The
Clinton administration recently released a report predicting probable climate changes in the United States as global
temperatures continue to rise. In
coming decades the predictions include crop increases in the heartland,
increased coastal erosion caused by more frequent and more violent storms plus a
steady rise in sea level, summer droughts and
winter floods in the west as well as sweltering summer temperatures in urban
environs like New York City. Based on the assumption that global temperatures
will rise between 5-10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 and carbon dioxide
concentrations will continue to rise at their present rate, the report is more
pessimistic that that of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United
Nations group whose best estimate on warming over the next one hundred years is
3.6-6 F. degrees by 2100.
One of
the more serious conclusions of the report is that society will be able to adapt
to the changes but many elements of nature, for example, coral reefs and
mangrove stands, will not. These
ecosystems will simply be crowded out by human activity.
The
report is available on the web at
www.nacc.udgcrp.gov.
The
report has drawn its share of criticism.
. Critics point out the
conclusions are a merger of two greenhouse simulation models that have serious
disagreements with each other. For example, one model predicts drought in the
southeast, the other increased rainfall. Many
scientists say that only generalized effects can be predicted,.
Local climatic shifts
may be complicated by a number of unforeseen interactions.
In an
article in the August 2000 issue of
Scientific American,
Paul Epstein points out that global warming is already having adverse
consequences on world health. Warmer
weather accompanied by a decline in freezing temperatures allows a great many
carriers of serious disease to spread beyond their normal boundaries.
Probably the most significant of these is the mosquito which is an
intermediate host for the organisms that cause malaria, dengue (aka “breakbone”)
fever, yellow fever, encephalitis, and, more recently, Rift fever and west Nile
fever.
In an
article in the July issue of
Atlantic
Monthly, Sarewitz and Pielke argue that
more models and more science will not break the gridlock over what actions we
should take to avert the predicted effects of warming but instead deal with the
weather problems it may already be
causing. They contend that political action is hostage to not only to the
limitations of science to document global warming but to correlating the blame
with human activity. Politically, our present policy is to do more research but
the upshot of that has been a call for even more research and no concrete
action. The authors suggest a
different tack; work at reducing
our vulnerability to extreme weather. This includes both societal changes as
well as our approach to the
environment. This would include
practical steps such as reforestation to prevent floods and landslides, reduced logging to accomplish similar goals, changes in
grazing and agricultural practices,
fishing regulations and alike.
The
August 2000 issue of Scientific American, in an article by Paul Epstein, points
out another hazard of global warming, an increase in tropical diseases.
This, he points out, is well under way.
Malaria and dengue (aka “breakbone”) fever, spread by mosquitoes, are
on the increase in regions where,
in past cooler years, they were rare. About 45 percent of the world’s
population is now exposed; by 2100, 60 percent will be at risk. Epstien also
looks at the West Nile virus, encephalitis, hanta virus and cholera.
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