| The biggest catastrophe the planet faces when it comes to climate change isn’t flooding caused by the ocean levels rising, but the fact that humans are going to start running out of food, argues internationally renowned freelance journalist Gwynne Dyer. A Fast Forward columnist, Dyer will be in Calgary on March 8 to give a lecture called "The Climate Wars."
"The principal problem that comes out of climate change isn’t the glaciers melting or, in 200 years, the sea is a metre deeper. It is actually that the rainfall patterns change right now…. Where we grow most of our food gets drier, in some cases a great deal drier. The desert zones expand," says Dyer.
Dyer says he has been interviewing experts about climate change for the last 20 years and is becoming increasingly "scared" about where the planet is heading. In early February the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a major report that predicted temperatures will increase by between 1.1 degrees and 6.4 degrees Celsius by 2100, depending on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are released into the atmosphere. The panel’s "best estimate" was a temperature increase between 1.8 to 4 degrees Celsius.
"What the people I’m talking to are saying is basically we’ve got 6.5 billion people on the planet right now. We’re heading for 8 billion minimum by the end of this century and we are basically just about covering their nutritional needs thanks to the green revolution and farming practically everything you can farm with huge inputs in terms of energy, nitrogen for fertilizers, fuel for tractors and all the rest of it," says Dyer.
However, if much of the planet’s prime agricultural land becomes desert, humans will no longer be able to feed themselves, he says.
"The principal source of refugees now is food scarcity. It will continue to be but there will be a hell of a lot more of them," says Dyer.
"Africa’s screwed. A lot of other places are screwed as well. A lot of India is screwed. A great deal of China is screwed. The Mediterranean countries are screwed."
Dyer says Canada’s prairie provinces will also likely become much drier, threatening agriculture here. However, he says Canada may actually benefit from climate change overall because agriculture could become viable much further north due to increased temperatures. He says Canada’s biggest problem will be the situation in the U.S.
"The extreme projections suggest that very little except the Pacific Northwest retains its ability to grow the kind of crops it grows now," says Dyer. The U.S. will become increasingly dependent on Canada for water. "Water is going to be as important as natural gas or oil," he says. "Countries need to make every effort to reduce greenhouse gas emission but they should also prepare for the worst.
"There is still room to affect the outcome. It is going to get really rough in the second half of this century no matter what we do now because it’s already too late now to avoid some of these consequences…. Actually (reducing greenhouse gas emissions) this year is twice as good as doing it in five years’ time. It’s gotten urgent, and the longer you put it off the more gently you phase it in the bigger your problem is, because it’s cumulative," says Dyer.
Dyer says the planet won’t survive climate change by trying to move back to a pre-industrial society but instead by harnessing technological innovation. Yet there’s no avoiding the need to make major greenhouse gas emission reductions.
"You can make big inroads quickly into how much carbon you’re putting out by just taking some really serious steps towards self-discipline in the way you use energy, but you’re going to have to use technology, too," he says.
Dyer is unimpressed with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s response to the climate change threat so far. "It’s still regarded as a public relations issue," he says.
As for the oilsands, the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, "the oilsands, unfortunately, we must be brutal about this, are the most carbon-intensive way of producing energy known to man."
Dyer says as countries make fighting climate change more and more of a priority, oil from the oilsands will become an increasingly unappetizing source.
"I would say that Alberta really needs to figure out how the tarsands can remain viable as a major source of oil in a regime where the primary consideration is cutting carbon emissions," he says.
Gwynne Dyer will speak at the University of Calgary’s MacEwan Hall Ballroom on March 8 at 8 p.m. |
Copyright ©2007 FFWD. All rights reserved.