Preparing For an Inconvenient Future

Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is a commendable movie, not least for its attempts to educate, rather than terrify, people about the facts and consequences of global warming. In particular, Al Gore specifically warned against justifying inaction first by denial (the platform of most American politicians), then by despair. Instead, he concluded the movie by listing actions that individuals and societies can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To see specific suggestions, visit www.climatecrisis.net and read Colin Wright's thoughtful article in the last issue of Eat the State! ("What would Gandhi drive?" ETS! vol. 10, no. 21). Making valiant efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately is not only a good idea, but a necessity.

We must not confuse this imperative, however, with a solution to the problems of global warming, for at least three reasons. First, not all of the means within our technological grasp for reducing emissions are necessarily wisely employed toward that end, even if we grant that they will have the magnitude of effect that Gore credited them with--which is far from certain. Thus, in a movie graphic showing how carbon emissions could be reduced to 1970 levels, a considerable chunk of reduction was attributed to carbon sequestration, the viability and long-term consequences of which are hotly debated. We must be careful not to make matters worse in a desperate effort to make them better. Second, even if carbon dioxide emissions were immediately reduced to 1970 levels, the long time periods required for the Earth system to respond to that decrease will result in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations that nonetheless continue to increase for decades to come. Remarkably, although Gore correctly related higher average global temperatures to higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, not emissions, this response lag was not addressed in the movie. Third, various global feedback mechanisms affected by higher temperatures may result in further increases in temperature or greenhouse gas concentrations that are not a direct function of human activity. Although these are notoriously difficult to predict, possible examples include greater retention of solar heat due to changes in cloud and ice cover, or release of methane, a more potent though shorter-lived greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, from melting permafrost.

In short, controlling emissions is only part of the necessary response to the problems confronting us. A second part of that response is to prepare for the predictable consequences of global warming, starting immediately. The environmental movement must incorporate such preparations into its agenda, not in place of but alongside attempts to attenuate climate change. Limiting our response only to attenuation is naive, if not palliative and fatalistic.

What is it that we should be preparing for? The melting of ice sheets and glaciers is expected to result in a rise in sea level that will render uninhabitable low-lying islands and coastal regions, thus creating a refugee crisis on a scale perhaps never before seen in human history. We must begin planning for these refugees now. It is anticipated that greater average surface temperatures will fuel more violent storms, including tornadoes and hurricanes. Having seen the chaos and tragedy resulting from Katrina, as well as the ineptitude, profiteering, and racism of the American government's reaction, surely we should begin preparing a better response now. Overall changes in regional weather patterns, including in some places an increasing frequency of droughts, will dramatically affect the availability and distribution of water and agriculture. Only advance planning can mitigate the tragedies these changes imply. And of course, unless we begin preparing now, all of these anticipated effects will likely lead to major conflicts among peoples and nations.

Perhaps more subtly, our preparations must embrace changing how we think. First and foremost, we must not perpetuate the myth that the problems we face can be addressed without major changes in our lifestyles and cultures. This is an error with which Gore's film flirts. But if we begin the debate by denying the necessity of major changes, we relieve the debate of both its urgency and its point. Pathos and panic are not the necessary corollaries of recognizing this fact; we must instead learn to represent the necessity and achievability of these changes. Second, global warming and its consequences cannot be countered effectively if we limit our deliberations only to short time scales, for example, those of election cycles. We must teach ourselves to think instead on decadal, generational and longer time scales. We must furthermore set up social and political structures that are recalcitrant to subversion by short-term interests--which may mean bypassing many of the structures readily available to us now. Third, a global problem requires a global response. Individual, community-based or even national responses, however useful, will be inadequate. A political and social framework must be established that is not so much international, as supranational. Relatedly, we can no longer afford the ideological pretense that man is somehow apart from the rest of nature. We are an ecological agent and subject to ecological forces. Our humanity in no way exempts us. Debating the degree to which global warming is due to human causes or natural variability is an exercise in futility and inertia.

My point is not to stoke panic or castigate Gore's movie but to draw attention to the scale of the problem before us. Our response cannot focus only on alleviating the challenges of the future. We must also prepare for them.