Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you’ve
been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we’re
hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to
avert it.
And here’s the thing: I’m not engaging in hyperbole. These days, dire
warnings aren’t the delusional raving of cranks. They’re what come out of the
most widely respected climate models, devised by the leading researchers. The
prognosis for the planet has gotten much, much worse in just the last few
years.
This is exactly what I've concluded over the last few years, as I read and observed with growing alarm. It is without a doubt the most important issue we face, yet it is currently being neglected in Washington, pushed aside by other concerns such as health care and Afghanistan.
In my heart of hearts, I believe Obama feels and knows it to be the most important issue we face, but I think the Washington bubble may have led him to focus on the more near-term things. Understandable, but still a big mistake perhaps. And actually, 'near-term' increasingly describes the effects of climate change.
And we’re not just talking about disasters in the distant future, either.
The really big rise in global temperature probably won’t take place until the
second half of this century, but there will be plenty of damage long before
then.
For example, one 2007 paper in the journal Science is titled
“Model Projections of an Imminent Transition to a More Arid Climate in
Southwestern North America” — yes, “imminent” — and reports “a broad consensus
among climate models” that a permanent drought, bringing Dust Bowl-type
conditions, “will become the new climatology of the American Southwest within a
time frame of years to decades.”
So if you live in, say, Los Angeles, and liked those pictures of red
skies and choking dust in Sydney, Australia, last week, no need to travel.
They’ll be coming your way in the not-too-distant future.
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