Wild Weather

The hockey-stick effect

The world’s weather naturally fluctuates with volcanic eruptions and solar activity having the most direct effects on global climate. Not any more. Now by far the most powerful stimulator of world climate is pollutants. The question is how serious are these new effects?

The National Academy of Sciences is a US based private organization. It was chartered by Congress to advise the American government on scientific matters, and the most recent of these was a study of global average surface temperatures for the past two millennia. In the 20th century the Northern Hemisphere (average surface temperatures) has increased by 1 degree*, which has caused, amongst other effects, increased hurricane activity. Another think-tank, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (sponsored by the NAS amongst others) has also discovered some disturbing trends in worldwide weather.

To summarise their findings they cite the so-called hockey-stick effect. The shaft of the stick represents stable temperatures for millennia, while the sharply curving blade represents the sudden surge in temperatures happening now. Associated with spiking temperatures are severe increases in CO2 levels, industrial pollutants etc. Climate scientists Michael Mann, Malcolm Hughes and Raymond Bradley have shown that the Northern Hemisphere is warmer now than it has been in over 2000 years, even 12 000 years according to other data.

China has to be singled out as the world’s greatest polluter – they burn more coal than the US and Europe combined. When it’s spring in the Northern Hemisphere particulates of the heavy metals, sulphur etc that are belched out of Chinese factories attach themselves to clouds of fine Gobi desert sand. These massive poisonous clouds are visible from space, and can be seen snaking and swirling south and east, reducing visibility in Korean and Japanese cities to less than a kilometer. Schools close and people are advised to stay indoors, and wash skin, clothes and other surfaces exposed to this dust. People begin to suffer from very serious respiratory sicknesses, including asthma and painful throat and lung infections. I had two very bad throat infections last year during these Yellow Dust storms. Instruments, filters for example, as far away as America have been described as becoming ‘blacker than ever’ as a result of these airborne toxins from China.

But if one measures pollution (as a result of energy consumption) per capita, America is still streets ahead. This is because more Americans, as a percentage of the total population, can afford to drive cars than Chinese. The White House is reluctant to take climate change seriously because curbing pollution will cost 5 million jobs and impact on the all important extraction industries (oil, natural gas etc) and make energy prices even more expensive than they currently are. There’s the rub: we can’t afford to pollute the atmosphere, but the world’s worst polluter, China, can afford pollution limiting controls even less. Why? Because they’re trying to stay cheap. They’re trying to maintain their position as the cheapest place to manufacture everything. So what’s been happening is, especially in China, we’re seeing plenty of very nasty contamination.

Increased CO2 levels are actually good for plants. Studies show that nettles, for example, grow more quickly and their stings become more potent when exposed to higher CO2 levels. In a future world with a CO2 soup for an atmosphere, can we expect a Day of the Triffids – where poisonous plants start to take over? A more realistic and dangerous effect we’re likely to see is the migration of insects and insect borne diseases like Malaria. We are already seeing this in South Africa where Malaria is on the move – further and further south. If you’re someone who finds the climate debate all hype, and you live in Johannesburg or Pretoria, here’s a snippet especially for you. What you thought was irrelevant to your life actually visits you courtesy of climate change. Yes, a malaria carrying mosquito who otherwise would never have found her way to you now finds you on your doorstep. While the Chinese may be keeping their costs low on coal plants, they export the costs elsewhere. You get to buy cheap canned oysters and a toilet seat made in China, but pay for these global amenities (and local incompetencies) by being forced to go a pharmacy and using anti-malaria meds for the rest of your life.

How climate change impacts other creatures is uncertain. It’s the first time it’s happening so we’re living out an experiment. But it’s certain that as insects find new habitats, migrating birds will also change their flyways. Who knows what diseases, associated with bird flu, will get a new lease on life.

So far we are coping with one health crisis after another by throwing lots of money at them. We’re winning (well, that needs to be qualified by who you are, and how rich you are), but only just. Has anyone realized how many epidemics/emergencies are running concurrently? Let me say that again to be clear: are we aware that AIDS, bird flu, city wrecking hurricanes, war, the spread of warming, malaria and toxic air is all happening at the same time? I’m not sure we have enough resources (financial and otherwise) to overwhelm all the associated effects building up in global weather patterns. We’re caught up in a psychology of growth and the only way we’ll accept less growth is through the experience of a crash. That appears to be what we are heading towards. A more enlightened society would look at the signs and volunteer to curb their activities. Are we capable of behaving like an enlightened, high level species?

While there is little doubt that we are living in interesting times, the exact nature of what these times portend is less certain. What is certain is that people who are alive now will live long enough to find out.

*Information sourced from ‘Earth’s hottest it’s been in 2000 years’, by John Heilprin