| As Prime Minister Stephen Harper mulls over abandoning Canada's commitment to the Kyoto protocol, there has been a noticeable lack of public uproar. The success that the federal governments of both Canada and the U.S. have had in derailing Kyoto rests primarily on the ability of their ruling parties and industry groups to throw ambiguity into the issue of climate change. The way Mr. Harper has pushed climate change onto the back burner, or the way US President Bush refused for years to concede that the evidence pointed to human involvement in global warming, has been enough to dull the concern of many of their constituents. The fact that such important people have dismissed the threat of global warming has influenced many to believe the evidence behind climate change must be uncertain at best.
Following the motto and tactics of the smooth talking Nick Naylor from the recent comedy Thank You For Smoking, groups opposed to Kyoto have never been interested in shouldering the burden of proof, instead spending their resources casting the proverbial shadow of doubt. Disregarding the work of climatologists as inconclusive, nitpicking at scientific data, and spreading misleading or outdated information, groups opposing Kyoto have had much success in clouding the public's ability to make an informed decision on the issue.
In recent years, a mountain of evidence has been accumulating behind the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Even as scientific foundations have been growing more firm, it has become increasingly easy to witness the realities of the greenhouse effect without complex science.
A report appeared in Science in March, stating that the Greenland Ice Sheet is shrinking at a rate of approximately 224 cubic kilometres per year. This rate has doubled since 1996, and to put the number in perspective, the city of Los Angeles consumes one cubic kilometres of water per year. If Greenland's ice were to melt and drain into the ocean, it would cause sea levels to rise between five and ten metres, displacing millions of people. And as ice reflects more of the sun's energy than land or water, the melting ice caps only serve to hasten climate change.
The melting of polar ice is symptomatic of the real problem: increasing world temperatures. This has been recorded as a 0.63 ºC rise in temperatures since the industrial revolution. Nine out of ten of the hottest years ever recorded have come since 1990. This is logical given that the vast majority of fossil fuels ever burned have been burned in the last few decades. Warm temperatures in recent years have also contributed to the rise in hurricanes, which need warm ocean temperatures to grow.
Other evidence, less observable in nature, has also accumulated in labs and observatories around the world. When climatologist Charles Keeling started recording atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in the late ’50s, carbon dioxide made up just over 300 parts per million. His now-famous Keeling curve shows that, presently, the number is approaching 400 ppm. So, it should have been no surprise when NASA scientist James Hansen and his colleagues released a report last year showing that the earth is now absorbing more energy from the sun than it is returning to space. With the earth gaining energy every year, temperatures can only move upwards.
As the evidence supporting climate change has grown, groups working to cast doubt on the theory have been pulling quiet U-turns. First, several years ago, the Global Climate Coalition – a consortium of major oil, car and chemical corporations, assembled to cast doubt on climate change – fell apart, as supporting scientific evidence mounted and as companies realized that the cost of reducing carbon emissions was not as severe as had been estimated. Additionally, within the last year, president Bush, perhaps the world's most recognized climate change skeptic, conceded that human-generated carbon dioxide is the only logical cause of the amassing evidence.
But, even after most skeptics have quietly withdrawn their criticism, their misplaced attitudes and misleading information linger on within the general public. Mr. Bush did not exactly proclaim his conversion to the world, and his following policy was of the same breed of indifference shown by our prime minister.
The earth has warmed and cooled before. It has survived ice ages and climatic swings. Ice caps will melt, temperatures go up and down and hurricanes follow a natural cycle of increase and decrease. Alone these factors only warrant a small increase of attention. But as humanity pumps an ever-increasing amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, these factors have begun to coincide just as scientists have been predicting, and the rapidity of the current shift is like nothing the earth has seen before.
The issue of climate change is not a clear one. The damage that may come from global warming can only be estimated using scientific models, with consequences ranging from the end of civilization to improved farm land in cold areas such as Canada and desertification in warmer areas. The way humanity moves forward now is to be decided by our governments and our citizens. But the time for shoulder shrugging is over, the molehill that was climate change has turned into a mountain. What we are going to do about it remains up for debate but the fact that it is happening does not.
Jesse Keith is an engineer and economist who lives and works in Calgary. |
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