the fact that
the American taxpayer is being asked to cover
the cost of the Bush administration's inaction
on oil dependency not only at the petrol pump,
but in uninsured liabilities for hurricane-related
damages as well.
Most climate models and theory predict an
increase in intensity of tropical storms as
sea surface temperatures increase. There are
a number of factors involved, but higher ocean
temperatures strengthen hurricanes.
The frequency of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes
worldwide has nearly doubled over the past
35 years, even though the total number of
hurricanes, including weaker ones, has dropped
since the 11000s. Katrina was a Category 4
storm when it hit land. Rita was a Category
5 on the 22nd of September.
Floods in southern France only months after
a severe drought and forest fires in the same
area. Global warming, caused by ever increasing
consumption of fossil fuels like oil, means
extreme weather events are becoming more frequent.
No one disputes that we are currently experiencing
an increase in tropical storm intensity. No
one disputes that there are multi-decadal
cycles of peaks and troughs in storm activity.
The debate about the link with climate change
continues, but two recent papers make a compelling
case linking the current peak with climate
change. One focuses on the changes in the
number, duration, and intensity of tropical
cyclones, while the other charts their increasing
destructiveness over the past 30 years.
There is no lack of evidence that human-induced
climate change is underway. The impacts are
being felt from Alaska to Florida to sub-Saharan
Africa, India, China and the melting Russian
tundra. In the four weeks that the world's
press has put a magnifying glass on Katrina
and Rita, typhoons in Asia and floods in Europe
and India have left ruin and death in their
wake. In a warming world, more storms and
more destructive storms like Rita and Katrina
are in our future, but so are increased outbreaks
of malaria, the prospect of massive crop failures,
desertification, and sea level rise.
In the short and medium term, here's what
we can expect:
• Sea level rise due to melting glaciers and
ice caps and the thermal expansion of the
oceans as global temperature increases
• The European summer temperatures which killed
more than 30,000 people in the heat wave of
2003 will be 'average' summer temperatures
before mid-century.
• Massive releases of greenhouse gases from
melting permafrost and dying forests.
• A high risk of more extreme weather events
such as heat waves, droughts and floods. Already,
the global incidence of drought has doubled
over the past 30 years.
• Severe impacts on a regional level. For
example, in Europe, river flooding will increase
over much of the continent, and in coastal
areas the risk of flooding, erosion and wetland
loss will increase substantially.
• Natural systems, including glaciers, coral
reefs, mangroves, arctic ecosystems, alpine
ecosystems, boreal forests, tropical forests,
prairie wetlands and native grasslands, will
be severely threatened.
• An increase in existing risks of species
extinction and biodiversity loss.
• The greatest impacts will be on the poorer
countries least able to protect themselves
from rising sea levels, spread of disease
and declines in agricultural production in
the developing countries of Africa, Asia and
the Pacific.
Longer term catastrophic effects if warming
continues:
• Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet melting.
Unless checked, warming from emissions may
trigger the irreversible meltdown of the Greenland
ice sheet in the coming decades, which would
add up to seven meters of sea-level rise,
over some centuries; there is new evidence
that the rate of ice discharge from parts
of the Antarctic mean that it is also at risk
of meltdown.
• The Atlantic Gulf Stream current slowing,
shifting or shutting down, having dramatic
effects in Europe, and disrupting the global
ocean circulation system;
• Catastrophic releases of methane from the
oceans leading to rapid increases in methane
in the atmosphere and consequent warming.
While everyone on the planet is at risk from
the changes that will occur from global warming,
impacts are felt more severely by the most
vulnerable in any society, including the sick,
aged and poor.
And the developing world will suffer far more
than those who can afford to subsidize rebuilding.
If the evacuation of Louisiana and Texas looked
difficult, imagine the entire country of Bangladesh
having to flee rising waters into Pakistan.
Imagine the island nations of the Pacific
having to find new homes.
"Rita and Katrina are merely warnings
of what our world will look like if we fail
to treat climate change as the emergency it
is. They're the calm before the storm, and
unless the US government wakes up to the danger
and responds, we'll need an evacuation plan
for planet Earth," said Greenpeace International
Executive Director Gerd Leipold.
