No Special
Effects With Nature
By Renato Redentor
Constantino
05 June , 2004
TomDispatch.com
Climate
change.Suddenly,
because of a movie, so many are now talking about the greatest threat
the planet has ever faced.
The Day after Tomorrow
is science fiction, but global warming is real. Will the movie end up
trivializing the impact of climate change and thus increase indifference?
Or will it spur more people to take action? Too early to tell.
Is reality more
frightening than Hollywood? With nature there are no special effects,
only consequences.
Up to 64% of China's
glaciers are projected to disappear by 2050, putting at risk up to a
quarter of the country's population who are dependent on the water released
from those glaciers.
Today in the Arctic,
ice thickness has declined by over 40% and "an area larger than
the Netherlands is disappearing every year." According to scientists,
Arctic sea ice could melt entirely by the end of the century.
Ice cores from Svalbard
glaciers in the Arctic region show that the twentieth century was "by
far the warmest century" in the last 800 years.
Between 1998 and
2001, the Qori Kalis glacier in Peru has retreated an average of 155
meters annually -- a rate three times faster than the average yearly
retreat for the previous three years, and thirty-two times faster than
the average yearly retreat from 1963 to 1978.
Just southeast of
Mount Everest in the Himalayan Khumbu Range of Eastern Nepal, the Imja
Glacier has been retreating at a rate of close to 10 meters annually.
It is but one among many glaciers currently in rapid retreat. According
to Syed Iqbal Hasnain of the International Commission for Snow and Ice,
"Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other
part of the world. If the present rate continues, the likelihood of
them disappearing by the year 2035 is very high." Over two billion
people depend on the glacier-fed flow of the rivers from the Himalayan
mountains.
In Patagonia, ice
fields have lost 42 cubic kilometers of ice every year for the last
seven years, equivalent to the volume of ten thousand large football
stadiums.
The scientific journal
Nature published this year the findings of 19 eminent biological scientists.
Climate change, they concluded, will "commit to extinction"
18% to 35% of all land-based animal and plant species.
Over 20,000 people
died in Europe last year as a result of an extreme heat wave.
In Alaska, average
annual temperatures have risen by 5 degrees since the 1960s.
According to leading
reinsurance companies such as Munich Re and Swiss Re, climate-change
related damages might cost $150 billion annually within a decade. The
companies warn that unless action is taken today, the insurance industry
could go bankrupt as extreme weather events such as storms and droughts
increase in severity and frequency.
Vice Premier Hui
Liangyu of China recently warned that his country is already facing
"a grim situation" as warming temperatures inexorably give
rise to increasingly unusual weather patterns. China has had 16 consecutive
warmer winters since 1985 and temperatures are projected to increase
in the coming decades. Last year, combined extremes of flooding and
drought ravaged China's agriculture. In 2003, climate-change related
damages cost an estimated $65 billion globally, including $10 billion
in agricultural losses from last summer's heat wave in Europe. The impact
of global warming on agriculture in the developing world, including,
for instance, the salinization of irrigation systems owing to rising
sea levels and depleted rivers, has been nothing short of devastating.
The incidence of
diseases such as malaria and dengue fever carried by insects that thrive
in warm temperatures is expected to increase dramatically in the coming
years, possibly straining beyond limits the modest resources of government
health systems in developing countries. Recent studies suggest that
close to 300 million more people would be at risk from malaria if global
temperatures continue to increase.
An eight-year study
conducted by 100 scientists showed that in the southern Chinese province
of Guangdong, sea levels are projected to rise by 30 centimeters by
2030. According to another study, sea levels may rise by 30 to 70 centimeters
by the end of this century. The long coastline of China forms the base
for about 70% of its large cities, where nearly 60% of the national
economy is located. Some studies suggest that a 30-centimeter rise in
sea levels will typically result in a 30-meter retreat in shoreline.
How deadly then will the effect of rising sea levels be on archipelagic
countries such as the Philippines?
Climate change is
not called "the great amplifier" for nothing. Hunger, misery,
thirst, and want -- the consequences of all the flaws in our world's
economic systems will be magnified, giving rise to ever more resource-related
conflicts in addition to those already created by the madness of the
American imperial enterprise.
"Climate change,"
said Sir David King, Chief Scientific Adviser to British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, "is the most severe problem that we are facing today
-- more serious even than the threat of terrorism."
Great as the problem
of climate change may be, most often neglected is the fact that solutions
are readily available -- solutions that, sadly, are just not being used;
solutions that can prevent climate change from taking a more dangerous
and unpredictable trajectory; solutions that are not only immediately
beneficial to the environment but have immense economic potential as
well. The global wind industry alone, for instance, has been enjoying
a growth rate of over 30% annually for the last five years with wind-power
costs dropping by 50% in the last 15 years. Resources from the sun,
the tides, the waves, geothermal power -- all these are waiting to be
harnessed; waiting, despite the enormity of the danger confronting us,
because the resources that should be used to tap their regenerative
power economically remain dedicated to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries.
A planetary betrayal.
We all know what
the problem is: burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil along with
the unsustainable and inequitable use of our planet's resources. And
we know what we have to do. We must generate our energy from clean,
safe, renewable resources and use our energy in a sustainable way.
Because there really
is no other way.
The measurable,
time-bound development of renewable energy based on real and ambitious
targets, matched with deep, rapid cuts in CO2 emissions -- this is what's
needed today if we are to save the global commons from devastating climate-change
impacts.
Big or small, populous,
powerful, or frail, each country and each individual has a central role
to play in redirecting our planet away from its present deadly course.
After all, as a great reminder goes, if the world were a huge airplane
about to crash, would it really matter that you were seated in first
class?
The task of taking
back the pilot's cockpit from those who have hijacked our plane of a
planet must be our number one priority.
The time for indifference
is over. We must demand nothing less than an energy revolution. Taking
action the day after tomorrow may well be too late. Actua ya. Act now.
El dia es hoy.
The day for action
is today.
Renato Redentor
Constantino is the climate and energy campaign advisor to Greenpeace
in China. His work includes documenting the impact of global warming,
of dirty energy, and of energy policy there, as well as securing a beachhead
for the massive uptake of renewable energy in the southern Chinese province
of Guangdong, the economic engine of China at the moment. Constantino
also writes a regular column for the Philippine national daily TODAY.
He can be reached at [email protected].
He worked for a number of years as the climate and energy campaigner
of Greenpeace in Southeast Asia.
Copyright C2004
Renato Redentor Constantino