Future generations are depending on today's climate decisions

By Alan Journet

We have not heard much about climate change lately, but it hasn't gone away. According to NASA, March through July this year were each globally the hottest such months on record. This year may well exceed 2005 as the hottest year recorded. Although wildfires in Russia, floods in Pakistan, floods and landslides in China, severe winter storms in the eastern U.S. earlier this year and our summer temperatures this year cannot unequivocally be ascribed individually to climate change, the increasing frequency of such events is consistent with predictions.

If we continue business as usual without addressing the problem, farmers, foresters and residents of Missouri should plan for a possible five-degree increase in annual temperatures over the coming century, and potentially more than 40 days of summer temperatures over 100 degrees with more droughts and forest fires. To some people, this temperature increase may seem inconsequential, but we should remember that at the peak of the last Ice Age, when an Arctic ice sheet reached the Missouri River and southern Missouri was northern coniferous forest, temperatures were only the same five degrees cooler than now. This predicted five-degree change in climate would likely devastate our critical biological systems.

Late last year climate change skeptics hyped Climategate, a burglary and release of climate research e-mails and documents. They claimed the stolen e-mails revealed corruption among climate scientists. But this last hurrah of the contrarians has been totally debunked. Five investigations by stellar panels exonerated the scientists of any wrongdoing and endorsed their data and conclusions. But skeptics who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of these investigations simply argue that the investigators are part of the conspiracy. The conspiracy they absurdly imagine would have to be the mother of all conspiracies.

Even in these troubled economic and political times, we must address serious national and global problems. Future generations will not appreciate our delaying action beyond the critical tipping point after which nothing we do will have any impact. We are all party to a huge and dangerous experiment. We cannot afford to let it continue.

Risk is assessed both by the probability of an event occurring and the severity should it occur. Even if one thinks the probability of human-induced climate change occurring as predictions suggest is low, the severity -- if it occurs -- should be enough to prompt responsible individuals into demanding preventive action.

Humanity has progressed from the superstition of the Dark Ages via the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Reason to an Age of Science and Technology. Without this progress, we could not have cured diseases, improved agriculture, solved environmental problems or visited the moon and explored other planets. Our grandchildren cannot afford a return to the uninformed ignorance of the Dark Ages; we cannot allow superstition to trump science.

Contrary to skeptic claims, there are not thousands of scientists who disagree with the consensus on climate change. Funded by and promoting the interests of the Oil and Coal industries, maybe a dozen such contrarian climate scientists exist. But when lies and distortions are repeated often enough -- the debating strategy of Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Palin and Fox News -- many uninformed listeners start to believe them.

When initially diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, a common human response is denial. But those who have been there know it is critical to work through denial, reach acceptance and resolve to undergo treatment -- however painful, time-consuming and costly it might be. If we constantly reject expert medical opinion because we don't like it, a cure becomes less likely. If we deny long enough, we may reach a point where no amount of treatment can save us. We are in exactly this situation with climate change.

Anyone receiving that life-threatening diagnosis can also testify to the danger of arguing that addressing the condition now is too expensive -- it's better to wait. One can easily wait until it's too late. The same dilemma applies to climate change. From an economic perspective, now may not be a great time to develop plans to address greenhouse gases, but the reality is it will never be cheaper or easier. The global costs of disasters such as those occurring in Pakistan and China convincingly underscore the cost of waiting.

To candidates for local, state and federal office, one of the first questions we should ask is how they plan to address climate change. So far, the best proposal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions involves a cap-and-trade system that would force corporations into reducing such emissions into our atmosphere. Those who argue against this proposal have a duty to propose an effective alternative. Simply denying science and arguing "No!" is inadequate.

Alan Journet is a Cape Girardeau resident.