February 26, 2005

 

                               GLOBAL WARMING B THE REAL, IMPLACABLE

                     BUT UNMENTIONABLE ENEMY OF THE UNITED STATES?

 

THE EVIDENCE FOR GLOBAL WARMING

1.                  Carbon Dioxide

During the 10,000 years prior to the late 19th century, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was constant at 280 parts per million (ppm).  In the late 19th century B concurrent with industrialization by means of the use of first coal, and then oil B the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide began to rise.  Today, its level is 379 ppm (pp. 31 and 160).

 

2.                  The Atmosphere

From 1900 to 1975, the earth was warming at a rate of one degree Centigrade per century.  From 1976 to 2000, it warmed at the rate of 3 degrees Centigrade per century. 

 

During the 20th century, the average global temperature rose by one degree Fahrenheit.  In Alaska, from 1971 to 2001, mean summer temperature rose by 5 degrees, and mean winter temperature by10 degrees Fahrenheit (pp. 29, 33, 172-173 and 183). 

 

3.                  The Oceans

a.                   Warming: Between 1950 and 2000, the oceans warmed by about 0.1 degree Centigrade per year, down to a depth of 3,000 meters (pp. 29-30).

 

b.                  Acidification: Due to their absorption of carbon dioxide, the world=s oceans are becoming increasingly acid.  After the last ice age (the Pleistocene Epoch), 10,000 years ago, the pH of the oceans was 8.3.  It decreased slowly over the course of 9,850 years, so that by the beginning of the industrial era, it was 8.2.  Since then, in just a little more than a century, it has dropped to 8.1 (pp. 9 and 89-90). 

 

c.                   Changes in Salinity: From 1987 to 2002, rates of evaporation B  driven by global warming B have increased the salinity of tropical waters by 10 percent.  In a vicious cycle, increased evaporation puts more water vapor in the atmosphere, which traps in more heat, thus increasing evaporation and water salinity (pp. 59 and 92). 

 

The salinity of the North Atlantic is decreasing due to additional fresh water from melting glaciers and sea ice B a change also part of a vicious cycle (see under Present Effects, The Oceans) (p. 91).

 

 

 

 

PRESENT EFFECTS

1.         The Earth=s Ice Cover

d.                  The Larsen Ice Shelf B: In the Antarctic, in the spring of 2002, the Larsen Ice Shelf B, about the size of Rhode Island, collapsed.  It was the third  piece of the Antarctic ice shelf to disintegrate since 1995 (p. 20).

 

e.                   The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf: In the eastern Arctic, 500 miles from the North Pole, on the edge of Canada=s Ellesmere Island, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf had been, until 1980, the largest ice shelf in the Arctic.  It was 3,000 years old, had an area of 150 square miles, and was 150 feet thick.

 

In September 2003, due to the warming of surface waters, the Shelf, by then only 80 feet thick, broke in two.  As a consequence of its breaking, a massive freshwater lake which had been held back by the ice, drained away (pp. 8-9 and 19-20). 

 

On average, the Arctic Ocean ice cover is disappearing at the rate of almost one percent per year (p. 21).

 

f.                   The Greenland Ice Sheet: Since 1993, the Greenland Ice Sheet, the largest glacier on the planet, has been losing three cubic miles of ice a year B enough to cover the state of Maryland with a foot of ice.  Meltwater from its surface is now trickling down to its base, lubricating the bedrock on which it sits (pp. 20-21).           

 

g.                  The Andes: Glaciers around Chacaltaya, the highest mountain in Bolivia, are retreating at the rate of about 30 feet a year.  Rural mountain communities in that country and in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, are losing water for both irrigation and drinking (pp. 2 and 21).

 

h.                  Glacier National Park: In the 19th century, Glacier National Park, in Montana, United States, had about 150 glaciers.  Today, it has only 35 (p. 21). 

 

 

 

 

2.         The Oceans

i.                    Disruption of Deep Water Currents: Global warming is slowing the normal flow of ocean currents which transport warm water to the North Atlantic and temper the climate of northern Europe and northern North America (pp. 87 and 90).

 

The salinity of the North Atlantic is decreasing due to additional fresh water from melting glaciers and sea ice.  In 2002, the rate at which surface water was sinking in the Greenland Sea was 20 percent slower than in the 1970's.  This slowing decreases the ocean circulation which transports warm water to the North Atlantic.  At present, the decrease in salinity of the North Atlantic is approaching a level very close to the critical point at which the Greenland Sea surface water will stop sinking completely.  Should this happen, then within a short time, northern Europe (including Britain) and northern North America would be plunged into a deep freeze.  In a vicious cycle, the decreased ocean circulation causes the less salty Gulf Stream waters to flow northward, thus exacerbating the freshening of the North Atlantic (pp. 90-92). 

 

This type of cataclysmic event took place about 11,000 years ago, changing Britain=s climate to that of Greenland.  The entire change took place in about four years (p. 90).

 

j.                    Increase in El Nino: In the last century, El Nino was more intense than in the past 130,000 years.  In the mid-1970's, its frequency began to increase from a previous average of about one every seven years.  In 1997-1998, El Nino was the most severe on record  (pp. 87-89).

 

El Nino is basically the ocean=s mechanism for expelling stored heat.  Heat accumulates in the oceans, is recycled through a complex system of currents toward the poles, and then surfaces periodically as a warm pool in the western Pacific.  The heat is then released into the atmosphere, and El Nino is replaced by La Nina, which consists of a pool of cooler Pacific surface water (p. 87).

 

k.                  Rising Water Levels: Rising sea levels are forcing the evacuation of whole island nations, such as the Duke of York Islands, near Papua New Guinea, and Tuvalu (pp. 2, 145 and 171-172).

 

 

 

 

 

l.                    Displacement of Marine Species: Rising water temperatures are changing the composition of marine populations dramatically:

i.                    Collapse of the North Sea Ecosystem: The unprecedented heating of the waters has driven the cold-water species of the plankton hundreds of miles to the north.  They have been replaced by warm-water species which are both smaller and less nutritious.  Without sufficient nutrition from this microscopic but vital food, the entire marine food chain has been disrupted.  Fish stocks and sea bird populations have slumped (pp. 7 and 65-66).

 

ii.                  The Tejo River Estuary: In Portugal=s Tejo River estuary, the largest in Western Europe, species of cold-water fish, such as flounder and red mullet, have almost disappeared in the last 20 years.  The number of warm-water fish, such as dogfish and Senegal Sea bream, has vastly increased (p. 63).

 

iii.                The Pacific Ocean: Pacific salmon may no longer find a suitable habitat in the Pacific Ocean (p. 64).

 

iv.                The Marine Food Chain: Effects of the warming climate are appearing across the marine food chain, from plankton, penguins and polar bears to fisheries (p. 64).

 

e.                   Marine Diseases: Ocean warming has triggered the emergence, or resurgence, of diseases affecting marine life, and has contributed to the extinction of a species of sea urchins in the Caribbean, the destruction of corals and sea grasses, an increase in blooms of toxic algae, the spread of a form of distemper among seals in Antarctica and in Lake Baikal, and viral disease outbreaks among porpoises and dolphins (pp. 3 and 65).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.         Weather Extremes

One of the first signs of early-stage global warming is an increase in weather extremes B longer droughts and more heat waves, floods, heavy rainfalls, tropical storms and hurricanes (pp. 3, 6 and 76). 

 

The following are a few examples from 2002 and 2003. 

In 2002:  

a.         In the United States:

As of June 2003, mosquitoes had spread the West Nile virus to 42 states, and had affected more than 230 species of animals, birds and insects (pp. 2, 79, 122 and 144).

 

Locally transmitted cases of malaria were diagnosed in northern Virginia (p. 79 and 124 ).

 

Drought conditions occurred in over half of the country (p. 79). 

 

b.                  In western United States and northern Canada, wildfires consumed more than five million acres (p. 79). 

 

c.                   In India

i.          A heat wave killed more than 1,000 people.

 

ii.                  The drying up of hydroelectric sources plunged 235 million people into darkness (p. 79).

 

d.                  In Russia, the Czech Republic and Germany, summer floods were the worst in memory, and inundated whole cities (pp. 2 and 79).

 

e.                   In South Asia, more than 12 million people were displaced by severe flooding (p. 79).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2003:

a.         In the United States, a record-setting number of 412 (or 562) tornadoes leveled whole towns during a ten-day span in May.  (The number was either 412 or 562 B pp. 2 and 79).

 

b.         In Europe, an extraordinary summer time heat wave left 35,000 people dead.  The unusually high mortality rate was attributed to the high carbon levels in the atmosphere which, by trapping heat, prevented the usual night time, stress-relieving cooling.  As the earth temperature rises, night time minimum temperatures rise almost twice as fast as day time maximum temperatures (pp. 8, 26-27, 79 and 126).

 

c.                   In Australia, by the fall of 2003, an 18-month drought in one of Australia=s richest food-growing areas had cut farm incomes in half.  Scientists speculate that the drought may henceforth be a permanent condition due to a tightening and strengthening of the polar wind vortex (pp. 9 and 150). 

 

4.                  Insects

Global warming expands the range of insect habitats, allowing insects to live longer, at more latitudes and at higher altitudes.  Mosquitoes, for instance, which historically were able to survive only at altitudes no higher than 1000 meters, are now spreading malaria, dengue and yellow fever at altitudes of 3,200 meters.

 

Warming also accelerates both the breeding and the biting rates of insects.  In addition, it accelerates the maturation of the pathogens which they carry (pp. 119 and 122). 

e.                   Mosquitoes:

In a vicious cycle, the effects of weather extremes exacerbate the expansion of mosquito habitats due to global warming.  Extended periods of dryness followed by heavy downpours create stagnant pools which become fertile breeding grounds for mosquitoes B transmitters of the West Nile virus and malaria (p. 124).

i.                    In the United States, as of June 2003, mosquitoes had spread the West Nile virus to 42 states and to more than 230 species of animals, birds and other insects (pp. 2, 79, 122 and 144).               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ii.                  Worldwide, malaria quadrupled between 1995 and 2000.  The disease is reappearing both north and south of the tropics (p. 122). 

 

iii.                During the1990's, dengue broadened its range in the Americas, reaching down to Buenos Aires.  It also began appearing in northern Australia (p. 125).

 

f.                   Ticks: In coastal New England and coastal Scandinavia, there has been a substantial increase in tick-born Lyme disease (pp. 125 and 144). 

 

5.                  Plants

a.                   Crops: In 2003, for the first time in recorded history, the world grain consumption exceeded harvest for a fourth year in a row.  The shortfalls were attributed to rising temperatures and falling water tables, both consequences of global warming. 

 

The shortfall in grain yields was as follows:

2000    16 million tons

2001    27 million tons

2002    96 million tons

2003    93 million tons (pp. 7 and 147-148).

 

b.                  Vegetation: The capacity of the world=s forests and grasslands to absorb more carbon dioxide is about exhausted.  Humanity cannot rely on forests to store its excess carbon dioxide (p. 155).         

 

6.                  Animals

Alteration in the timing of the seasons has caused animals to shift north at an average of nearly 0.4 miles per year. 

 

Egg laying is shifting 0.23 days earlier per year.  Animals are migrating, hatching eggs, and bearing young an average of five days earlier than they did at the start of the 20th century (pp. 3 and 33-34).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.                  Humans

a.                   The Displacement of People: The year 2000 saw the permanent evacuation of more than 40,000 people from the Duke of York Islands, off Papua New Guinea, and its neighboring atolls.  The islands are 12 feet above sea level, and the water level is rising by 11.8 inches per year.  A similar evacuation has begun on the island nation of Tuvalu (pp. 2, 145 and 171-172).

 

b.                  Allergies: Climate change is triggering more allergies among humans, as allergens proliferate due to escalating carbon levels (pp. 126 and 144).

 

c.                   Economic Losses: Economic losses from natural catastrophes have increased dramatically:

1950's: $4 billion a year [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2001] (p. 6).

 

1999:              $40 billion (IPCC, 2001) (p. 6).

 

2002:      $55 billion [United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 2003] (pp. 6-7).

 

2003:                  $60 billion (UNEP, 2003) (pp. 6-7).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PREDICTIONS

1.                  The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The IPCC consists of more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries, and is the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history (pp. 5 and 24). 

 

In 2001, the IPCC predicted:                                    

a.                   Rapid Atmospheric Warming: An increase in atmospheric temperature of between 3 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit during the present century (pp. 5, 33 and 183).

 

b.                  Rising Sea Levels: A rise in sea levels, due to the melting of ice sheets, by 34 inches during the present century, resulting in floods which could displace tens of millions of people in low lying areas B China=s Pearl River Delta, much of Bangladesh, and the most densely populated area of Egypt.  Half of the world=s population lives near coastlines (pp. 6 and 21).

 

c.                   Droughts: Severe droughts, likely to parch farmlands and aggravate world hunger (p. 6).

 

d.                  The Spread of Diseases: The spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever (p. 6).

 

e.                   Warming a Danger particularly for the Poor: It is likely that people in countries with limited resources will bear the brunt of the extreme climate changes (p. 6).

 

2.         The Peter Cox Study B the Compounding Rate of Global Warming

In 2001, Peter Cox et al, working in Britain=s principal climate research institute, the Hadley Center, predicted that by approximately 2040, the world=s forests would begin to die off and hence turn from Asinks@ (absorbents of carbon dioxide) to Asources@ (releasers of carbon dioxide) (p. 4).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.         The Hoffert Studies B The Necessary Change in Energy Sources

In 1998, Hoffert et al reported that in order to avoid a doubling B and a possible tripling B of atmospheric carbon levels in the late 21st century, by 2018, humanity will have to get half its energy from non-carbon sources (pp. 4, 139 and 160).

 

In 2002, Hoffert et al reported that, using conservative estimates of future energy use, in order to avoid a catastrophic build-up of atmospheric carbon levels in the late the 21st century, by 2050, humanity will have to be generating at least three times more energy from non-carbon sources than it currently produces from fossil fuels (p. 4).

 

4.                  The ClimatePrediction.net Project: On January 27, 2005, Myles Allen, physicist at Oxford University, and principal investigator in the  ClimatePrediction.net Project, published the Project=s first results in the journal Nature.  Data show that global warming during the present century is likely to be in the range of 2 to 11 degrees Centigrade B at the upper end, almost double the previously accepted range of 2 to 6 degrees (ClimatePrediction.net; Democracy Now).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE POSTURE OF THE UNITED STATES

The Predictions of Science        

1.                  In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted an acceleration of global warming from one degree Fahrenheit during the last century to between 3 and 10 degrees during the present century (pp. 5, 33 and 183).

 

2.                  In January 2005, Oxford physicist Myles Allen predicted an increase of between 2 and 11 degrees Centigrade during the present century (ClimatePrediction.net).

 

3.                  Rising temperatures could doom more than one-third of the planet=s species to extinction by 2050 (p. 36).

 

The Need                                            

Climate stabilization requires that humanity cut its consumption of carbon fuels by about 70 percent in a very short time (pp. xi, 3, 15, 39).

 

Responsibility of The United States

A Major Emitter of Carbon Dioxide: The United States, with 5 percent of the world=s population, generates about 25 percent of the world=s total carbon emissions (p. 11; Human Development Report).

 

Official Knowledge of the Global Warming Crisis:

AAmerican Science@ knows: In early 2001, President George W. Bush declared that he would not accept the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), because the organization represents Aforeign science@ (even though about half of the 2,000 contributing scientists are American).  Instead, he called for a report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) which would provide AAmerican science.@  The subsequent response from the NAS, in June 2001, not only affirmed the findings of the IPCC but indicated that the IPCC may have under-stated the magnitude of some of the impacts of global warming (pp. 69-70). 

 

The Senate knows: In July 2003, Senate Majority Leader William Frist (R-TN) stated that the most likely estimate of the rate of warming during the 21st century is five times the rate experienced during the 20th century (p. 32).

 

 

The Pentagon prepares: As reported in 2003, the Pentagon is preparing for the large-scale political destabilization which a rapid Aclimate snap@ would unleash.  The Pentagon scenario anticipates:

Far more violent storms and more mega-droughts in continental interiors.

 

Masses of refugees from Mexico, South America and the Caribbean swarming U.S. borders in search of food.

 

A deep freeze in Europe, propelling large numbers of people from Scandinavia, Germany and other parts of northen Europe into Spain, Italy and other points south.

 

The devastation of China=s food supplies by increasingly intense monsoons and droughts.

 

The un-inhabitability of Bangladesh due to inland sources of fresh water being contaminated by salt water, due to rising ocean levels.

 

Wars between countries over dwindling amounts of arable land, shrinking supplies of potable water, and increasingly scarce  climatically hospitable territory (p. 131).

 

The Stalling of President George W. Bush

1.                  No More Caps on Emissions: In February 2001, a month after his inauguration, President George W. Bush reversed his campaign promise to cap emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants (pp. 41 and 94).

 

2.                  No More Regulations of Emissions: In mid-March 2001, Bush announced that he would no longer seek to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants (p. 94).

 

3.                  The Kyoto Protocol: At the end of March 2001, Bush withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Protocol negotiations (pp. 41, 60, 95 and 103).

 

 

4.                  More Coal Power Plants: In May 2001, Bush unveiled his energy plan which calls for the construction of 1,300 to 1,900 new power plants, most of them powered by coal, the fuel which is most carbon-intensive (pp. 41 and 46). 

 

5.                  No Kyoto until 2012: In May 2002, Harlan Watson, the Administration=s chief climate negotiator, declared that the United States would not engage the Kyoto process until 2012 (pp. 49-50).

 

6.                  Greenhouse Gas AIntensity@: In early 2003, President Bush announced a plan for companies to voluntarily reduce the greenhouse gas Aintensity@ of their activities by 18 percent before 2013.  The Aintensity@ of carbon emissions is very different from the quantity of carbon emission.  It reflects the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic output, not total output of carbon dioxide.  Given the projected increase in the nation=s economic output, the Bush plan would allow greenhouse gas emissions to increase by about 1.4 percent per year during the ten years of the plan B only marginally less than would have been expected in the absence of an intensity-reduction arrangement (pp. 103-104).

 

7.                  Scuttling the Circulation of a National Assessment: AThe U.S. National Assessment on Climate Change,@ is the work of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, headed by Michael MacCracken, in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  It was published during the Clinton Administration.

 

In the spring of 2003, the White House secretly requested the politically conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to sue it B the White House B in order to have the assessment withdrawn from circulation (pp. 48 and 56-58).

 

Editing out Global Warming: In the summer of 2003, the White House altered a climate report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), editing out all references to the dangerous impacts of climate change in the United States (p. 42).

 

Unilateralism prevails: The Bush administration has turned its back not only on the Kyoto Protocol but also on four other major international compacts B the International Criminal Court, the Ban on Anti-personnel Land Mines, the Biodiversity Treaty, and the Biological Weapons Control Treaty (p. 99).

 

MY CONCLUSIONS

A major discontinuity is inevitable.  Millions and perhaps billions will die from the effects of global warming (p. 16).

 

The Bush administration knows it and the Pentagon is preparing it.

 

Publically, Bush is denying it.  Bush consistently understates or denies the ominous nature of global warming.  In this, he has the help of the coal and oil industries, and that of the U.S. media which rarely make a connection between extreme weather events and the warming of the earth (pp. 67-85).

 

The Bush administration has decided to fight for its survival, and the survival of a chosen (rich) few against the millions who will suffer and die during the present century, as a result of the now probably already out-of-control global warming.  The AThird World War@ B the fight to survive global warming B will be one in which countries with access to oil will have a definite advantage over those without oil, since world peak oil production is even at present occurring.  Bush=s present small wars B Afghanistan, Iraq and others B will provide the United States (or at least its elite few) with the last drop of oil during the upcoming period of climate chaos.  A close relationship with Israel will help provide control over the Middle East.  Apart from the relationship with Israel, unilateralism is the order of the day.

 

Domestically, the crowd-control weapons now being developed will be used.

 

The new nuclear weapons now being developed will be necessary.  President Bush has declared that he would use nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear countries (Caldicott). 

 

Control of space will be essential and is now being developed through the National Missile Defense Program (NMD, AStar Wars@).  AFull spectrum@ dominance of the earth is the objective. 

 

There is no question of really helping the un-industrialized countries  industrialize or even have democracy, for then, they would no doubt ask for their fair share of oil and might even be able to fight for their own survival in the midst of the ravages inflicted by global warming.

 

The AThird World War@ will be a massacre B not a war in the proper sense of the word.  Global warming is the real, implacable but unmentionable enemy of the United States at the present time.

 

 

 

 

                                                                     References

 

All page numbers refer to:

Gelbspan, Ross, Boiling Point B How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists are fueling the Climate Crisis, and what we can do to avert Disaster (Basic Books/Perseus, New York, N.Y.), 2004.

 

Except for the following:

Caldicott, Helen, AFour Minutes to Midnight,@ interview by Bonnie Faulkner at the end of 2004, TUC Radio, February 25, 2005.

 

ClimatePrediction.net/newb.php, January 27, 2005.

 

Democracy Now, January 28, 2005.

 

United Nations Human Development Programme, Human Development Report 2003 B Millennium Development Goals, A Compact among Nations to end Human Poverty, (Oxford University Press, New York, N.Y.), 2003, pp. 250, 253 and 300.

(In 2001, the United States=s population was 4.69 percent of the world total B 288.0 million out of a world population of 6.148.1 million.  In 1999, the United States= carbon dioxide emission was 23.2 percent of the world total).

 

In addition, for graph on page 21, and bar diagrams on pages 22 and 23 of the present document:

Heinberg, Richard, The Party=s Over B Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (New Society, Gabriola Island, BC, Canada), 2003, pp. 134 and 140.

 

United States Geological Survey, U.S. Energy and World Energy Statistics, 1998.

Http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/energy/stats_ctry/Stat1.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

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