Defenders Magazine

Global Warming: The Inconvenient Truths

Unlike most other environmental problems, you can't see it, smell it, taste it or touch it--and that's allowed many people to ignore it or deny it's happening.

© Corbis

Unlike smog, global warming doesn't burn your throat after you walk up a hill on a hot, steamy day. Unlike an oil spill, it doesn't slime and kill birds, fish and sea otters. In fact, unlike most other environmental problems, you can't see it, smell it, taste it or touch it--and that's allowed many people to ignore it or deny it's happening.

But there's no doubt among experts that global warming is real. In June the National Academy of Sciences reaffirmed the findings of numerous studies: the Earth definitely has a fever. After reviewing the accumulated evidence, the scientists issued a statement saying "that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years," and that human activities are the cause.

As Time magazine trumpeted on its cover a few months ago, we should ‘be worried, be very worried.' Given current energy policies, we're still going to see a lot of burning of fossil fuels for at least the next 100 years, says Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "How much we'll have to adjust is based on the steps we're willing to take now to mitigate the problem," he says.

What exactly is global warming? In essence too much of a good thing. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases that occur naturally in the atmosphere trap warmth from the sun. In lower amounts, these "greenhouse gases" help to sustain life on our planet--keeping it warmer than, say, Mars, which has little carbon dioxide and temperatures in the neighborhood of minus 80 degrees F.

But we've spewed so many greenhouse gases into the air since the Industrial Revolution that things have gotten seriously out of whack. Today levels of CO2--produced during the burning of fossil fuels in cars and power plants--are nearly 100 parts per million higher than they were in 1750, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international group of thousands of scientists. That's a 650,000-year high, and it's warming the planet.

As a result, the tundra in Siberia is thawing, as is the permafrost in Alaska. Glaciers in the Himalayas and the Alps and Greenland are retreating. In Montana, Glacier National Park is expected to be namesake-free by 2030. The ice pack in both the Arctic and Antarctic is shrinking. All this melting is raising sea levels, eroding beaches and threatening to swallow whole islands in the South Pacific.

Why should we care? Europeans largely stopped asking that question after the summer of 2003, when 30,000 people died because of record heat waves. "Global warming loads the dice for certain events," says Heidi Cullen, a climatologist at The Weather Channel. "For example, climate models indicate that heat waves will very likely become more frequent, more intense and that they will last longer." High temperatures in California were responsible for the deaths of more than 140 people in July.

It's also likely that global warming is fueling stronger hurricanes such as Katrina, which killed 1,300 people in the Gulf coast in 2005. "Although you can never make a direct connection to an individual event like Katrina, it's possible that warmer ocean temperatures could increase overall hurricane intensity in coming decades," says Cullen.

Other longer-term problems also loom. Citizens of the American West face drought, for example. Three-quarters of their water supply comes from the mountain snowcaps that now melt too soon and too quickly in the spring, first causing floods and mudslides, then setting the scene for potentially crippling water shortages during the summer. Large swaths of low-lying areas along the coasts--including portions of Florida, Louisiana and New York City--will be submerged by 2100 if current trends continue.

The challenges aren't just restricted to Homo sapiens. As the Earth warms, coral reefs begin to bleach. Prey species begin to disappear. Habitats begin to move, change or vanish. Invasive and destructive species begin to spread. Droughts kill. Endangered species and habitats--already under siege from other human-caused threats--teeter on the brink. As illustrated in the following stories, wildlife refuges and species face the difficulties of coping with enormous changes. "Humans are more readily able to adapt than other animals and ecosystems," says Meehl. "But not everyone and everything will be able to." That is especially true if changes occur too quickly. "We've never observed the Greenland ice sheet melting before," he says. "If the whole thing slides into the ocean in a matter of decades rather than in hundreds of years, and sea levels rise rapidly, sure, some of us will adapt, but at what cost?"

If we care about the Earth and want to save it for future generations of people and wildlife, what are we to do? Learn about specific steps you and your family can take. These measures alone won't reverse global warming--that will take a multigenerational, multinational commitment, and leadership in political, spiritual and social spheres. But they will take us in the right direction--toward a cooler home planet.