Your View by Bethlehem scientist: Will U.S. stop fiddling while Planet Earth burns?

sexta-feira, junho 21, 2019

This Nov. 9, 2018, photo shows the burned-out hulks of cars abandoned by their drivers along a road in Paradise, California, after the region was ravaged by the Camp Fire. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

The economy, evidently, is growing at a good pace. According to The Wall Street Journal (May 15), this growth came at the cost of an exploding federal budget deficit, environmental degradation and reduced protections for workers, consumers and the poor.

What about the astronomical costs from extreme weather caused by climate change? How much is covered by insurance? Who is calculating the costs and are they being figured into the economic indicators? If not, why not?

Between 1980 and spring 2019, the U.S. sustained 246 weather and climate disasters where the costs and damages exceeded $1 billion (adjusted to the 2019 consumer price index). Total cost of these 246 events exceeds $1.6 trillion. For example, the cost of the 2017 hurricanes was $268 billion and of the 2017 California wildfires at least $9 billion. What about the costs of human misery, home loss, rescue costs, property, human lives?

What about damage to other nations from U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning? Are we contributing to sea level rise on Pacific islands, Bangladesh and other vulnerable regions? Melting ice caps and glaciers, rising sea levels, massive flooding, the list goes on and on.

Is the cost of reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gases and reining in climate change so high that it exceeds the billions of dollars in damages? For the first time in recorded history, carbon dioxide (the major greenhouse gas) levels hit 414.7 parts per million on May 25, at Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii, where consistent records have been kept since 1958.

What about the impact on worldwide human health and expected increases in insect-borne diseases? According to the Guardian U.S. Edition (June 3) Sir Andrew Haines, co-chair of a report for European Academies’ Science Advisory Council, said, “There are impacts occurring now [and], over the coming century, climate change has to be ranked as one of the most serious threats to health.”

As an environmental scientist, I have taught about climate change for over 20 years. Global warming has been mentioned in peer-reviewed environmental science textbooks at least since 1996. The science is very strong and supported by over 95% of all international climate scientists. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (climate scientists from all over the world, supported by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization) stated in their most recent report that it is extremely likely (a plus 95% probability) that emissions of heat-trapping gases from human activities have caused “most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century.” The panel continues “emissions are primarily [from] burning fossil fuels and secondarily by land use changes (e.g. forest /vegetation loss).”

The peer-reviewed U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA4 2017, from over 200 U.S. climate scientists), states, “The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest years on record for the globe.” This assessment concludes, based on extensive scientific evidence, “that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century … there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

Concerned and thoughtful Americans are insisting that U.S. states and cities implement the agreements of the Paris Accord, where 195 nations agreed to curtail greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. The accord is a remarkable international treaty to reduce damages from climate change. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated, “For the first time, we have a truly universal agreement on climate change, one of the most crucial problems on earth.”

The New York Times reiterates that climate change is “the most important story in the world.” Even though the current administration withdrew from the Paris Accord, fortunately the U.S. Climate Alliance (14 states representing over one-third of the country’s population) and many cities and municipalities have agreed to implement the essential reductions in the Paris Accord.

There is hope that the United States will stop fiddling while Planet Earth burns.

Page: The Morning Call