09-05-2009 - Earth

It almost rained here last night. We could see dark roiling rain clouds in the distance, and black sheets of rain falling … north of us. My lawn got a few drops only. Still, where I live in central Texas, we’ve been in drought conditions since 2007, and it has been a long hot dry summer. The city parks department is about to cut down 50 trees in my local park, many of them big old oaks. They up and died this summer due to the extreme heat and lack of water, and now the city is cutting them down. So even distant rain is a welcome sight. At least we can see with our own eyes that rain still falls, somewhere.

In my little corner of the globe, we’ve been in a climate extreme. It’s been a profound change from our beautiful central Texas climate of the past, which was hot in the summer, sure, but still with a certain deliciousness about it. That climate has been gone for some years, since long before the drought started, and scientists are telling us to expect climate extremes across the globe as climate change progresses in this century.

I get mad when I hear TV weathermen cite statistics about past weather. Why? Because for 30+ years, I’ve been hearing from scientists that Earth’s climate is bound to change if we don’t stop adding carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases to Earth’s atmosphere. When I was a girl journalist – note pad in hand, trembling a little each time I knocked on a scientist’s door – I heard scientists speak of global climate change and imagined what it might be like, in the future, to live in a world whose climate really was changing. Now I believe that future has arrived. I look around and see we’re all living in that world of climate change, that profoundly and intricately changing world. So comparing the current Texas drought to the drought of the 1950s has no meaning at all for me. Those weather stats just seem misleading to people whose job it isn’t to follow science and who aren’t sure what to believe.

For me, it’s hard not to see the long surreal hot Texas summer of 2009 as a manifestation of global climate change. I know you all don’t agree with me, but what if climate is changing before our eyes? What if that change has the potential to affect all of us, but especially the poorest of Earth’s 6.8 billion inhabitants? What if climate change has become just so politicized and so obfuscated that most people remained confused about it, or unsure, or angry, or in denial about it?

One week ago – August 28 – marked precisely 100 days before the start of the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009. Greenpeace launched a countdown to the Summit by placing ice sculptures of 100 children at the Temple of Earth in Beijing, a nearly 500-year-old monument where Chinese emperors once prayed for good harvests. An organization called TckTckTck started counting down to the Summit, too, which they call ‘the most important meeting of our lives.’ The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is also counting down. That’s because, in 2012, the Kyoto Protocol to prevent climate changes and global warming runs out. In Copenhagen in 2009 the parties of the UNFCCC meet for the last time on a government level before the climate agreement needs to be renewed.

Many are saying that Copenhagen will be the world’s last good chance to craft a new global-warming agreement. People like me – who believe climate change is human-caused – convey a sense of time running out. And yet we hear that global negotiators remain distant in their goals and desires. For example, Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a veteran of past climate talks, was quoted in Time as saying, ‘Negotiations are moving much more slowly than they need to be. If we’re going to get a climate deal by Copenhagen, we’re going to need political will injected into the process – not just rhetoric.’

The Obama Administration is said to be pushing for a global-warming deal. A bill featuring cap and trade was passed by the U.S. House and is now up for debate in the Senate. It would commit the U.S. to carbon reductions, but under the new law – if it passes – U.S. emissions would fall only 13% from 1990 levels by 2020. Meanwhile, the U.S. approximately ties China as the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter, according to Wikipedia.

The ice sculptures placed in Beijing by Greenpeace are melting now, as the countdown to Copenhagen continues.

These sculptures are made of glacial melt water from the source of Yangtze, Yellow and Ganges rivers. Greenpeace says they symbolize the risk that disappearing ice poses to the billion+ people in Asia who are threatened by water shortages due to climate change.

Written by Deborah Byrd

11 Responses to “Countdown to Copenhagen: Last good chance for climate change agreement?”

1. Claudia Crowley says:

   September 5, 2009 at 5:15 pm

   I recall those old-time Austin summers. Almost coastal. A thunderstorm seemed to blow up almost every afternoon. Not like the Gobi Desert.

   Reply
   • Deborah Byrd says:

     September 5, 2009 at 5:36 pm

     Claudia, I’m so glad you remember them, too. They’re one reason so many people moved here. Gone now, for many years …

     Reply
2. Randy Howard says:

   September 5, 2009 at 6:42 pm

   Perhaps the worst thing about being informed on current events is that it is difficult to not be a complete cynic. Everyday I am amazed at the ignorance of some of those that we have elected to serve us. One senator in Oklahoma says global warming is the biggest hoax ever played on mankind. Others are against everything if Obama is for it. I mean, why is it that we can’t see the forest for the trees? I live in central Texas and have been painting the landscape of the hill country for the last 20 years and I can assure you that this past summer has reminded me of the worst winter scenario imaginable, only instead of cold and wet it is hot and dry. I can almost sense the stress of the trees as I go about my daily painting vigil. The other day it was 106 in the shade and two steps away in the relentless sun it was stovetop hot. I remember it being 116 degrees a few years ago and when I returned from painting, the candles in my house were wilted like tulips. It was laughable, but these recent summers have convinced me that it is high time people thought about the bigger picture and honored our Mother Earth and quit the posturing. I’ll believe it when I see it.

   Reply
3. Steven Earl Salmony says:

   September 7, 2009 at 10:51 am

   So few with much too much to the point of obesity and obscenity and many too many with so little, to the point of starvation and extreme poverty. Towers of Babylon thrown up everywhere. Vendors of empty words peddle unnecessary stuff and duplicitous double-dealers engineer fraudulent financial schemes. A sacred world desecrated by filthy lucre and garish quests for power. Respect for moral authority and ethical behavior are nowhere to be found. Not one word of truth is spoken clearly, loudly and openly. Caring and sharing are anecdotal, token experiences.

   Without realizing until it is too late to respond ably, the human community has evidently become ensnared in a condition of bondage of its own making. Unfortunately, during the past 8 long dark years, too many leaders of the human family have been adamantly intent on ruthlessly maintaining these precise conditions of subjugation, even though such conscious determinations have mortgaged and threatened their childrens’ future and are likely to lead the children to confront some sort of colossal ecological disaster which their greedy leading elders have surely perpetrated.

   Thanks to new leadership, new values and a new direction provided by President Barack Obama, perhaps necessary change is in offing.

   Reply
4. Summer says:

   September 7, 2009 at 6:03 pm

   Boo to Global Warming people! It’s been the coolest and wettest summer in many many years…..

   Reply
5. Charlie Wallace says:

   September 7, 2009 at 6:46 pm

   Summer, your comment is the same as saying that, since the Rockefellers were filthy rich in 1932, then there was no such thing as The Depression. Just because it’s cool and wet where *you* are, that doesn’t mean that Global Warming doesn’t exist. (Here in Austin, it’s been the hottest and driest summer on record.) The biggest indication that Global Warming is real is that soon there will be no more Snows of Kilimanjaro; there’ll soon be no glaciers in Glacier National Park; there’ll soon be no ice at the North Pole during the summer; and island nations like The Maldives and Kiribati are disappearing under water as sea levels are rising. You can stick your head in the sand and deny Global Warming if you want to, but eventually reality will rise up and bite you on the butt whether you want it to or not. Not believing in gravity won’t save your life if you jump out of a window on the 50th floor of a skyscraper.

   Reply
6. Larry Sessions says:

   September 7, 2009 at 10:21 pm

   I also remember those summer afternoon thunderstorms, in Fort Worth, New Mexico and here in Denver. It isn’t quite so dry here in Denver as it has been, and certainly nothing like central Texas. But it does seem that things have changed. Some change of course is natural and expected, but I am convinced that the volume and quality of the research over the past 30 years is undeniably pointing toward global changes that civilization has not experienced in a very long time, if ever.

   Funny thing though, that short term fluctuations can really confuse you if you don’t have a significant body of data. About 30 years ago I wrote an article about the coming “Ice Age,” something that seemed probable to scientists then, ultimately just because the real data was scarce. But now the data just keeps mounting and it seems to me that no reasonable person can deny it. And yet, there are so many people who do. I was listening to the radio just earlier tonight and heard some ultra-right-wing talk show host and his so-called climate expert, a lawyer with the scientific credentials of a turnip. Both were denying all aspects of global warming, including the demonstrated fact that the polar ice caps are melting. They even went so far as to say that things were so much better and the environment was in much better shape than it was a few decades ago. They were in such an incredible state of blind denial. It is so sad that so many people believe this garbage, and I only hope that we can find a way to shield kids and other vulnerable people from dangerous propaganda of the ultra conservatives and and others who are willing scientific illiterates.

   Reply
   • Deborah Byrd says:

     September 8, 2009 at 3:16 am

     Larry, yup. It amazes me that people will believe the most (to me) incredible sources on the subject of global climate change. But it’s true that we now live in a culture where ‘who you believe’ in part defines who you are and how you think … seems now that any notion of actual fact or truth upon which we can all agree has disappeared.

     Reply
7. Jonathan Riley says:

   September 8, 2009 at 3:55 pm

   I moved to Austin from dry West Texas. I came here because of the beautilul climate and the springs, rivers and lakes. It sickens my heart to see Central Texas suffering from climate change. My greatest fear is that we will have a continuation of our present conditions.

   Reply
   • Deborah Byrd says:

     September 8, 2009 at 4:58 pm

     Jonathan, I have that same fear, but – as a science editor – I know it’s an unfounded fear. The operative word for the 21st century is change. So no matter how hot and dry it is now … we can count on that changing in the years and decades to come.

     Remember how strangely wet it was in the spring and early summer of 2007? All the trees in my yard put on two sets of leaves that year. Then the drought started, and it’s been bone dry ever since.

     Scientists say that climate change will bring extremes in climate. We\’re certainly having a climate extreme in central Texas now. Hard not to see it as associated with global climate change.

     Thanks for dropping by!

     Reply
8. Deborah Byrd says:

   September 8, 2009 at 7:28 pm

   Dave, I believe rain barrels wouldn’t have done us much good these past couple of years. This has been just the most surreal period of extreme heat and drought even us old Texans have ever seen. Plants and even large trees all over town look dead. If it rains this winter, we can hope some come back in spring.

   Desalinization! That’s a thought!

   Reply
9. Dave Dorais says:

   September 8, 2009 at 6:39 pm

   Debbie–
   Moving back to the Pacific Northwest in 1988 was at least in part due to the realization-upon hearing the early warnings even way back then of drought, weird weather, water shortages, etc. Even though Seattle is in the rain shadow of the Olympics (at 120+in/yr) and only gets about 37in on average-same as New York City where my sister lives, we get it in 1/100th(x2 or 3) of an inch intervals about every 2-3 days apart- from about Sept. to about Mar. Mostly it’s just always cloudy and doesn’t really rain alot like it can down your way, except when its also snowing in the Cascades-about 2-3 times a year. Stay snug; and think rain barrels and desalinization.

   Reply
10. Deborah Byrd says:

    September 10, 2009 at 10:24 am

    Here’s a great site to learn more about the Copenhagen Climate Summit: http://en.cop15.dk/

    It’s an important meeting … for all of us.

    Reply
11. Steven Earl Salmony says:

    November 15, 2009 at 8:24 am

    We hear the Copenhagen Climate Conference will be a failure. No binding international agreement will be made. The last best hope for humanity to sensibly address climate destabilization has been turned into a steppingstone to nowhere.

    A colossal tragedy is in the making. Father Profit wins again and again. Mother Nature loses.

    Now for some good news: “THE(only)GAME(in town)” is in the bottom half of the ninth inning and, therefore, not yet over for Mother Nature.

    Reply
12. Dan says:

    December 6, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    I don’t think it’s just “Mother Nature” that will lose from this predicament.

    I have read that the IPCC report did not take into account positive feedback cycles for Co2 input into the atmosphere from natural ecosystem failures, such as those possible Amazon rainforest warms enough to become prone to fire. From what I have read, it is like a wet tinder box that, if it ever became dry enough to be able to catch fire, would catch & burn extremely rapidly at the slightest provocation and deposit absolutely massive amounts of Co2 into the atmosphere which most meteorologists and other scientists did not take account for in their current climatic forecasts for this coming century.

    We are talking about the survival of pretty much every human out there, as well as the unborn, being at extreme and probable risk if all governments across the world do not act immediately and in unison. Keep faith in the good Lord, and in the leaders of this world, as long as their is any hope that remains……

    Reply