Global Warming... Is there a Remedy?

By Enrique Caldera/ Translation Lydia Carey

The discussion surrounding global warming was begun in stages. When the media began to expose the increasing greenhouse effect due to fossil fuel emissions and the consequential global warming, academia was still discussing the average increase in temperature at the end of this century and how many centimeters the sea level had risen. It took insurance companies to sound the alarm by discovering that the payments for natural disasters associated with climate change had been increasing 10 fold in the span of a few years. However, while a dangerous and telltale sign, these consequences might be the least significant of our planet's changes.

Nature, after millions of years of evolution, has constructed the earth's atmosphere, not only its chemical composition, but also its physical behavior, and therefore the physical chemistry of life on earth. Changes to this physical chemistry are precisely what is slowly but surely destroying an ecological balance that has permitted the existence of so-called civilized man. Though very few dispute the scientific fact that there are man-made changes to the global climate, there are those that argue that this process of environmental destabilization will take much longer than predicted, and that the short-term environmental consequences are exaggerated.

But that is equivalent to saying that it won’t be in our grandchildren’s lives that the balance of our eco-system will collapse, but rather that the dangers will not become catastrophic until our great grandchildren’s lives, or their children’s. Either way we are living up to the title of the “me generation”. The further out in time we think this collapse might occur, the less important it is perceived by political leaders and especially by corporate and business interests that profit from the status quo.

These changes in the atmosphere due to human influence have three main causes:

1. The burning of fossil fuels and their emissions.
2. The release of methane gas from agricultural and industrial activities.
3. Deforestation and excessive logging.

The primary greenhouse gases are CO2 and Methane gas, which both act as a filter for infrared radiation, trapping heat that otherwise would be sent into outer space. 40% of CO2 emissions accumulate in the atmosphere. 60% is reabsorbed by plants and an important fraction dissolves in the ocean, forming carbonic acid, which slowly but surely decreases the alkalinity of the seawater, and is a threat to vital sea life.

The resultant global warming changes weather patterns, creates more powerful meteorological phenomena, and causes glacial melting. These effects result in each of the following immediate consequences:

Climate Chaos- desertification and flooding. The loss of harvests due to excessive or diminished rainfall. Insect plagues. Epidemic spread of tropical diseases. Famine.

Indirect Potentiality-Destruction of methane deposits in the tundra and seabed, with massive releases of methane gas, accelerating global warming as a prelude to another ice age.

Extreme Phenomena- Stronger and more frequent hurricanes. Tornados. Catastrophic storms. Mudslides, flooding. Destruction of economic infrastructure. Loss of human life.

Glacial Thaw- Causing sea levels to rise, threatening life on our coasts, creating additional tectonic plate movement which increases likelihood of earthquakes, volcanoes, and other eruptions, and interruption of the gulf stream possibly leading to another ice age in the northern hemisphere.

As we can see the consequences of our modern lifestyle, are putting at risk the survival of civilization. Everything that big business derives from extracting and selling the daily 86 million barrels of oil equates to 6,880 million dollars a day. Consequently the oil industry is hundreds of billions of dollars richer each year, which is mostly divided between a dozen large companies, making a few select people, or countries, immensely wealthy.

Our energy use is based on fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal. Our most effective solution would be to redesign the current system, and base it principally on renewable energy. Currently this option is technically and economically viable. The problem is political. Will supposedly democratic societies be able fight the special interests and big business trying to keep things the same?

This is the test; of humankind, of our reasoning capacity, and our ability to do what we have been built to do: adapt.