On CNN last Saturday night, I watched a special on global warming on CNN. According to the special, the effects of global warming are being felt right now. In Tuvalu, the water is rising, and even strong ordinary waves will flood houses and lawns. There is fear that this atoll, just above the water, will get submerged in the years ahead, and then where with the Tuvaluns go?
The ice is melting in the Arctic. The Inuit depend on it for their activities. The polar bear feed on seals during the winter, when the water is frozen solid. The frozen part of the year is getting shorter every year, and now there is fear that polar bears, which don't eat much at all during the summer, will become extinct.
The city of New Orleans is especially subject to damage by global warming. Over the past few decades, much marshland in the Mississippi delta went under water.
And so on it goes. Every coastal city, including 13 of the 17 largest, is subject to damage by global warming.
Or are they? How much energy does it take to melt all that Arctic and Antarctic ice? Is there enough energy in the oil and natural gas still remaining to do all this damage? A recent study suggested not. The Club of Rome report in the 1970s suggested in their basic computer run that the thing that will get civilization in the 21st century will be running out of resources (such as oil), not pollution (global warming). To me, much of this material about how the world will flood with global warming is hype.
However, most of the remedies for global warming would also deal with the problem of peak oil as well. These include cleaner and more efficient automobiles, limits on pollution at factories, and more efficiently operating industry, together with conservation. Further, the Club of Rome also suggested that if we get a gift from the heavens (or Alpha Centaurions) of a century's worth of oil, then pollution; i.e., global warming, will be a serious problem - it will cause billions of deaths and make the planet unlivable. So we need to heed the warnings of this special. In particular, President Bush needs to sign the Kyoto Treaty now.
