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From: "NHNE News" <news@nhne.org>
A DYING PLANET
By Chris Flavin
TomPaine.com / Common Dreams
Monday, July 24, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views06/0724-32.htm
Weather-related disasters like Hurricane Katrina -- or the
intense heat wave
now hitting the United States -- are on the rise. The toll of
these
catastrophes is exacerbated by growing ecological stresses and
the future
health of the global economy. The stability of nations will be
shaped by our
ability to address the huge imbalances in natural systems that
now exist.
While governments and businesses around the world are beginning
to take
action to stem the damage, our future demands more aggressive
responses.
Earlier this month, we at the Worldwatch Institute
<http://www.worldwatch.org/> released a new report, "Vital Signs
2006-2007"
<http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4344>, examining trends that
point to
unprecedented levels of commerce and consumption, set against a
backdrop of
ecological decline in a world powered overwhelmingly by fossil
fuels. In
2005, the average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration
increased 0.6
percent over the high in 2004, representing the largest annual
increase ever
recorded. The average global temperature reached 14.6 degrees
Celsius,
making 2005 the warmest year ever recorded on the Earthıs
surface.
Our report shows that some 40 percent of the worldıs coral reefs
have been
damaged or destroyed, water withdrawals from rivers and lakes
have doubled
since 1960, and species are becoming extinct at as much as 1,000
times the
natural rate. While ecosystems can be overexploited for long
periods of time
with little visible effect, many ultimately reach a ³tipping
point² after
which they begin to collapse rapidly, with far-reaching
implications for all
who depend on them.
Abrupt change was evident in southern Louisiana and Mississippi
in 2005. For
decades, the flow of the Mississippi River had been altered, the
wetlands at
its mouth destroyed, and massive amounts of water and oil
extracted from
beneath the delta. Only an unheeded minority noticed that this
gradual
destruction of natural systems had left New Orleans as
vulnerable as a
sword-wielding soldier on todayıs high-tech battlefields. Thanks
to a
combination of human and geological causes, a city that was at
sea level
when the first settlers arrived in the 18th century had sunk as
much as a
meter below that level when the hurricane season began in 2005.
Weather-related catastrophes have jumped from an average of 97
million a
year in the early 1980s to 260 million a year since 2001. This
mounting
disaster toll has several causes, including rapid growth in the
human
population and the even more dramatic growth in human numbers
and
settlements along coastlines and in other vulnerable areas.
Climate change may be contributing to the rising tide of
disasters as well,
according to several scientific studies published in 2005. Three
of the 10
strongest hurricanes ever recorded occurred last year, and the
average
intensity of hurricanes is increasing, recent research
concludes.
This is not surprising, considering the main ³fuel² driving
hurricanes is
warm water. Temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were at
record-high levels in
the summer of 2005, turning Hurricane Katrina in just over 48
hours from a
low-level Category 1 hurricane to the strongest Atlantic storm
ever
recorded. (In September 2005, Hurricanes Wilma and Rita each
broke Katrinaıs
record as the strongest storm ever in that region.)
Yet all of this is merely a foreshadowing of what is to come.
The
concentration of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that is
driving
climate change, has reached its highest level in 600,000 years,
and the
annual rate of increase in cardon dioxide levels is
accelerating, according
to atmospheric measurements taken in 2005.
Scientists are beginning to shed their usual reserve in the face
of
ever-more alarming evidence. In early 2006 James Hansen, the
lead climate
researcher at NASA, and five other top climate scientists warned
that
³additional global warming of more than 1 degree C above the
level of 2000
will constitute dangerousı climate change as judged from likely
effects on
sea level and extermination of species.²
If either the Greenland or the West Antarctic ice sheet were to
melt,
hundreds of millions of coastal residents would be displaced --
effects a
thousand times the scale of the New Orleans evacuations. In the
Shanghai
metropolitan area alone, 40 million people could lose their
homes. Large
sections of Floridaıs peninsula would simply disappear.
If melting ice and catastrophic storms are not enough to bring
on an energy
transition, the oil market is offering a helping hand. Oil
prices in 2005
and early 2006 gyrated wildly, flirting several times with over
$70 a
barrel, the highest prices in real terms in more than 20 years.
The cause is
simple: geologists are no longer finding enough oil to replace
the 83
million barrels being extracted each day.
However, the reality of a new energy era has begun to sink in.
In the United
States, sales of large sport utility vehicles have plummeted,
while those of
hybrid-electric cars have doubled in little more than a year.
And in China,
government leaders have responded to rising fuel prices by
increasing the
tax on large vehicles and mandating higher levels of efficiency.
None of this has yet been sufficient to bring energy markets
into balance.
But signs are now growing that the world is on the verge of an
energy
revolution. The already-rapid growth of renewable energy
industries has
accelerated in the past year, with ethanol production increasing
19 percent,
wind power capacity 24 percent, and solar cell production 45
percent.
The energy technology growth surge is propelled by scores of new
government
policies and by surging private investment. And it is attracting
major
commitments by multinational companies such as General Electric,
Siemens,
and Sharp, while also becoming one of the hottest fields for
venture
capitalists, who are financing scores of small start-up firms.
Even oil
companies are getting into the act: BP and Shell are both
investing in solar
energy and wind power.
These developments are impressive and are likely to provoke
far-reaching
changes in world energy markets within the next five years. But
the change
is still not fast enough to bring on the broader changes in the
global
economy that could stave off imminent ecological and economic
crises.
Government leaders and private citizens will have to mobilize in
an
unprecedented way if we are to have any chance of passing a
healthy and
secure world on to the next generation.
...........
Chris Flavin is president of the Worldwatch Institute. Next
month, the
Institute's World Watch magazine will publish a special issue
devoted to the
lessons of Hurricane Katrina.
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