Patch Blog: What to Expect From Climate Change (Part I)

Dear Eagle Rock residents,

Almost exactly 158 years ago this month, one of America’s greatest thinkers, Henry David Thoreau, wrote of what he called our “January moods”—a time when “our ice cracks, our sluices break loose [and] thought that was frozen up under stern experience gushes forth in feeling and expression."

Although Thoreau wrote from wintry New England, the mental thaws he alluded to weren’t—strictly speaking—seasonal. Rather, they can be seen as flashes of clarity about our world—aspects of reality that we may have put on ice.

For some time now, I have been in precisely such a January mood—and the core of its presentiment can be summed up in a fact that never ceases to astound me: Our species, which is dwarfed by the vastness of the sky, is capable of not just affecting but perhaps irreversibly altering the Earth's weather.

The Damage

Here, briefly, is what we have wrought: We have literally punched a “hole” measuring thousands of square miles in the sky by the use of certain modern chemicals that “chew up” ozone in the upper atmosphere. Even a small amount of these chemicals, called CFCs, can create so-called ozone holes, causing, among other things, increased skin cancers from harmful sun rays and changes in wind patterns.

We have changed the pH of rain by releasing industrial sulfates that end up in clouds. Result? Hundreds of lakes in the U.S. and Canada have been sterilized and the respiratory health of millions has been diminished.

Scientists have painstakingly discovered the causes of these alarming changes. Knowing society's role in creating these problems allowed regulations to be crafted that have helped reverse these conditions, although not entirely. 

So, thank you Dr. Luis Alvarez (Nobel Laureate) and others who did the brilliant, meticulous studies to uncover the causes of these conditions. Your training and careful thinking saved many lives. The hole in the sky is healing.

Can we, a mere species, change the temperature of Earth's climate as well? Yes we can—and indeed have. As I argued in my previous blog, not a single well-established scientific body worldwide disputes this, and more than 30,000 data sets support that conclusion.

'The Elder Brother's Warning'

Climate change was first suspected around the turn of the 20th century. A little too late, I was first alerted to its effects in the 1990s, when I was teaching Environmental Science at Lincoln High School in Los Angeles. I discovered a BBC documentary titled “From the Heart of the World—The Elder Brother's Warning.” The film is about a little-known group, the Kogi, an indigenous people living apart in the mountains of northern Colombia.

They are a unique culture. Unknown to the Conquistadors and studied only briefly by anthropologists, in 1990-1991 they invited us into their lands to deliver a message to us. They called us "the Younger Brother."

They could see that something was wrong with their mountains—the heart of their world. The snows had stopped falling and the rivers were not so full. If their mountains were ill, then the whole world was in trouble, they believed.

The snows had stopped falling. Never had that happened in their cultural memory—not for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years. And they claimed (and were correct) that we, the Younger Brother, had caused it.

What changes have we caused already? How extensive will future changes be? Increases in average global temperatures have added—to our grief—many billions of dollars of additional damage from the extreme weather events of the last few years. Did you know, to cite just one among many examples of the havoc we have unleashed, that our planet has broken more heat records than cold records by a factor of 11? 

'Bad' News can be 'Good' News

Take a look at this alarming study by the Union of Concerned Scientists about the impact of global warming on California weather. (As a grownup, I would rather be bummed out by the truth than jollied by nonsense. Then, I might do something constructive.)

What are the human and financial costs? And, how would reversing our current fatal trajectory affect our economy?

All predictions are speculative, to be sure, but some predictions are, in fact, coming true. And there are some surprises as well, such as increased snow pack in Antarctica. 

I can only scratch the surface in my blogs. The changes are vast, beyond imagining. But I will try to use the best thinking of the science community. Scientists, after all, are trained skeptics.

And, btw, let's empower those who are serious about making serious changes—whatever their ideological bent. The year 2012 is a good time to pay attention!