what is to be next?

Global warming has been on my mind recently, due to a confluence of things related to it in my life.

Rolling Stone has an article entitled Can Dr. Evil Save the World?, in which Lowell Wood, a protoge of Edward Teller (father of hydrogen bomb and Star Wars missle defense system) spoke up at a global warming workship to propose injecting sulfate particulates into the northern stratosphere to counteract global warming. Geoengineering. Tinkering with the planet. As one argument goes, we're already doing that. But the other side of the argument goes that heaping multiple unknowns upon each other isn't moving in the right direction. (We know particulate surface area in the stratosphere increases the rate of ozone loss. Do we want to heat up or be fried?). Additionally, if we start putting bandaids on the problem, we're not going to have the impetus to address the root of the problem which is the form of our energy use. The surprising thing to me was Paul Crutzen's comment that "...it is time to consider 'last resort' options" in the fight against global warming. (Paul Crutzen is one of the Nobel prize winners from the atmospheric chemistry community from several years back). That he would advocate for this at all gives me great pause. Geoengineering would certainly be a last resort. Are we really at that point? Maybe.

Today at work we saw part of the Canadian film "The Great Warming", narrated by Keanu Reeves and Alanis Morissette. The piece of it we saw seemed accurate, though maybe a tad overly dramatized. That doesn't make it inaccurate. And it's like that to get the attention of the public, which needs to happen. Our local climate expert was there to moderate discussion afterwards. Even in an auditorium full of rocket scientists, there were some basic gaps in understanding, and I'm glad Bruce was there to address them in a very reasoned and understandable manner. I think this is a good film, and I'm glad it's been released to the public. I need to go see it myself, since we only got to see the first 45 minutes.

Many years ago, when I was in 6th great - Mrs. Deutschaver's class - we had to write a story. I wrote a story about how carbon dioxide had built up in the atmosphere and warmed the earth and melted the polar caps and people were racing for the mountains in a panic. I'd read or heard just a snippet of some of the first reports of the problem and was absolutely fascinated by the idea that humans could possibly have the power to change the earth is such a significant way. (I had no idea there was such a field of study as atmospheric chemistry at the time. I find the symmetry in my career and that little girl quite comforting. I really do love my work down to my core).

What is not comforting though is that the science behind global warming was beginning to develop then - more than 30 years ago. And yet today we are still fighting to get the public to understand the need to change the way we live. Look at my own life - I am certainly well aware of global warming and the blatent signs that things are ALREADY CHANGING. Yet we live 35 miles away from our place of work. And we take separate cars to get there (because of my part time schedule). The only way we will make progress is for the governments of the world to provide plenty of financial incentives for the development of new energy sources. We are capable of it, I am sure. I am also sure that we will get to that point. But I also am sure that it is too late to totally avoid the costs global warming. The world my kids will know and my grandkids will know will be very different from the world I grew up in. Exactly what it will look like remains to be seen. That is where I have to start to fight my personal demons. Species will disappear (the polar bears seem likely to be one that will become extinct in my lifetime). Weather patterns will change. Droughts will get worse in some places. The agricultural belts will change - I have no idea how that will affect food production or the distribution of food. I feel strongly that the divide between the world's haves and the have-nots will dramatically increase. At this point I feel comforted that I live where I do, but that is immediately replaced by horror at what millions of people is developing countries will surely face. It is going to be a catastrophic, world-changing thing, this geoengineering that we've been doing throughout the industrial age. I don't know if it will mean the end to the human species - probably not. But I think it will cause a dramatic shift in the way we live on the timeline of our existance. Agriculture. Industrialization. Global warming. We need some very smart people to start finding us new ways to live.