NEWS

GAIL: Better policies needed to avert climate bailout By William B. Gail, Special to the Rocky

10/07/2008

Rocky Mountain News

Will we ever learn? Imagine the scene two decades hence: Congress toiling over the weekend to approve the “Emergency Climate Stabilization Act of 2028,” driven by dire warnings that only their legislation can avoid Monday morning’s anticipated collapse of the Greenland ice sheet. 

This is not a particularly realistic scenario. But the analogy with today’s credit crisis should evoke fear in those comfortable with the slow-rolling of climate action. The parallels are ominous - claims that today’s prosperity is too fragile to invest in avoidance of future risks, that the markets will self-adjust to solve all problems, or that we weren’t aware as the collapse unfolded.

Colorado is highly vulnerable to climate change. Careful management of water resources is critical to our survival, so we get it when told that anticipating climate’s variability is important. It is not unreasonable that we should be among the first to grasp why action today avoids the need for tomorrow’s climate bailout (in Colorado, a bailout could take the form of emergency federal aid to survive prolonged drought).

Colorado is also a major election battleground. As the candidates seek our votes, they will need to explain in simple language how their climate policies impact our state.

But the credit crisis has raised the bar for political accountability. The candidates are now being judged on their skill at anticipating problems and how their policies will avoid them. With climate, restating support for cap-and-trade climate legislation and international agreements to replace Kyoto is no longer enough. Small steps toward a solution are inadequate if we are to avoid the bailout – only a comprehensive climate strategy can succeed. Climate change is the acid test of the credit crisis’ lessons.

In this new anticipatory policy world, both candidates will be forced to face an uncomfortable reality. Climate change is more than a one-time greenhouse gas problem needing a one-time solution. A tremendous effort focused on eliminating fossil fuel emissions is needed. But while it may eventually solve today’s problem, the victory will be hollow. What we will come to recognize is that climate change is really an ongoing series of problems, needing an ever-evolving set of solutions.

Global warming is merely the first of society’s climate change encounters. The fundamental problem is much deeper: Our growing global population, with its increasing energy demands, can no longer avoid significantly altering nature. If not global warming, it will be invasive species, ocean acidification, land cover loss, or perhaps something we have yet to even consider. Even simple waste heat from our increasing energy demand could reintroduce global warming within a few hundred years – whether we use “clean” energy or not. How does one stop that?

As if human influence is not enough, natural climate variability may be far more of a concern than we have recognized. Human civilization arose quite rapidly after the Ice Age 10,000 or so years ago. The period since has been characterized by an astonishingly calm climate compared to the long geological record. Our sensitivity to nature’s whim is quite dulled, with little comprehension that this reprieve from climate’s natural variability may end at any time.

What if climate reverts to its historically more-erratic state, bringing changes that cause extensive loss of species, widespread population displacement, and global conflict for resources? Would we passively accept it as nature’s course, or would we seek means to avoid the inevitable human and ecosystem damage? It is possible that nature has its own tipping points, at which these changes occur suddenly. Do we have the tools to anticipate and avoid them?

A sustainable climate – one that supports civilized human life and ecosystem viability as we know them – is far from guaranteed. Achieving climate sustainability requires both avoidance of destabilizing human influences and robustness to nature’s own variability. Policies that reflect this duality are needed if we are to avert a climate bailout.

As they campaign in Colorado, the candidates should convince us that they get this message. Our nation should retake global thought leadership by pushing beyond today’s greenhouse gas issues and preparing for the climate change problems that will inevitably come next - a truly sustainable climate policy. Perhaps we can learn something from the credit crisis.

William B. Gail of Boulder has worked in the Earth science and information community for over two decades, including positions with Ball Aerospace and Microsoft Virtual Earth in Colorado.