[This is blog 2 out of 4 on "Earth Warming, Faith Rising?"]
We now know that the earth’s atmosphere contains at least 40% more carbon dioxide (CO2) than it did at the time of the Industrial Revolution. There are other greenhouse gases too – that is, gases that trap heat within the atmosphere like a shield – such as methane and the chlorofluorocarbons; but CO2 is the chief culprit for the warming of the air and oceans, the changing wind patterns and the greater weather extremes.
National Geographic has a nice summary of current signs of global warming, and some of its likely consequences ahead of us in this century. Among them are a spread of diseases like malaria, a dramatic change in many ecosystems, and the extinction of many species (a new study shows that it’s worse than we thought).
Some branches of the environmental movement, like “deep ecology,” believe that humans, as only one species on the planet, should not be considered more important than any other group – whether animals, organisms of various sorts, or inanimate matter on the planet. It’s true that we are all interdependent, and that from a Muslim, Jewish or Christian perspective, God good creation is one whole, integrated ecosystem. Yet deep ecologists go farther, arguing that the rights of survival of each and every species are just as normative as those of the human species.
The next two blogs will go deeper into this issue of humanity and nature, but suffice it to say here that the three monotheistic faiths read Genesis 1 and 2 and Qur’an 2:30 and elsewhere as teaching that humans were formed as the apex of God’s creation, and hence, are charged with managing the affairs of their planet in God’s stead, cognizant of the fact that, on the Last Day, they will be held accountable for the way they discharged this high Trust.
Put otherwise, we are all God’s trustees on earth, and issues of pollution, climate change – and yes, loss of biodiversity – are sins for which we must repent and evils we must seek to redress. So, despite the charge of “anthropocentrism” (the earth revolves around humans) leveled at us by some in the environmental community, we will resolutely roll up our sleeves and find ways to mitigate and even turn around the havoc we have wreaked on our planet. My focus here is unapologetically, “how will climate change bring about human suffering in the coming decades?" My purpose is to emphasize how urgent it is to reduce our collective emissions of greenhouse gases, and then, in the next two blogs, show how Muslims and Christians are already tackling the issue.
What do you think? If you had to break down to only three the greatest threats caused by global warming to humankind (and otherkind, remembering we’re all deeply connected), what might they be? The following three seem pretty alarming to me: extreme weather intensifying, dramatic food shortages, and rising sea levels.
A lot more extreme weather events
This past year, the United States witnessed a record 12 weather disasters each costing over $1 billion in damages, from extreme drought, heat waves and floods, to unprecedented tornado outbreaks, hurricanes, wildfires and winter storms, resulting in the tragic loss of many human lives. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service has redoubled its efforts to create a “Weather-Ready Nation,” where vulnerable communities are better prepared for extreme weather and other natural disasters.
This promise will be tough to keep. On Christmas Eve, Justin Gillis wrote for the New York Times: “At the end of one of the most bizarre weather years in American history, climate research stands at a crossroads.” While scientists say much could be done to determine if – and to what extent – global warming is behind the record weather disasters of 2011, the NOAA and other agencies (though perhaps sparing the CIA’s Weather Center), might even see their funding cut this year, if a Republican House of Representatives has its way.
Of course, this is a problem that concerns our entire planet, not just the USA. In 2011 we also witnessed gargantuan floods covering large swaths of Australia, the Philippines and Southeast Asia. In Thailand alone, this record flooding cost the lives of 657 people and damages are now estimated to have peaked over $45 billion. Jeff Masters (PhD, University of Michigan), on his popular website Weather Underground, reported 32 weather disasters worldwide, and each one of them causing more than $1 billion in damages. He and most other climate scientists believe these calamities are tied to human-induced global warming. Justin Gillis uses the expression “virtually certain” on this score:
Climate science already offers some insight. Researchers have proved that the temperature of the earth’s surface is rising, and they are virtually certain that the human release of greenhouse gases, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, is the major reason. For decades, they have predicted that this would lead to changes in the frequency of extreme weather events, and statistics show that has begun to happen.
Yet the increased risk of severe weather events that result from our changing global climate includes more than just torrential rains and violent hurricanes. It also means severe droughts, and especially in the areas where the world’s poor are concentrated. This raises the specter of famine.
Dwindling global food supplies
According to Jeff Masters, the “deadliest weather disaster of 2011 was a quiet one that got few headlines – the East African drought in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia.” It is believed that 30,000 children under the age of five died there this past summer. Both the traditional “short rains” in the fall of 2010 and the “long rains” of the next spring failed to come, rendering this “one of the worst droughts of recorded history.”
Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman reported in February that “[w]orld food prices hit a record in January, driven by huge increases in the prices of wheat, corn, sugar and oils.” Though several factors can be adduced for this rise, the single most significant cause was extreme weather, he argued. The price of wheat, for instance, can be traced directly to Russia’s unprecedented heat wave in 2010 and to Australia’s record floods. He adds,
As always, you can’t attribute any one weather event to greenhouse gases. But the pattern we’re seeing, with extreme highs and extreme weather in general becoming much more common, is just what you’d expect from climate change.
Justin Gillis published an in-depth article on world hunger last June: “A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself.” In a nutshell, his conclusion was that “[t]he rapid growth in farm output that defined the late 20th century has slowed to the point that it is failing to keep up with the demand for food, driven by population increases and rising affluence in once-poor countries.” The grains that keep most humans alive – wheat, rice, corn and soybeans – have grown alarmingly scarcer in the past decades, and as a result some have doubled and even tripled since 2007.
Unsurprisingly, the world’s poor have suffered the most, which in turn has caused increased political instability in several parts of the world. Mostly due to rice and wheat shortages, food riots have broken out in over 30 countries in the last couple of years. Gillis continues: “Now, the latest scientific research suggests that a previously discounted factor is helping to destabilize the food system: climate change.”
We’ve seen the devastation brought about by droughts and floods. But don’t neglect the destructive nature of rising temperatures on crops as they begin to grow. The proverbial wisdom was that greater amounts of CO2, though causing rising temperatures, would also help to fertilize soils. That optimism is running out. Recent studies show that higher levels of CO2 do increase fertility to some extent, but those benefits are largely outweighed by its negative impact – hotter temperatures during growing season. We now know that “when crops are subjected to temperatures above a certain threshold — about 84 degrees for corn and 86 degrees for soybeans — yields fall sharply."
Better strains of grains, more able to resist drought and heat, will certainly be developed, but, as the UN has recently warned, with a global population set to reach 10 billion in 2050, feeding the planet will no doubt present huge challenges ahead.
Sea levels rising
With the dramatic melting of ice on both poles, in Greenland and the glaciers in all of the world’s mountainous regions, nobody denies that global sea level is rising. That being said, the scientific issues are complex, as a site like RealClimate can show you. Yet neither those scientists nor those associated with the Washington-based NGO, The Climate Institute, deny the increased rise of ocean levels since about the 1930s. According to Climate.org, the controversy has to do with exact future projections, and in particular, the “uncertainties about the contributions to expect from the three main processes responsible for sea level rise: thermal expansion, the melting of glaciers and ice caps, and the loss of ice from the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets." Michael D. Lemonick, senior writer for Climate Central, explains how sea levels rise at different rates in different places:
Sea level, according to the best current projections, could rise by about a meter by 2100, in large part due to melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. But that figure, too, is just a global average. In some places — Scotland, Iceland, and Alaska for example — it could be significantly less in the centuries to come. In others, like much of the eastern United States, it could be significantly more.
The gravitational pull of the polar ice caps will lessen as the ice melts, Lemonick adds, and this too will add to the variation in sea level rise from place to place. What is certain, however, is that even modest increases in sea level will wreak destruction in a world where over 600 million people live in crowded cities on the coasts.
The US east coast might be especially vulnerable. Take New York City, for example. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority commissioned a study that took two years to complete. Its lead author, Art deGaetano, a climate scientist at Cornell University and lead author of the ClimAID study published in November, was quoted in The Guardian as saying, “The risks and the impacts are huge. Clearly areas of the city that are currently inhabited will be uninhabitable with the rising of the sea.”
Factor in storm surges, and the scenario becomes even more frightening, he added. “Subway tunnels get affected, airports - both LaGuardia and Kennedy sit right at sea level – and when you are talking about the lowest areas of the city you are talking about the business districts.”
No doubt, the US has resources many nations only dream of to mitigate climate change impacts. But the situation is especially alarming for island nations like the Maldives, or the low-lying coastal areas of China, Vietnam, India and Bangladesh. The Maldivian authorities are already appraising various scenarios for a massive emigration to other countries. The Maldives may not exist by the end of this century.
Clearly, enormous challenges face us as a human race spread over this fragile planet. Can people of faith be part of the solution? Instead of reacting late and often with too little in hand to truly help, could Christians and Muslims in particular provide leadership for a groundswell of solidarity that would energize civil society worldwide and put persistent pressure on nations to solve these issues together? Indeed, this would be a sign of “faith rising” among us, a sign that God himself would most certainly welcome!