One of the common de-humanizing elements of slavery, such as that practiced in our country until 1865 or so, was the tendency for slave-owners to avoid calling their possessions by name. Once you give something a name, perhaps you have to spend more attention on it, and it enters the part of your brain where all the other stuff with names is, like puppies or your own children. Names are important. My hunch is that there is a bit of the "don't-name-it" psychology at work with the largest problem, by far, facing the human race and its continued existence: global warming.
I haven't seen "it" called "global warming" much lately, and I suppose that can't be coincidental. After all, the Administration has continually shifted its Newspeak when it comes to Social Security, referring to "privatization" until they realized no one wants that, and then "private accounts" and then, currently, to "personal accounts," which polls better, and even "personal security investment accounts," which Brit Hume used with a straight face the other day. The words matter. Orwell knew that, and the leaders he lambasted so cleverly certainly knew that, and know that. So, I've seen "climate change" bandied about (although a better description might be "climate destruction"). How bad will it be? We don't know, exactly. The recent comprehensive studies ALL appear to tell us "it" will be worse than we thought. Maybe "it" doesn't have a name because "it" is not easily defineable.
Well, I'll call it "global warming", even though the acceleration of that warming may paradoxically bring on a rapid new Ice Age. It would happen if the Gulf Stream collapses. The Gulf Stream, you probably know, is the warm circular flow of air that makes New England and most of Europe different from Siberia. If that collapses, they clearly can't have games in Fenway Park anymore, because the air temperature would never rise to a point where all the snow would melt. It would be winter all the time. Days like last Friday would happen, where it was 64ยบ F in Sioux Falls, and those days would be treated as the anomalies that they are. How likely is this scenario? It has a 45% chance of occurring this century, according the world's largest consortium of climatologists. Another European study warns that the Gulf Stream collapse is 70% likely if current pollution trends continue. And remember, Europe has nothing to gain my making this stuff up.
As I was growing up, I remember being fascinated by the heights of the world's tallest mountains, especially Mount Everest. Revised in 1999, the mountain's official height is 29,035 feet. That's rock, though; the surveyors make it a point to ignore the snowpack at the peak of the mountain. In any case, Mt. Everest has lost a little over four feet of ice in the last few years. That shouldn't seem like a big deal. Four feet. Even if it does mean that, obviously, the entire Himalayan region has lost a few feet of ice in the last few years. Still, no biggie. How much flooding and damage can four feet of methodical, gradual melting do?
Not much, except most of the animals at the bottom of the mountain have had their habitats change as a result of the extra water. Again, this stuff, in isolation, doesn't seem like a big deal. It certainly doesn't sound unmanageable.
Although the Himalayas aren't where most of the ice is. Most of the ice is in Antarctica, where half of the thickness of the sea ice has been lost over the course of thirty years. A chunk the size of Rhode Island broke off last year, causing radio host Tony Kornheiser to say "That's not news? FREAKING RHODE ISLAND?!" It was very funny stuff, but, alas, apparently it isn't big news. There are sheets of ice the size of Texas in the intricate pile of Antarctica, and it's melting. The new studies indicate that sea level projections were very conservative in earlier rounds of climate predictions. It's likely that warming has already started in earnest, that weather-based natural disasters will only become more damaging and more frequent, and that human society may reach the point of no return in only a few years.
All scary stuff, but what are the odds of the ice sheets actually melting, and the sea levels rising, say, 3 or 4 feet? According to the projections by Nobel Laureates, as well as the UN-commissioned study, and even the new study by American climatologists, the odds of that are... 100%. Still, what's four feet? Build a wall, right? So a few beach houses need to be moved or refortified, or something. After all, the only U. S. towns that would be heavily damaged by a permanent rise in sea level are Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Fransisco, San Diego, Long Beach, San Jose, New Orleans, Miami, Washington, D. C., New York, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, and Boston, among many others. If the Greenland ice sheet melts, even one-tenth of it (this would happen if the Gulf Stream collapses, because the warm air that is normally pushed up by the cooling effect of ice sinking in the water would reverse, staying in the Greenland area), London and Paris and Oslo and Stockholm and Madrid and Copenhagen and, well, basically Europe has a lot of adjusting to do... The fact is, about nine out of every ten people lives right by water. They're the only ones who are immediately affected by these dire projections.
Sioux Falls isn't even affected, not by that. We would have other problems to deal with. What would we eat? Where would we get our petroleum, once the port cities are submerged? Even if we figure out how to maintain shipping lanes in the U. S., how will they fare in Caracas or Aden or Riyadh or Cairo or Kuwait City? I'm just asking. I don't know the answer. And also, would we be prepared to deal with the new tropical diseases that previously never entered our region of the U. S.? Bugs will move. It's easier for them. And there's a lot of them. What's the percentage of all animal life that are bugs? Eighty, something like that? I have no worries that the bugs will be able to shake off any losses they sustain in their "transition habitats." They made it pretty well through the last major extinction period. Oh, and one more thing: where will all the people from the coasts move to?
Global warming presents real dilemmas for society's survival. Our current political parties seem to be doing nothing about it, the gravest form of neglect. I mean really, this administration, in spite of the vast professional, specialized analysis to the contrary, still believed that Iraq had killer weapons, and we invaded. Seriously, the rationale has come to "we couldn't take the chance." And yet global warming, where there is MUCH LESS disagreement among the world's specialists in the climate-related disciplines, the government's attitude appears to be: unless you can totally prove it, I don't believe it. And there may be more to it than that. Sadly, many public figures are unconcerned about the prospects of global catastrophe because they feel it won't come to that: Jesus will return and save them. Take that, carbon dioxide! I know, I know, it seems smarmy, but it's true. James Watt was Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior. In 1981 he derided the pleas of environmentalists in much the same snarky language I used earlier: Jesus will come back, so it isn't an issue, etc. He got fired. Since then, public officials have been loathe to discuss this aspect of their faith publicly. But do you believe that End-Times mania is less now than it was in 1981? Do you really believe that government is less populated by fervent fundamentalists now than it was in 1981? If you honestly believe that, I have some oceanfront property to sell you. Sure, it's in Utah, but it's looking more and more like a savvy buy.
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