Not the apocalypse, but climate upheavals are coming

By Leigh Pomeroy

A friend of mine recently went into the hospital recently with a serious bacterial infection. The doctors were concerned that the infection had gone into his heart, so they ordered an echocardiogram. But there was a problem: There were no echocardiogram appointments available. The spots were taken up by unvaccinated people with Covid.

Through the persistent actions of a nurse, my friend was able to be transported to the Mayo in Rochester, where he was put under the care of heart and bacterial infection experts. He received his echocardiogram, which showed that the bacteria had infected his heart, but fortunately, because he was able to get the test, a course of timely antibiotics prevented (hopefully) serious damage.

My message to those who choose not to be vaccinated and not to wear a mask: Your selfishness, your stupidity, jeopardized the health of my friend. And when you go to church on Sunday, please ask yourself: Are my decisions in line with the teachings of my faith: to care for the well-being of others?

Hopefully, Covid 19 will just be a painful memory in a few years. It erupted quickly, catching the world by surprise. And a vaccine solution was found within a year, a very short period of time in the history of human health.

Yet there is another problem that humanity is facing that's been a century and a half in the making and for which there is no vaccine:

Climate change.

Fossil fuels have brought humankind unprecedented wealth and well-being. Yet we have become addicted to them, not only for energy but for our entire economy, an addiction that we now know threatens our very way of life.

The science of climate change is far simpler that most people imagine: Human civilization has been around for only about 10,000 years, a "Goldilocks" climate period during which planet temperatures have been not too hot, not too cold, just right.

The reasons why the climate has been so temperate over this period is that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been a relatively steady 280 parts per million. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a major contributor to the heating and cooling of the planet. Too little carbon dioxide, and the planet becomes a snowball, as it was about 700 million years ago. Too much carbon dioxide, and dinosaurs are roaming Antarctica, as they were 145 to 66 million years ago.

Now, because of humans moving carbon from the earth to the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, the current carbon dioxide level is about 413 parts per million — almost fifty percent higher than the recent historical record. The last time there was this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was three million years ago when plants were growing in Antarctica, sea levels were 40 to 60 feet higher, and temperatures were an average of 3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer.

Since it takes a long time for the climate to react to carbon dioxide changes, we're not experiencing catastrophic changes… yet. But when those changes come, imagine the average June high temperature in Tucson being 108 degrees instead of 103. Or the average summer high temperature of Mexicali, Mexico, being 113 instead of 108; or Ahvaz, Iran, being 121 instead of 116; or El Azizia, Libya, being 137 instead of 132.

As these temperatures rise, if you think the world has an immigration problem now, just wait.

There will be no quick fix for climate change, unlike Covid. Carbon dioxide does not break down readily. It persists in the atmosphere for a century or more. To repeat: There will be no vaccine to return the atmospheric carbon dioxide level to 280 parts per million.

The wealthy nations of the planet, those that emit the most carbon, will have to make major changes to their economies. But since our world economic system is based on growth, and growth is based on energy, and energy has been based on fossil fuels for the last 150 years, limiting our addiction to fossil fuels will mean a wholesale change to the world economy. And what that change will be is anyone's guess.

Given the lack of progress we've made in stemming the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, even after the most recent climate change conference in Scotland, the reality is that only a series of climate crises will force the world to do what's necessary to reverse the changes humans have brought to the planet. But unlike the Covid crisis, the climate crises will unfold slowly. Repeated heatwaves, droughts, floods, fires, depleted water systems and crop failures will force mass migration. But since the Earth's 7.9 billion existing humans have taken up nearly all the habitable locations on the planet, populations that must move will only be able to move to where other populations currently exist.

The result will be economic upheaval and, of course, conflict.

Last month on a flight back from Colorado I sat next to a young lady, a lawyer who works for a federal public defender's office in Arizona. We got on the subject of climate change, and she announced that she was not going to have any children because she couldn't bring any new lives onto this planet given its condition. Then, another young woman sitting in front of her turned around and said, "Me neither."

A friend of mine who teaches environmental science at a prestigious small college surveyed his senior seminar class and learned that a third of the women were not planning to have children based on environmental concerns about the planet.

What does this say about the world we're leaving our children? When arguably many of our best and brightest are not planning to have children themselves because they see such a bleak future?

The choices ahead are not easy. Our political system is based on short-term solutions to complex problems. Gas prices on the rise? Consumers and politicians say we need to lower them, but this just feeds our fossil fuel addiction and further jeopardizes our children's future. Transition to a cleaner economy? This just hurts jobs (and investors) in fossil fuel industries.

Political will and technological innovation will eventually stabilize our climate future, but know this: These changes won't come about till after a series of increasingly frequent climate crises. And those crises will make dealing with Covid look like a sunny afternoon at the park.

Leigh Pomeroy has been researching climate change for the last decade. Currently, he chairs the Southcentral Minnesota Clean Energy Council, which sponsors forums each month on energy efficiency, clean energy and climate change.