Climate change is not just an abstract, an inconvenience, or a disaster limited to coastal populations or Arctic ice. Peoria is already affected and climate change could hurt us all worse.
The saying “think global, act local” is recalled, but there are no simple or easy answers.
“There is no sound-bite, short way to explain the general situation,” warns Dr. Jeanie Bukowski, Associate Professor at Bradley University’s Institute of International Studies, “and sometimes a little information is even worse than no information at all.”
The effects are profound and obvious, and lead to additional dangers. The Union of Concerned Scientists reported, “The climate of the Midwest has already changed measurably over the last half century. Illinois has been strongly shaped by its climate. However, that climate is changing due to global warming, and unless we make deep and swift cuts in our heat-trapping emissions, the changes ahead could be dramatic.”
Planetary Climate Systems Scientist Dr. Donald J. Wuebbles and others in the Journal of Great Lakes Research wrote, “A slight increase in peak flow amounts in the Illinois River is likely under the lower emissions scenario over the coming century. But a major increase under the higher emissions scenario [would] increase the risk of flooding and associated damages.”
Many experts point to recent summers’ heat waves and droughts, tornadoes and other severe storms, wildfires and water shortages, melting glaciers and drying soils, increasing algae and water temperatures and decreasing health for plants and animals.
In the near future, higher temperatures could mean power shortages, another Dust Bowl, extreme weather damage to roads, bridges and other infrastructure, profound uncertainty for crops and livestock leading to food insecurity, and higher incidence of smog and soot, contributing to adverse effects on people’s health.
“While people might not respond to the global environmental effects of increased temperature, they do tend to respond if these impacts are couched in terms of public health,” said Bukowski, who’s taught courses on climate change and international diplomacy.
The public in general and Illinoisans in particular more and more believe that there’s solid evidence of climate change. After all, “the total combined emissions from eight states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin) would make the Midwest the world’s fourth largest polluter if it were a nation,” the UCS notes.
More than two-thirds of American adults accept the trend and forecast, according to a new survey by Pew Research Center. And the science is winning converts.
Richard Muller of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study (BEST), funded by the extremist conservative Koch brothers, this summer conceded that climate change was real. Calling himself a “converted skeptic,” Muller said, “Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.
“These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming,” he added.
Illinois itself is the sixth largest producer of global warming emissions among all states, but it’s has taken some positive steps: strong renewable energy standards, an energy-efficiency program, and environmentally-conscious building codes for new construction.
However, deniers and apologists remain bold. If they’re ostriches hiding heads in sand, they’re powerful birds. Fox News still lends credence to hose who deny the evidence, recently airing a British tabloid story based on a report by a U.K. agency that criticized the broadcast as misleading.
Besides disinformation and fake science, the most disturbing reaction has been from corporations and their booster, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson suggests that humans will just adapt to changed climate, saying, “Changes to weather patterns that move crop production areas around – we’ll adapt to that.”
The Chamber in a brief filed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency urged officials not to regulate carbon: “Should the world’s scientists turn out to be right and the planet heats up,” the Chamber wrote, “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological and technological adaptations.”
More sober insights come from environmentalist and journalist Bill McKibben, who recently warned about Earth facing three crucial numbers: 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 Fahrenheit), the maximum increase in global temperatures that the planet can tolerate; 565 gigatons (a gigaton is 1 billion metric tons), the most carbon dioxide that can be released into the air by midcentury and remain below the 2-degree mark; and 2,795 gigatons, the amount of proven reserves of coal, oil and gas ready to be burned.
International agreement seems vital but difficult, if not distant.
“First, we can look at climate change as a global collective-goods problem,” says Bukowski, from Bradley. “Most people/governments would like to achieve the good (limiting the effects of climate change), but especially when costs fall unevenly across sovereign states, it may not be in countries’ national interests individually to ‘pay’ for the good.
“Second, [it’s] actually more difficult compared to other environmental issues,” she continued. “For example, unlike the ozone hole (which was solved successfully through the Montreal Protocol that limited CFCs), the main cause of global climate change – burning fossil fuels – is the basis for modern economies. [So] we have fairly certain short-term pain inflicted on powerful industries like petroleum and their workers, while the benefits are less certain and longer term.
“Third,” she added, “the North-South split [has] developed states argue that emerging markets such as China (which recently surpassed the U.S. as the single greatest emitter of carbon dioxide) shouldn’t get a free pass. Developing states respond that the developed world has contributed the most to emissions, so how can the poor states’ development now be limited in order to solve a problem largely caused by the North?
“Fourth, there are divisions within the North and South that affect negotiating positions – for example, the U.S. is less willing to make binding international commitments to reduce greenhouse gases than many of the European states; Saudi Arabia take[s] a much more recalcitrant view on mitigation than states like Costa Rica.
“Regardless of how much the scientific consensus suggests that we need to do something about global climate change,” she concluded, “there is unlikely to be international consensus any time soon.”
There’s a lack of action in Congress as well as globally.
“Republicans and Democrats alike erect roadblocks to understanding climate change,” said Shamus Cooke, an Oregon activist who writes about ecological and economic issues. “By the politicians’ complete lack of action towards addressing the issue, the ‘climate change is fake’ movement was strengthened, since Americans presumed that any sane government would be actively trying to address an issue that had the potential to destroy civilization.”
The press is responsible, too. There’s been a “steep slide” in climate reporting, according to Columbia Journalism Review.
In the Peoria area, “global warming represents an enormous challenge to Illinois’ way of life and its residents’ livelihoods,” the UCS says, “but we can meet this challenge if we act swiftly.”
Henri Grissino-Mayer, a University of Tennessee/ Knoxville geography professor who evaluated how drought affects trees in the Southwest United States with researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey and top universities, publishing their findings in Nature Climate Change, notes the challenge and the consequence.
“We have nothing comparable in the past to today’s environment and certainly tomorrow’s environment,” Grissino-Mayer said. “With increasing drought stress, our forests of tomorrow will hardly resemble our forests of yesterday.”
Contact Bill at: Bill.Knight@hotmail.com. His twice-weekly columns are archived at: billknightcolumn.blogspot.com