Post Scripts: Global Warming

Daviess County citizens aren’t likely to worry much about global warming. Oh, they’ve heard of it, of course, but the term doesn’t alarm most of us. Out in the county, farmers are concerned that their fields will not receive sufficient "warming" to dry the soil so they can get crops planted. Here in Gallatin we’re concerned with pot-holes in our streets and the lack of hope for any major improvement in the near-future.

This is a serious problem affecting people not only here, but in all regions of the globe. Global warming will increase crop yields in temperate northern regions while harming agriculture in the tropics, further widening the gap between rich, industrialized countries and poor developing countries, according to a new analysis by influential scientists.

This analysis concludes that the rise in global temperatures in recent decades has already had a significant impact on wildlife, glaciers, sea ice and other features of our earth. A further rise of 2.7 degrees to 10 degrees Fahrenheit, could disrupt water supplies, flood coastal regions, and push vulnerable species like the Bengal tiger, to extinction.

The report was released in Geneva last month by a group which advises world governments via the United Nations. I read the report via Internet through The New York Times. The report indicates that the problem is being created by carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases from human activities are likely to have caused most of the temperature rise. Happily, the report states that humans, at some significant cost, will be able to reduce many of the adverse impacts of climate change.

It is hard to believe that the icecap atop Mount Kilimanjaro, which for thousands of years, has floated like a cool beacon over the shimmering plains of Tanzania, is retreating at such a pace that it will disappear in less than 15 years. Altogether, the report says, the mountain made famous by Ernest Hemingway, has lost 82 percent of the icecap it had when it was first surveyed in 1912.

So much for the benefits of smokestacks and auto tailpipes.

The pace of change being measured today goes beyond anything in recent centuries.

The retreat of mountain glaciers is being seen from Montana to the Swiss Alps. In the Alps, scientists have estimated that by 2025, glaciers will have lost 90 percent of the volume of the ice that they had a century ago. A few glaciers have pulled back as much as 508 feet in a single year. This means that reservoirs and hydroelectric lakes will be filled with plenty of water, but over the long haul their sources will run dry. We must understand that the U.S. is today cashing in on a bank account that was built up over thousands of years but isn’t being replenished.

Once this supply is gone, chances are that we will have to turn to oil or coal for power, adding even more greenhouse gases to the air – not a pleasant thought. Scientists returning from Kilimanjaro had this to say: "That mountain is a most mystical, magical place to draw people’s imagination. Once the ice disappears, it’s going to be a very different place."

When Dr. Douglas Hardy climbed the mountain to retrieve data, he discovered his weather instruments had fallen over because the ice around the base had melted. We in Daviess County may think we can escape the consequences of global warming, but there is growing evidence we may not.