Our hot sticky American summer—and the “point of no return” for global warming

BY SID PRANKE

Unbearable. Oppressive. Wretched. Miserable. Never before in my entire life have I been so afraid to go outside to avoid weather. Blizzards, sub-zero temperatures, lightning storms, torrential rainfall, tornado warnings, those I can deal with, but this last bout of hot weather seriously tested my patience and even my indoor survival skills. Compare notes with friends and neighbors and you’ll probably hear the same thing.

And if there are still people who think “greenhouse gases” might be foul odors emanating only from homes painted a deep shade of chartreuse, then the past weekend should have helped to convince them of what scientists already know: global warming is a given—the only question is how much and how fast it will affect our world.

Cumulative events like record high temperatures, along with record overnight low temps that read more like highs, moderate-to-severe drought reports from state agencies, heat-related deaths, and wildfires have gotten our attention.

And in the Twin Cities, we also have what is called the “heat island” phenom—a condition where urban and suburban temps can run up to 10 degrees hotter than surrounding rural areas. So under the same weather conditions, you’re going to be hotter standing on the Nicollet Mall than you would be standing in a rural cornfield. Cities have more dark surfaces and less vegetation than the countryside, which experts say results in elevated temps. Smart city leaders implement designs like green roofs, such as the one at the new Minneapolis City Library, and work to preserve and encourage green spaces.

Human activity raises levels of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide; those activities include the burning of fossil fuels, the use of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) in refrigeration systems, and the deforestation of lands.
A 2006 report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris contains some real sobering news about greenhouse gases. The report indicates that once in the atmosphere, the gases seem to linger for decades. Concentration levels of the gases rise and trap the world’s heat. A huge rise, even with a well-funded program to try to stop global warming, could be unavoidable. Scientists can guess what a 45 percent rise in accumulated gases might do to the earth (and therefore, to us), but the future remains uncertain.

A Washington Post columnist recently opined that the real “inconvenient truth” of global warming, contrary to the message of Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” isn’t that global warming actually exists, but that there’s nothing we can actually do about it. “This was obvious nine years ago,” writes Robert J. Samuelson. “It’s still obvious.”

Others disagree that there’s nothing we can do to stop global warming—and that the greatest tragedy would be not to do anything.

Some scientists say that whatever we do, we have only about 10 years to do it—or it will be late to do ANYTHING about global warming. It would be the quintessential point of no return on a global scale. If this is true, global warming represents a huge threat, much bigger than any terrorist organization anywhere.
Case in point: A few months ago, reports ran rampant after the journal Science stated that our oceans, fed by melting glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, could rise a total of 13 to 20 feet by the end of this century, threatening the coastlines of New York, Miami, New Orleans and Charleston, S.C.

The two-week heat wave killed 141 people in California, according to the latest count, and July was a scorcher for most of Europe as well. According to Associated Press reports, a European heat wave killed 35,000 people in 2003.
Some say we should just get used to it, that killer heat waves will become even more common.

A hundred or so years ago, there was no electricity, no cell phones or computers, no Wi-Fi, satellites, coal-fired plants or power grids, no refrigerators, automobiles or televisions, no power amps, no air conditioners. Of the list above, how many would you be willing to give up if you thought it would help stop the polar ice caps from melting? Some? None? All?

A good portion of any plan to stop global warming would require governmental policy changes, such as prescribed by the Kyoto Protocol, which the United States has not ratified, unlike most of the rest of the world. There is no good excuse for this.

Another part of the equation involves individual commitment to changing 21st century habits, a prospect that many want to resist.
Older hippies, younger permaculture adherents, political entities like the Green Party, as well as Native American tenets that instill a responsibility to protect the earth seven generations into the future, set good examples for us all.