Six Degrees Could Change the World

I watched National Geographic Channel's "Six Degrees Could Change the World" last week and still have it very much on my mind. It is powerfully graphic with estimates of what could happen to the natural systems on the planet after each degree rise of Earth's average temperature up to six degrees warmer.

At one degree rise, scientists predict the plains of the western US will become hyper arid, wiping out grazing and dry land farming in the region. At two degrees, the Midwest would be a dust bowel. As the average temperature rises, areas of the world that are now productive agricultural land will see great reductions in productivity and areas such as northern Canada will become the new breadbaskets to the world. It hasn't been until recently that science has had computers powerful enough to develop models that could help in predicting the consequences of global warming, but knowledge of the fundamental principle of heat trapping emissions and their influence on Earth's temperature has been around since 1896.

One degree, or even six degrees doesn't seem like it could impact something as complex as nature. I certainly can't discern the difference between 50 and 51 degrees from one day to the next and our daily temperatures can fluctuate nearly one hundred degrees in a single day. But we are talking averages here, and in the case of climate change, scientists use air temperatures on land and the temperature of the ocean in determining the average degree of the earth, which is calculated on the Celsius scale. I never took a class in statistics, but in reasoning through what I learned way back in high school, when dealing with a lot of numbers it takes major change in many of the numbers to change the average significantly. Also, while air temperature fluctuates wildly on a daily basis, water requires significant amounts of energy to raise its temperature, especially when you are considering the volume of water Earth's oceans contain. I'd love to see a mathematician's explanation of just how big a change it takes to move the average temperature one degree.

Reliable data concerning global temperatures has only been available since the late 1800's. Since that time Earth's average temperature has changed just about .8 degrees--in part because the industrial revolution caused humans to start burning fossil fuels in large amounts. The last time it changed that much in my region, it took thousands of years to change, but the results were the same--the desertification of the western plains. When the earth's temperature changed as much as six degrees during the age of dinosaurs, it caused their extinction and required hundreds of millions of years for the Earth to sequester the increased amount of carbon from its atmosphere to create the environment with which humans are familiar. So temperature change isn't unprecedented on our planet, but the rapidity of change is. More information is available on the website of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

NGC's program made a profound impression on me because it translated an obscure set of statistics into concrete possibilities. Ever increasing severity of weather could cause massive starvation and relocation of hundreds of millions of people, the extinction of thousands of plants and animals, along with the economic and political fallout that results from the ensuing turmoil. It's not the kind of world I wish upon my daughter and her descendants. You can read about some of the schemes to reverse global warming here--all of which would cost billions and have potentially serious unintended consequences.

For anyone unable to watch the program--it is available on cable's National Geographic Channel (check times for your area here)--I will send a copy on DVD to anyone pledging to show it to at least ten people and am happy to send multiple copies to anyone who feels inspired to expose greater numbers to this information. Just email me with your mailing address at dryideas AT gmail DOT com. With the election coming up in November, it's important to understand the immediacy of this problem and work to ensure elected officials place a priority on climate change.

Photo: Thanks to catchke2ro