THE SLOW AWAKENING
In 1981, when I was in my midtwenties, I climbed Mt. Albert Edward, one of the
highest peaks on the verdant island of New Guinea. Although only seventy-four
miles from Papua New Guinea’s national capital, Port Moresby, the region around
Mt. Albert Edward is so rugged that the last significant biological work
conducted there was by an expedition from the American Museum of Natural History
in the early 1930s.
The bronzed grasslands were a stark contrast to the green jungle all around, and
among the tussocks grew groves of tree ferns, whose lacy fronds waved above my
head. Wallaby tracks threaded from the forest edge to the herb fields that
flourished in damp hollows, and the scratchings and burrows of yard long rats
and the traces where long-beaked echidnas had probed for worms were everywhere.
Many of these creatures, I later discovered, were unique to such alpine regions.
Downslope, the tussock grassland ended abruptly at a stunted, mossy forest. A
single step could carry you from sunshine into the dank gloom, where the pencil-
thin saplings on the margin were so festooned with moss, lichens, and filmy
ferns that they ballooned to the diameter of my waist. In the leaf litter on the
forest floor, I was surprised to find the trunks of dead tree ferns. Tree ferns
grew only in the grassland, so here was clear evidence that the forest was
colonizing the slope from below. Judging from the distribution of the tree fern
trunks, it had swallowed at least thirty yards of grassland in less time than it
takes for a tree fern to rot on the damp forest floor-a decade or two
at most.
Why was the forest expanding? As I pondered the moldering trunks I remembered
reading that New Guinea’s glaciers were melting. Had the temperature on Mt.
Albert Edward warmed enough to permit trees to grow where previously only
grasses could take root? And, if so, was this evidence of climate change? My
doctoral studies were in paleontology, so I knew how important changes in
climate have been in determining the fate of species. But this was the first
evidence I’d seen that it might affect Earth during my lifetime. The experience
left me troubled; I knew there was something wrong but not quite what it was.
Despite the good position I was in to understand the significance of these
observations, I soon forgot about them. This was partly because, as I studied
the various ancient ecosystems that our generation has inherited, seemingly
bigger and more urgent issues demanded my attention. And some of the crises did
seem dire: The rain forests that I was studying were being felled for timber and
to make agricultural land, and the larger animal species living there were being
hunted to extinction. In my own country of Australia, rising salt was
threatening to destroy the most fertile soils, while overgrazing, degradation of
waterways, and the logging of forests all threatened precious ecosystems and
biodiversity. To me these were the truly pressing issues.
Whether we are crossing the road or paying the bills, it is the big, fast-moving
things that command our attention. But seemingly large issues sometimes turn out
to be a sideshow. The Y2K bug is one such example. Around the globe many
governments and companies spent billions to prepare themselves against the
threat, while others spent nothing; and 1999 gave way to 2000 with barely a
hiccup, let alone an apocalypse. A skeptical eye is our greatest asset in
dealing with this type of “problem.” And deep skepticism has a particularly
important role to play in science, for a theory is only valid for as long as it
has not been disproved. Scientists are in fact trained skeptics, and this
eternal questioning of their own and others’ work may give the impression that
you can always find an expert who will champion any conceivable view.
While such skepticism is the lifeblood of science, it can have drawbacks when
society is called on to combat real dangers. For decades both the tobacco and
asbestos industries found scientists prepared publicly to be doubtful about
discoveries linking their products with cancer. A non-specialist cannot know
whether the view being presented is fringe or mainstream thinking, and so we may
come to believe that there is a real division in the scientific community on
these matters. In the case of asbestos and tobacco, the situation was made worse
because cancers often appear years after exposure to carcinogenic products, and
no one can say for certain just who, among the many exposed, will be struck
down. By creating doubt about the link between their products and cancer, the
tobacco and asbestos companies enjoyed decades of fat profits, while millions of
people met terrible deaths.
And many people have reacted with rightful caution to news about climate change.
After all, we have in the past got things badly wrong.
In the 1972 publication The Limits to Growth, the Club of Rome told us
the world was running out of resources and predicted catastrophe within decades.
In an era of excessive consumption this imagined drought of raw materials
gripped the public imagination, even though no one knew with any degree of
certainty what volume of resources lay hidden in the earth. Subsequent
geological exploration has revealed just how wide of the mark our estimates of
mineral resources were back then, and even today no one can accurately predict
the volume of oil, gold, and other materials beneath our feet.
The climate change issue is different. It results from air pollution, and the
size of our atmosphere and the volume of pollutants that we are pouring into it
are known with great precision. The debate now, and the story I want to explore
here, concerns the impacts of some of those pollutants (known as greenhouse
gases) on all life on Earth.
Is climate change a terrible threat or a beat-up? A bang or a whimper? Perhaps
it’s something in between-an issue that humanity must eventually face, but not
yet. The world’s media abound with evidence to support any of these views. Yet
perusing that same media makes one thing clear: Climate change is difficult for
people to evaluate dispassionately because it entails deep political and
industrial implications, and because it arises from the core processes of our
civilization’s success. This means that, as we seek to address this problem,
winners and losers will be created. The stakes are high, and this has led to a
proliferation of misleading stories as special interest groups argue their case.
What’s more, climate change is a breaking story. Just over thirty years ago the
experts were at loggerheads about whether Earth was warming or cooling-unable
to decide whether an icehouse or a greenhouse future was on the way. By
1975, however, the first sophisticated computer models were suggesting that a
doubling of carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) in the atmosphere would lead to an
increase in global temperature of around five degrees Fahrenheit. Still, concern
among both scientists and the community was not significant. There was even a
period of optimism, when some researchers believed that extra C[O.sub.2] in the
atmosphere would fertilize the world’s croplands and produce a bonanza for
farmers.
But by 1988 climate scientists had become sufficiently worried about C[O.sub.2] to
establish a panel, staffed with the world’s leading experts, to report twice
each decade on the issue. Their third report, issued in 2001, sounded a note of
sober alarm-yet many governments and industry leaders were slow to take an
interest. Because concern about climate change is so new, and the issue is so
multidisciplinary, there are few true experts in the field, and even fewer who
can articulate what the problem might mean to the general public and what we
should do about it.
For years I resisted the impulse to devote research time to climate change. I
was busy with other things, and I wanted to wait and see, hoping an issue so big
would sort itself out. Perhaps it would be centuries before we would need to
think intensively about it. But by 2001, articles in scientific journals
indicated that the world’s alpine environments were under severe threat. As I
read them, I remembered those rotting tree fern trunks in Mt. Albert Edward’s
forest, and I knew that I had to learn more. This meant teaching myself about
greenhouse gases, the structure of our atmosphere, and how the industrialized
world powers its engines of growth.
For the last 10,000 years, Earth’s thermostat has been set to an average surface
temperature of around 57°F. On the whole, this has suited our species
splendidly, and we have been able to organize ourselves in a most impressive
manner-planting crops, domesticating animals, and building cities. Finally,
over the past century, we have created a truly global civilization. Given that
in all of Earth history the only other creatures able to organize themselves on
a
similar scale are ants, bees, and termites-which are tiny in comparison and
have concomitantly small resource requirements-this is quite an achievement.
Earth’s thermostat is a complex and delicate mechanism, at the heart of which
lies carbon dioxide, a colorless and odorless gas. C[O.sub.2] plays a critical
role in maintaining the balance necessary to all life. It is also a waste
product of the fossil fuels that almost every person on the planet uses for
heat, transport, and other energy requirements. On dead planets such as Venus
and Mars, C[O.sub.2] makes up most of the atmosphere, and it would do so here if living
things and Earth’s processes did not keep it within bounds. Our planet’s rocks
and waters are packed with carbon itching to get airborne and oxidized. As it
is, C[O.sub.2] makes up around 3 parts per 10,000 in Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a modest
amount, yet it has a disproportionate influence on the planet’s temperature.
Because we create C[O.sub.2] every time we drive a car, cook a meal, or turn on a
light, and because the gas lasts around a century in the atmosphere, the
proportion of C[O.sub.2] in the air we breathe is rapidly increasing.
The institutions at the forefront of climate change research are situated half a
world away from my home in Adelaide, so for a time I flew frequently across the
globe. One night when en route from Singapore to London, as we crossed the
great Eurasian landmass, I looked out of the cabin window at a city illuminated
below. Its network of lights stretched from horizon to horizon, and the lights
burned so bright-with so much energy-as to alarm me. From a height of 33,000
feet the atmosphere seemed so thin and fragile-the breathable part of it lay
16,500 feet below our aircraft. I asked the airline steward where we were. She
gave me the name of a city I didn’t know. With a jolt I realized that the world
is full of such cities, whose fossil-fuel-driven lights cause our planet to
blaze into the night sky.
By late 2004, my interest had turned to anxiety. The world’s leading science
journals were full of reports that glaciers were melting ten times faster than
previously thought, that atmospheric greenhouse gases had reached levels
not seen for millions of years, and that species were vanishing as a result of
climate change. There were also reports of extreme weather events, long-term
droughts, and rising sea levels.
For months I tried to fault the new research findings and discussed them at
length with friends and colleagues. Only a few people seemed aware of the great
changes under way in our atmosphere. And some people I loved and respected
continued doing things-such as buying large cars and air conditioners-that I
now suspected to be very bad indeed.
By the end of the year, however, glimmers of hope were beginning to emerge, with
almost every head of government in the developed world alive to the issue. But
we cannot wait for the issue to be solved for us. The most important thing to
realize is that we can all make a difference and help combat climate change at
almost no cost to our lifestyle. And in this, climate change is very different
from other environmental issues, such as biodiversity loss and the ozone hole.
The best evidence indicates that we need to reduce our C[O.sub.2] emissions by 70
percent by 2050. If you own a four-wheel-drive and replace it with a hybrid fuel
car, you can achieve a cut of that magnitude in a day rather than half a
century. If your electricity provider offers a green option, for the cost of a
daily cup of coffee you will be able to make equally major cuts in your
household emissions. And if you vote for a politician who has a deep commitment
to reducing C[O.sub.2] emissions, you might change the world. If you alone can achieve
so much, so too can every individual and, in time, industry and government on
Earth.
The transition to a carbon-free economy is eminently achievable because we have
all the technology we need to do so. It is only a lack of understanding and the
pessimism and confusion generated by special interest groups that is stopping
us from going forward.
One thing that I hear again and again as I discuss climate change with friends,
family, and colleagues is that it is something that may affect humanity in
decades to come but is no immediate threat to us. I’m far from certain that that
is true, and I’m not sure it is even relevant. If serious change or the effects
of serious change are decades away, that is just a long tomorrow. Whenever my
family gathers for a special event, the true scale of climate change is never
far from my mind. My mother, who was born during the Great Depression-when
motor vehicles and electric lights were still novelties-positively glows in the
company of her grandchildren, some of whom are not yet ten. To see them
together is to see a chain of the deepest love that spans 150 years, for those
grandchildren will not reach my mother’s present age until late this century. To
me, to her, and to their parents, their welfare is every bit as important as
our own. On a broader scale, 70 percent of all people alive today will still be
alive in 2050, so climate change affects almost every family on this planet.
A final issue that looms large in discussions is the one of certainty. Four
nations are yet to sign the Kyoto Protocol limiting C[O.sub.2] emissions: the U.S.A.,
Australia, Monaco, and Liechtenstein. President George W. Bush has said he wants
“more certainty” before he acts on climate change; yet science is about
hypotheses, not truths, and no one can absolutely know the future. But this does
not stop us from making forecasts and modifying our behavior accordingly. If,
for example, we wait to see if an ailment is indeed fatal, we will do nothing
until we are dead. Instead, we take medication or whatever else the doctor
dispenses, despite the fact that we may survive regardless. And when it comes to
more mundane matters, uncertainty hardly deters us: We spend large sums on our
children’s education with no guarantee of a good outcome, and we buy shares with
no promise of a return. Excepting death and taxes, certainty simply does not
exist in our world, and yet we often manage our lives in the most efficient
manner. I cannot see why our response to climate change should be any different.
One of the biggest obstacles to making a start on climate change is that it has
become a cliché before it has even been understood. What we need now is good
information and careful thinking, because in the years to come this issue will
dwarf all the others combined. It will become the only issue. We need to
reexamine it in a truly skeptical spirit-to see how big it is and how fast it’s
moving-so that we can prioritize our efforts and resources in ways that matter.
What follows is my best effort, based on the work of thousands of colleagues, to
outline the history of climate change, how it will unfold over the next century,
and what we can do about it. With great scientific advances being made every
month, this book is necessarily incomplete. That should not, however, be used as
an excuse for inaction. We know enough to act wisely.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from The Weather Makers
by Tim Flannery
Copyright © 2005 by Tim Flannery .
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Grove Atlantic, Inc.
Copyright © 2005
Tim Flannery
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-87113-935-9
