Speaking truth to power

Speaking to the closing plenary of the Durban climate conference on December 10, 2011, youth delegate Ms. Anjali Appadurai of Maine's College of the Atlantic declared: "I speak for more than half the world's population. You've given us a seat in this hall, but our interests are not at the table. What does it take to get a stake in this game? Lobbyists? Corporate influence? Money?  You have been negotiating all of my life. In that time, you've failed to meet pledges, you've missed targets, and you've broken promises."   [Quoted by Tad Homer-Dixon in his latest newsletter]

Right on, Anjali! Sometimes I think that members of your generation, all humans under the age of, say, 25 years, would be justified in a bloodless coup and take-over of world power and decision making from the self-interested, complacent  "business-as-usual" creatures who are running the world at present. These older generations, including mine, the oldest, have convincingly demonstrated incompetence, dishonesty, corruption, greed, blindness to hard scientific realities, and utter unconcern for the fate of descendents, that make them - us - unfit to lead the world.    I have been thinking, speaking, and writing about the health impacts of climate change since the early1980s. In the early 1990s I chaired an expert committee of the Royal Society of Canada that studied and reported in 1995 on our conclusions about the dire consequences we could expect if nothing was done to mitigate climate change. Nothing was done, so it is now quite certain that our world's climate, which has been stable and predictable for the last 10,000 years,will change in ways that will be less hospitable to humans and other living creatures. The changes are readily visible in northern latitudes like Ottawa and its environs.

Species extinction rates now are as high as in the last great extinction 65 million years ago, and most can be attributed to climate change or to this combined with human population pressure on fragile ecosystems. Our government in Canada is either incredibly dense and stupid or willfully irresponsible if it knows and understands the scientific facts. There is persuasive evidence that our government is engaged in a mixture of obfuscating the facts, suppressing the facts, and "shoot the messenger" approaches to aspects of science that reveal the truth about, for instance, the dramatic ecosystem changes in the Canadian Arctic and the permafrost regions that already are irreversibly changing the earth's climate by altering air and ocean current flow. Perhaps the most alarming facts relate to the permafrost regions, which are releasing huge quantities of methane as the permafrost thaws Methane is much more powerful as a "greenhouse" gas than carbon dioxide, which is the main product of carbon-based fuel combustion. This is adding tremendous force to the "greenhouse" effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which has been increasing relentlessly since the beginning of the industrial revolution. 


In July 2003, Wendy and I were in Edinburgh (where I was awarded an honorary degree) as the lethal heatwave began. Edinburgh experienced unprecedented hot weather. We went south to London, then across to Paris by Eurostar; we arrived in Paris, intending to stay about a week, on the first day that the heat wave became a lethal heat emergency. We escaped after 3 days to Switzerland, which was only a little better. That European heat wave killed at least 35,000, maybe as many as 50,000 people. In Paris alone, at least 15,000 deaths were attributable to heat stroke. Mosquito-borne diseases (malaria, dengue, encephalitis and hemorrhagic fever) are extending their range into formerly temperate zones, and water-borne diseases also are becoming more prevalent and more lethal as the world warms up. But, as Ronald Reagan said in a different context, "We ain't seen nothing yet!" The full impact of heat-related diseases is still some decades away. The impact of hotter weather and more frequent violent extreme weather is even greater on grain-producing regions where floods and droughts are already making bountiful seasons less reliable, less predictable, than at any time in the past historical record. 

Meantime our prime minister of Canada, and most other world leaders, go mindlessly on their way, extolling Canada as an "energy super-power" and disregarding altogether what happens when that potential energy from tar sands is combusted. Prime Minister Harper is obviously less concerned about the world he will bequeath to his children and grandchildren than I am about the world I am bequeathing to my grandchildren and those who come after them.   


About a year ago I promised myself to avoid discussing climate change on this blog. It's such a depressing subject! But when I saw what Anjali Appadurai said, I was impelled to support her totally. For once I wish my blog had many more readers, and greater influence on public opinion!

 To see and hear Anjali Appadurai, go to
http://www.homerdixon.com/speaking-truth-to-power/