August 14, 2000
Weathering the carbon debt
Winnipeg Free Press
Penni Mitchell
In the aftermath of the tornadoes that ripped through southern Manitoba
last month, meteorologists have predicted that we will see more
twisters in the years to come. The tornado season may have passed, but
the havoc of global warming is just heating up. At a recent Winnipeg
conference co-sponsored by the International Institute for Sustainable
Development, weather experts agreed that the milder winters of the last
decade are a probable effect of the trapping of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. They forecast a future of more droughts during prairie
summers and floods in the spring. "The worst of both worlds," is how
one meteorologist put it.
It seems unfathomable-that our great-grandchildren may be growing little
food on the fertile plains that have nourished life ever since the
glaciers melted. And incomprehensible that the world hasn't simply
stopped all of its business to deal with what could precipitate the
worst disasters in civilized history.
Rather, it has fallen into a comfortable state of denial. I recently
came across an ad in a magazine, a picture of a blonde woman in a chic,
black wool dress, sleeveless. Her skin is nearly opaque, her lipstick
red. The ad copy reads "How best to combat global warming? Something in
lightweight wool perhaps?"
Try telling it to the badly-dressed peasants in Mozambique. According to
The International Red Cross, this year's floods in that country, those
in Bangladesh and eastern India, as well as the violent storms in
Venezuela were all exacerbated by global warming. In its new report,
World Disasters Report 2000, The Red Cross says, "Reckless human use of
fossil fuels-overwhelmingly by industrialized countries-has helped
raise the specter of climate change, which darkens everyone's
horizon."
It comes as little surprise that The Red Cross has become a radical
environmental organization. Who can blame them? In the last decade
alone, the number of weather-related disasters quadrupled compared to
the 1960s.
The aid organization is tired of mopping up after disasters that could
have been averted if the rich North had listened to scientific evidence
about excess carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels when they were
first described in 1957.
The Red Cross also blasted the North for generating over 62 times more
carbon dioxide pollution than developed countries. It even calculates
that developed countries like Canada actually owe developed countries a
"carbon debt" worth $13 trillion.
If you're looking for the good news, you may as well stop reading now.
An article published two weeks ago in the journal Science reports the
discovery of a new gas that traps more heat than all other greenhouse
gases. The synthetic gas, trifluromethyl sulfur pentafluroride is
believed to be a by-product of military weapons or industry-no one
seems to know how the estimated 4,000 tons of it got into the
atmosphere. Dr. William Sturges, an atmospheric chemist in Britain says
trifluromethyl sulfur pentafluroride is 18,000 times more effective at
trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
We have now surpassed the 'what if' stage and have entered the era of
'how bad.' Unless immediate curbs are placed on the fossil fuel
industry-and possibly even if they are, the eco-system dominated by
rich countries will gradually implode and millions will die, according
to the World Resources Institute. Even the sensibly staid doctors of
the Ontario Medical Association estimate that greenhouse gas pollution
costs Ontario $1 billion a year in health-related costs and kills 1,800
Ontarians prematurely each year.
Worse, if that's possible is what Canadian Meteorologist Jim Bruce told
the Winnipeg climate conference-that Canada's abundant supply of fresh
water-the same one hailed as Canada's economic salvation in a future
world where fresh water is in short supply-will dry up if global
warming increases.
Anyone looking to the federal government for leadership will be sorely
disappointed. Canada has released no plan on how it intends to reduce
fossil fuel emissions by 6% compared by 1990 levels, as per the 1997
Kyoto climate treaty talks. In fact, even the chair of the House of
Commons environment committee has wondered about federal tax breaks
that have attracted an estimated $6 billion to the Alberta oil sands,
where four times the carbon dioxide is emitted compared to other
extraction procedures.
Well, it turns out there is some good news. Two new reports confirm that
economic impact of slashing greenhouse gas emissions will a mere blip,
and not the disaster predicted by the petroleum industry. The
department of Finance actually agrees with the NDP that investing in
clean technology and energy efficiency will actually be an economic
stimulus and create more jobs.
So, what are we waiting for?
This article originally appeared in the Winnipeg
Free Press on Monday, August 14, 2000 and is posted here by the
permission of Penni Mitchell
