The Climate Wars
Tonight I went to a talk given by Gwynne Dyer , a Canadian war journalist and historian who now specializes in international affairs. Mr. Dyer's talk was to focus on climate change, and the picture he paints for our future is rather bleak. I want to summarize a few of his main points for those who are interested. Clearly every bullet should be preceded by "according to Mr. Dyer" so feel free to verify any claim.
- The most conservative estimates say that the Earth's mean temperature will increase by 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. Other estimates range as high as 5.8 degrees Celsius.
- The 'global warming debate' is only a debate in North America, mostly due to pressure from oil companies. The rest of the world has accepted it as fact. Britain is at the leading edge of green thinking and has been a leader in working to mitigate the effects of climate change.
- The first phase of Kyoto asked participating nations to reduce their CO2 output levels to 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. In general, participating European nations met or exceeded this criteria (Russia mostly due to its deindustrialization). Canada is now at 35% above 1990 levels. The US unsigned from phase 1 and has quashed all attempts to begin the second phase of Kyoto.
- The way global warming (he calls it 'global heating' as he says 'global warming' sounds too nice and cozy) will hit us first is through the food supply. The food supply will diminish due to there being less rain falling on the principle areas of food production world-wide.
- Currently, there are two bands of deserts which circle the planet, both just North and just South of the equator. If you spin a globe, you will see two bands of yellow that include the major deserts on Earth. These deserts are formed by something called the Hadley Cell. According to him, as the planet heats up, this band will increase in width. Since most of the food-producing parts of the world lie just North and just South of these deserts (ex: American mid-West and Canadian prairies), those food producing lands will be swallowed by the expanding deserts. He listed a number of countries and areas of countries which would simply be dust bowls. The food-producing areas will not simply reform overnight at the new edges of the deserts because it would take a long time for the soil to form and become sufficiently fertile.
- The world's current population is approximately 6.6 billion. At the end of WWII, the population was approximately 1/3 of this. However, the amount of land used for agriculture world-wide has hardly changed (<10% increase). The way we've been able to cope has been mostly through the development of faster-growing, hardier crops. According to him, we are starting to hit a wall in that area meaning that we simply cannot feed more people the way we are now.
- Vegetarianism is one of the primary sources of slack left in the human food system. 3kg of grain are required to produce 1kg of chicken, so it's much more efficient for us to directly eat the grain. (note: I've heard other more extreme statistics in this area, mostly dealing with how much more water it takes to produce meat than vegetables - at least 15,000 litres of fresh water to produce 1kg of beef by the way).
- A study was done in India to determine what effect global warming would have on that country. Assuming a 2 degrees Celsius rise in temperature, it was estimated that 25% of India's food production would disappear. At 5.8 degrees, that number nears 60%.
- In most of the world, with the exceptions being the Middle East and Africa, birth rates have been slowly decreasing and are now between 2.0 and 2.2 births per fertile woman, meaning a stable population. However, given that life expectancy is still increasing in general, the population is still expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2040 even if the number of births per woman remains constant.
- Each year we have been increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by 4ppm. Currently, it is projected that we will reach 400ppm by 2011. Scientists believe that 450 - 500ppm is the point of no return (whatever that means). The Canadian tar sands are the biggest source of CO2 in this country. They burn 2 barrels of oil to produce 3 for sale.
- A cold war is slowly forming between the US and China. China and India's GDP are both growing at 10% per year. The US has been befriending every nation surrounding China, including (of course) Japan but also India (recent promise of nuclear technology), Viet Nam, Taiwan, South Korea, and others. According to his own personal observations as a journalist, Americans feel threatened by the possibility of no longer being the sole super power, with all the luxuries this entails. He compared this attitude to that of Britain during the early 1900s. Again, according to his own personal observations, the Chinese government is choosing to ignore these actions for now, and the Chinese population simply doesn't know about them.
- He expects an enormous refugee problem as food shortages begin to affect large populations.
- Finally, the tired joke about how a little global warming would be nice on those cold days may actually have some truth to it. Global warming is likely to expose much of Canada's Canadian Shield, increasing our land area (though not the amount of arable land). The other Northern countries (Russia, Sweden) would benefit similarly. In general, though the first-world nations produced 95% of the problem, they would be the least affected by global warming in terms of direct weather changes to their countries.
Wow! You made it this far! I hope you enjoyed that. Comments are welcome.
- The most conservative estimates say that the Earth's mean temperature will increase by 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. Other estimates range as high as 5.8 degrees Celsius.
- The 'global warming debate' is only a debate in North America, mostly due to pressure from oil companies. The rest of the world has accepted it as fact. Britain is at the leading edge of green thinking and has been a leader in working to mitigate the effects of climate change.
- The first phase of Kyoto asked participating nations to reduce their CO2 output levels to 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. In general, participating European nations met or exceeded this criteria (Russia mostly due to its deindustrialization). Canada is now at 35% above 1990 levels. The US unsigned from phase 1 and has quashed all attempts to begin the second phase of Kyoto.
- The way global warming (he calls it 'global heating' as he says 'global warming' sounds too nice and cozy) will hit us first is through the food supply. The food supply will diminish due to there being less rain falling on the principle areas of food production world-wide.
- Currently, there are two bands of deserts which circle the planet, both just North and just South of the equator. If you spin a globe, you will see two bands of yellow that include the major deserts on Earth. These deserts are formed by something called the Hadley Cell. According to him, as the planet heats up, this band will increase in width. Since most of the food-producing parts of the world lie just North and just South of these deserts (ex: American mid-West and Canadian prairies), those food producing lands will be swallowed by the expanding deserts. He listed a number of countries and areas of countries which would simply be dust bowls. The food-producing areas will not simply reform overnight at the new edges of the deserts because it would take a long time for the soil to form and become sufficiently fertile.
- The world's current population is approximately 6.6 billion. At the end of WWII, the population was approximately 1/3 of this. However, the amount of land used for agriculture world-wide has hardly changed (<10% increase). The way we've been able to cope has been mostly through the development of faster-growing, hardier crops. According to him, we are starting to hit a wall in that area meaning that we simply cannot feed more people the way we are now.
- Vegetarianism is one of the primary sources of slack left in the human food system. 3kg of grain are required to produce 1kg of chicken, so it's much more efficient for us to directly eat the grain. (note: I've heard other more extreme statistics in this area, mostly dealing with how much more water it takes to produce meat than vegetables - at least 15,000 litres of fresh water to produce 1kg of beef by the way).
- A study was done in India to determine what effect global warming would have on that country. Assuming a 2 degrees Celsius rise in temperature, it was estimated that 25% of India's food production would disappear. At 5.8 degrees, that number nears 60%.
- In most of the world, with the exceptions being the Middle East and Africa, birth rates have been slowly decreasing and are now between 2.0 and 2.2 births per fertile woman, meaning a stable population. However, given that life expectancy is still increasing in general, the population is still expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2040 even if the number of births per woman remains constant.
- Each year we have been increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by 4ppm. Currently, it is projected that we will reach 400ppm by 2011. Scientists believe that 450 - 500ppm is the point of no return (whatever that means). The Canadian tar sands are the biggest source of CO2 in this country. They burn 2 barrels of oil to produce 3 for sale.
- A cold war is slowly forming between the US and China. China and India's GDP are both growing at 10% per year. The US has been befriending every nation surrounding China, including (of course) Japan but also India (recent promise of nuclear technology), Viet Nam, Taiwan, South Korea, and others. According to his own personal observations as a journalist, Americans feel threatened by the possibility of no longer being the sole super power, with all the luxuries this entails. He compared this attitude to that of Britain during the early 1900s. Again, according to his own personal observations, the Chinese government is choosing to ignore these actions for now, and the Chinese population simply doesn't know about them.
- He expects an enormous refugee problem as food shortages begin to affect large populations.
- Finally, the tired joke about how a little global warming would be nice on those cold days may actually have some truth to it. Global warming is likely to expose much of Canada's Canadian Shield, increasing our land area (though not the amount of arable land). The other Northern countries (Russia, Sweden) would benefit similarly. In general, though the first-world nations produced 95% of the problem, they would be the least affected by global warming in terms of direct weather changes to their countries.
Wow! You made it this far! I hope you enjoyed that. Comments are welcome.
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