Anthonares

Today’s WP (via MSNBC) has this article reporting preliminary data from NASA that says that 2005 will be the warmest year on record, breaking the record set in 1998. 2002, 2003, and 2004 will then be the third, fourth, and fifth warmest years. This is just one more bit of data in a year that has absolutely full of major global warming announcements. Antarctic Sea Ice is disappearing more rapidly than expected, a new study of ocean temperatures reveals that they, too, are warming as climate models predicted, and finally, the so-called “lower tropospheric cooling” so vaunted by climate skeptics was an artifact of incorrect data processing from satellites. Even my own research in the Muskegon River Watershed in central-northern-lower Michigan reveals the effects of climate change over the last century (work soon to be written-up, I’m sure I’ll write more on it later). And, of course, everyone’s heard of the relationship between global warming and more powerful hurricanes, though scientists do not yet agree on this issue, as they do most everything about global warming.

Scientists are not some great evil society all clamoring to support their cause in order to get grant money, as Michael Crichton suggests in “State Of Fear”. Scientists are, for the most part, concerned citizens and, very rarely, activists (not often enough, in my opinion). The evidence is now nearly unanimous in its support of global warming predictions from climate models, as the last two legs (sea temperatures and lower troposphere temperatures) of the skeptic’s arguments were knocked out this summer. It’s time to make real changes in our society. Otherwise, this summer’s deluge of New Orleans will be a preview of the main event: islands will disappear forever, Bangladesh will be flooded nearly totally, Florida will almost disappear, New York will be building levees like New Orleans which will have long since been mostly abandoned, malaria will finally be tackled because senators in Washington D.C. will come down with cases after venturing out of hotdogs on their lunchhours… this list could go on and on, and those are just the things that are almost certain to happen (except for the senators getting malaria, though probably some senator will because it will no longer be a tropical disease).

I am not afraid of change for change’s sake, but I am afraid of change that will result in human suffering, disease, starvation, displacement, war, and social upheaval. These are the spectres that will haunt our decision to ignore increases in CO2 emissions well into the lives of our great-grandchildren. Even if you can’t change the government, you can change your own practices in three easy ways: 1) replace your lightbulbs with energy-efficient bulbs, their relatively cheap and won’t heat your house as much, 2) see if you can buy green energy from your utility, many offer these programs, I pay $15 a month to get my energy from burning landfill emissions, 3) buy a TerraPass and make your car a zero-emissions vehicle. Of course there are a million other things that people can do if they own houses, or have old furnaces, or some such. But those three things everyone can do (assuming their utility offers green energy, but complain if it doesn’t!). Effortless energy conservation is this season’s new wasteful consumption, take the plunge!