07-05 Climate Change

In 1977 we would call it climate, not climate change. But visiting an official in Bangkok I found the streets flooded and had to take off my socks and shoes and roll up my trousers to cross the street and move to higher ground.
Today, they are predicting that Bangkok will be under water in 15 years. The major culprit is rising sea waters related to climate change. It is a city of 14 million and only 1.5 meters above sea level.
And Bangladesh is another one of those countries located in low-lying coastal regions that are most vulnerable to rising sea levels. And if they lost their ability to feed themselves, it is not hard to picture boat loads of refugees parked along the US coast seeking entry.
And, how many of the world’s tourists have enjoyed the magic of Venice. I went there in 1984 and had to cross St Mark’s square on wooden walkways. I asked a local what was going on. He called it “aqua alta” or high water. Not too helpful.
Now the scientists are anticipating the Mediterranean Sea to rise by 140 centimeters by the end of the century if climate change is not quelled. And Venice will be underwater. This year the water in St. Marks Square was five feet deep.
It is a Halloween horror story. With extreme weather more extreme. Like heat waves in India, droughts in Somalia, wildfires in California and hurricanes in the Caribbean.
Being simplistic, it means heat entering the atmosphere and heat leaving the atmosphere is out of wack. Carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels is creating the imbalance, acting like a blanket that is preventing heat escaping into the atmosphere. The result is climate change.
Think of filling a tub full of hot water and leaving it for three hours with the bathroom door closed. The result is a warm bathroom. The bathroom door prevents the heat from entering the house. The door in the bathroom is like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Well. In 2009, I got my first real education about climate change visiting the Antarctic on a cruise. We saw massive ice sheets, big enough to act as landing sites for 747s that had broken off and were floating out to sea.
Scientists as speakers on board the ship told us about the amount of ice that could melt in the Antarctic and raise the level of the oceans around the world. The numbers are so massive that it is no wonder the public cannot grasp their enormity.
The same thing is happening in the Arctic, and ice-free summers are in our future. This means huge development opportunities for Canada and Russia because the area is resource rich.
We stopped at a Polish research station in the Antarctic and the scientists came on board the ship for a three-hour lecture and discussion of how the study of weather in the past through analyzing the gases in ice samples helps them understand future weather patterns.
They told us that every period of global warming in the past has been characterized by massive specie loss. And they also said they did not believe anything will prevent climate change from progressing. The audience of 1,500 was speechless.
It was the first time I realized that climate change was so technical and that most politicians and political leaders never will understand more that 20% of the issue if they are just reading their briefing papers.
Such a great issue to exploit for political purposes. The left use the issue to raise taxes. The right use it to raise money from corporate funders threatened by regulations.
My prediction. California will outlaw the combustion engine at some point. They control automobile technology with the size of their market, and not the federal government. The auto is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions.
And in two cruises to Alaska over a ten-year period, I could clearly see evidence of glaziers melting. I became a real believer in climate change.
At a stop in Qaqortoq, an Innuit community in Southern Greenland on a cruise in 2009, another climate change lesson was learned. Locals pointed out the hills and mountains in their area that were green for the first time.
But this is just an area where snow melting is not a dribble, but a rapid process. Greenland like the Antarctic has ice in some areas that is a mile thick. If it all melted it would raise sea levels by 20 feet. Say goodbye to living in lower Manhattan in New York.
And yes, the polar bears in Southern Greenland are already gone.
How do we raise children that will have to live in such a scary world. Better to have positive climate change solutions in place, even if they don’t work.