It’s a variation on a familiar theme, only worse.
There appears to be no avoiding serious effects of global warming and a shrinking window for mitigation and adaptation to try to minimize them, according to the U.N. report released Monday.
Unfortunately, the level of collective worldwide action needed to stave off the worst a hotter world can bring hasn’t materialized. At the moment, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine casts doubt that greater global cooperation is in the cards.
The repeated warnings are unequivocally grim. But the apocalypse isn’t here yet and it’s not out of the question that international unity will emerge as the existential climate threat draws closer. No one and no country is immune to climate change.
Meanwhile, it’s well past time to put all strategies on the table, no matter how controversial, unusual or risky they may seem.
The continued fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can’t be abandoned, even those emissions continue to rise despite international agreements and increasing use of green energy. But that can’t be the strategy alone.
Reducing and relocating development from coastlines and high-risk fire zones in many areas seem a given one way or the other — either by policy or nature. Also, armoring the coast and bays where it makes sense with walls, jetties, artificial reefs and dikes need to be in the mix.
And if all of those weren’t disputed enough, there are geoengineering ideas to alter and cool the atmosphere.
The world is at the stage where a very open mind is needed toward examining whatever it takes to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
None of this will be easy — or maybe even possible — logistically or politically. But it’s getting harder to treat the warnings like white noise.
“It’s getting to the point where in somebody’s lifetime now, they will notice the difference,” Helen Fricker, a glaciologist studying sea-level rise at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told Joshua Emerson Smith of The San Diego Union-Tribune.
A report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey said the United States will experience another foot of sea-level rise by 2050. That’s equal to the increase over the last century, Smith noted.
Without a concerted worldwide effort, even higher seas are projected. The impact will be greater, and likely faster, along the East Coast. Still, an 8-inch rise along the California coast is anticipated. Smith reported local officials believe they are adequately planning for the impacts in the San Diego region, but there are skeptics.
While existing infrastructure is threatened — most notably the bluff-top train tracks in Del Mar — future construction is planned for areas more likely to flood.
But various agencies believe they have engineering solutions for massive new projects at the San Diego International Airport, an underground trolley spur from downtown to the airfield and a multibillion-dollar transportation hub planned in the Midway District just north of the airport.
Globally, the World Ocean Review outlines several ways to adapt to rising seas. None is without controversy. “Managed retreat” calls for moving coastal development inland, along with expanding marshes and estuaries to absorb the incoming water.
The organization, which aims to present scientifically validated findings regarding marine research, also discusses the potential use of human-made structures to adapt to sea-level rise. They’ve been used throughout history.
Researchers note a barrier with movable gates on the Thames River has protected some portions of London from flooding during storm surges. They also note that dikes and other structures have helped areas of the Netherlands, particularly those below sea level. But the World Ocean Review adds this system of protections could become overwhelmed by the rising ocean.
Rock and concrete groins and breakwaters have been built to protect beaches and harbors, and modules called reef balls — hollow spheres with large holes that can also create ecosystems for marine life — have been deployed underwater to dissipate the energy of waves before they reach the coast.
Inland, dealing with wildfires presents a similar challenge. They’ve gotten worse and will continue to do so, according to a report released last week by the U.N. Environment Programme.
The number of extreme wildfires is projected to increase up to 14 percent by 2030 and to 30 percent by 2050, according to the report, which concludes the world must “learn to live with fire.”
In California, one way to do that is to harden existing homes against fire, both structurally and by clearing defensible spaces of brush. A UC San Diego study showed strict building codes have helped save houses from fire and the state of California recently began offering grants to retrofit homes in rural San Diego with fire-resistant materials.
The idea of moving populated areas out of high-risk fire zones hasn’t gained traction, but more and more opposition is growing to building new subdivisions in such areas.
Most of what’s been discussed here has triggered political, environmental and ethical struggles. But those debates may seem pedestrian compared with the battles if more far-reaching proposals gain currency: using geoengineering to manipulate the atmosphere to cool the climate.
The Union-Tribune’s Chris Reed has written about various geoengineering concepts, including a proposed experiment that was rejected in Sweden to try to replicate temperature-depressing effects from major volcanic eruptions.
The ideas being discussed include putting aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, fertilizing the ocean to grow plankton to absorb greenhouse gases, and creating vast new forests of high carbon-absorbing vegetation. There are also proposals to build machines that suck carbon out of the air.
Granted, not only are there questions about feasibility, but there’s obvious concern about potential unintended consequences. However, as for any notion against humans tampering with the environment, well, that’s pretty much how we got here.
Unless drastic action is taken, global warming likely will upend the planet as we know it, bringing suffering and death to billions of humans and animals.
These are desperate times.
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.
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