Provisional
Truth |
Essays | July 2006 The Fever of Gaia - An
Inconvenient Truth
Take a couple
of hours this hot summer and see Al Gore's documentary
An Inconvenient
Truth in an air conditioned theater near you.
Forget the red-state/blue-state
politics and economics of our energy-driven republic for a minute and
think of your children and grandchildren. Better yet, take your children
or grandchildren to see this movie. If they're at least 10 years old and
reasonably bright, they'll understand the time-lapsed images of melting
icecaps, evaporating inland seas and changing coastlines, if not the
straightforward dialog itself.
Before you dismiss this documentary as a
tree-hugger's fear-mongering, consider the world we will leave our heirs
in less than 50 years: 9-10 billion people, possibly more, competing for
already scarce resources, increased pollution from the growth of
developing nations who consider as quaint our environmental protection
laws, climate changes and a remapping of the continents' shorelines
should we continue an extended period of polar ice melt.
As Mr. Gore knows,
perception is reality. He discusses a recent review of nearly a thousand
scholarly, peer-reviewed research papers, not one of which concludes
something other than human activity is the principle cause of increased
atmospheric carbon dioxide. A similar review of media stories yielded a
quite different result: half of those reports cast doubt on the cause -
and the effects – of rising CO2.
Author Michael Crichton has
contributed to a general perception that “we just don't really know”
what will be the long-term environmental impacts of rising CO2.
In a message following his environmental thriller
State of Fear
he concedes “atmospheric carbon dioxide is rising and that human
activity is the probable cause,” but then asserts “nobody knows how much
of the present warming trend might be a natural phenomenon” and “how
much might be man made.”
Mr. Crichton also concludes (without
explanation as to how) that the “people of 2100 will be much richer than
we are, consume more energy, have a smaller global population, and enjoy
more wilderness than we have today. I don't think we have to worry about
them,” which he bases on his prediction we will shift away from fossil
fuels “in the next century without legislation, financial incentives,
carbon conservation programs or the interminable yammering of
fear-mongers.”
Commonly held views in light of what Mr.
Gore describes as a high-level government campaign to discredit the
solid research results regarding global warming and cast those
conclusions as “theories” not warranting serious attention.
But therein lies the
crux of the issue. If we know CO2 levels recently have surged
past cyclical peaks to amounts not detected in more than half a million
years (based on Antarctic ice samples), if it's even only
theoretically possible that increased carbon dioxide may contribute
to a global warming trend, and if global warming just may cause dramatic
ecological, economic, geographic and cultural changes, then why not err
on the safe side for the sake of future generations and begin making
long-term changes?
Fever is a
symptom of illness in humans, a body's reaction to infection, a signal
“hey you're getting sick.” Now our planet is showing signs of fever –
Gaia may be getting sick - and, as with humans, temperature elevations
of only a few degrees can be life-threatening.
An Inconvenient Truth may
change your views on global warming, but
as Mr. Gore pleaded to his audience, do not pass from denial to despair
without at least trying to do something to change our collective
fate.
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March 17, 2007 © Ruben Bolling
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