Future IOWA WeatherSo, now that we IOWANS have endured our first wave of 4-degree F temperatures and less this winter, what is all the hubbub about global temperature change?
Let us put it in terms we can understand. Humans put thousands of pounds per day of carbon dioxide and other nasty items into our air from our activities. More and more of us have become aware that these behaviors are not good for our health or for the status of our weather. According to the Sierra Club, the last four years have been the warmest since 1861 records were kept. If you happen to look at the forecast for the end of this week, at least here in eastern IOWA, we will be close to 60 degrees F by Thursday or Friday. This is not necessarily a good thing. Let's look at what the Sierra Club says about this because the consequences of global climate change will be felt locally by IOWANS and our economy.
The world's leading scientists project that during our children's lifetimes, global warming will raise the average temperature of the planet by 2.7 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Earth is only 5 to 9 degrees warmer today than it was 10,000 years ago during the last ice age. Throughout history, major shifts in temperature occurred at a rate of a few degrees over thousands of years. They were accompanied by radical ecological changes, including the extinction of many species. Manmade global warming is occurring much faster - faster, in fact, than at any time in the past 10,000 years. Unless we slow and ultimately reverse the buildup of greenhouse gases, we will have decades, not millennia, to try to adapt to radical changes in weather patterns, sea levels and serious threats to human health. Increased flooding, storms and agricultural losses could devastate our economy. Plants and animals that cannot adapt to new conditions will become extinct.
But How Much of a Difference Can a Few Degrees Make?
Plenty.
The human race is engaged in the largest and most dangerous experiment in history - an experiment to see what will happen to our health and the health of our planet when we change our atmosphere and our climate. This is not some deliberate scientific inquiry. It is an uncontrolled experiment on the environment of the Earth, and we're gambling our children's future on its outcome. The results of this pollution are already significant. We have increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary global warming gas, in our atmosphere by 30 percent in the past 100 years. Some regions of the world have already warmed by as much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Physicians at Harvard University and Johns Hopkins medical schools and other medical institutions have issued grim assessments that global warming may already be causing the spread of infectious diseases and increasing heat-wave deaths. Extreme weather events have become more common. Plants and animals around the world are shifting their ranges in an effort to escape a changing climate.
The rapid buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is the source of the problem. By burning ever-increasing quantities of coal, oil and gas, we are choking our planet in a cloud of this pollution. If we don't begin to act now to curb global warming, our children will live in a world where the climate will be far less hospitable than it is today.
The current Washington, D.C. administration has a Clogged Skies Policy that does nothing more than give a pass to energy industries and other corporations that spew killing toxins into our atmosphere. Current administrators have given their plan a different name, but I choose to call it EXACTLY what it is: THE CLOGGED SKIES POLICY. For you see, this current administration is WEAK when it comes to keeping cancer-causing, asthma-inducing products out of our lives. The businesses that choose to slide under the radar and not be progressive and benevolent enough to do the right thing, are going to continue to contribute to the ill health of us all.
So, are you asking yourself what you can do? Look around your town, your county, your state, and nearby states to see where the pollution in your area is coming from. Then take action. It is as close as looking in your own backyard.
For more information and to see what you can do to alleviate this problem, go to: www.sierraclub.org/globalwarming/overview/
See also the September 2004 issue of National Geographic or go to their site: www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine
Naughty and Nice 2004