Transcript Climate & Climate-related Creeping Environmental Problems: Rates

Climate & Climate-related Creeping Environmental Problems:
Rates and Processes
Mickey Glantz
Director, CCB
INSTAAR, University of Colorado
12 February 2009
Reminder
What I mean by Climate
• Climate variability
• Seasonal to inter-annual
• Climate fluctuations
• Decade scale
• Climate change
•
“Deep” climate change
– New global climate state
• Extreme meteorological events
• Seasonality
Reminder
Climate science & education
includes:
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Understanding the Climate System
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Understanding its components
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Accepting society as a component
• Along with…
ocean, atmosphere, vegetation, ice, etc.
Reminder
Perceptions of Climate
• Climate as a hazard
• Climate as a resource
• Climate as a constraint
In every society climate is a mix of
all three, but the proportions vary
from one country to the next and one
decade to the next.
Three key issues
• The identification of climate-related creeping environmental
problems; devise ways to identify thresholds of major change
before they are crossed
• The growing need to cope with instability as well as seeking to
forecast the causes of instability in ecosystems and societies
• The future for many places under “business as usual scenarios”
is already present but in other locations on the globe, or had
taken place at other times.
• Learn from them.
The Earth’s Problem Climates
( G. Trewartha, 1960)
Trewartha wrote that…
“A methodical description of all the earth’s climates is
not attempted, for
many areas are
climatically so normal or usual that
they require little comment in a book
which professes to emphasize the exceptional”
Concerns about the notion of
“problem climates”
•Is such a statement still valid, given what we
have learned about climate since 1960?
•Are there really areas on the globe that
could be viewed as “climatically so normal or
usual that they require little comment?”
•Are there exceptional “problem climates?”
•Should we also be asking questions about
societies’ role in the existence of problem
climates?
Problem Societies
Egypt-Israel border
Dust storms on the TexasNew Mexico border, 1977
CEPs in a particular ecotype: the Drylands
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Overgrazing
Wood cutting
Salinization
Groundwater changes
Population increases
Using increasingly marginal land
Pesticide use
Need for more water to flush soils
Use of lands increasingly marginal for agriculture
Soil fertility
Demise of the Aral Sea,
Central Asia (1960-present)
Mangrove destruction for shrimp
farming in Guatemala (2001)
The Aral Sea Basin,
a multi-stressed environment
•Streamflow diversions
•Shortened life expectancy
•Hotter summer, colder winter
•Upstream-downstream energy
for water conflicts
•haves and have-nots issues
•Declining water quantity
•Loss of wildlife and forests
•Loss of biological diversity
• Rapid sea level drop
•Loss of biological productivity
•Pesticide & fertilizer use
•Declining water quality
•Ethnic conflicts
•Contaminated aerosols
•Dust storms
•Karakum Canal
•5 competing nations
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Soon to be 6?
•Terrorist groups
•Dictatorships
•Global Warming
•Loss of cultural heritage
C02 emissions since 1850
Creeping environmental problems
• Air pollution
• Acid Rain, Global
warming
• Ozone depletion
• Tropical deforestation
• Soil erosion
• Water quality & quantity
• Glacier retreat
• Waste disposal/landfills
• Nuclear waste
• Marine pollution, etc.
Creeping environmental Changes
• Creeping rate of
change
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Incremental
Slow onset
Low grade
But … Cumulative
• Major changes
apparent only over
time
• Demographics are
also changing
• Most creeping environmental problems
involve human activities
• They are long term, low grade but
cumulative
– Today is not much worse than yesterday and
tomorrow is likely to be not much worse than
today
• No government, rich or poor deals with
CEPs efficiently or effectively
Where do they occur?
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In rich as well as poor countries
In industrial and agrarian societies
On all inhabited continents
Wherever humans and ecosystems
meet
• Especially in vulnerable or fragile
ecosystems
Some CEP examples
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Aral Sea
Lake Victoria Basin
Galapagos Islands
Brazilian Amazon
CO2 in the atmosphere
A Societal Perspective
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Rates and Processes are often as
important as the Magnitude of
change
 High rates
 Cause alarm
 Slow rates
 Generate laissez-faire attitude
Why focus on Creeping Environmental Problems?
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To reduce scientific and policy uncertainty about rates
and processes of change and societal responses to them
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To improve an understanding of rates of change and the
processes that drive them
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To underscore the importance of the human aspects of
global environmental change
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To generate heightened concern about the societal and
political importance of early warning systems
When are rates of change
seen as a crisis?
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When there is a ...
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High level of vulnerability
Low level of societal resilience
Perceived high stakes at risk
Perceived threat
Perceived short time to act
Concern about impacts reversibility
“Dread Factors” and climate change
• Collapse of West Antarctic Ice
Sheet
• 2X and 4X CO2 emissions
• Ocean Conveyor Belt Switch
• 1988 US Midwest hot summer
analogue
• Rate of 3ºC/century vs.
0.3ºC/decade
• 1980s and 1990s: hottest
decades
• And now … Abrupt Climate
Change
Foreseeability
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"FORESEEABLE RISK, i.e., risks whose
consequences a
person of ordinary prudence would
reasonably expect might occur…
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In tort law… a party's actions may be deemed
negligent only where the injurious
consequences of those actions were
foreseeable."
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For example, "established by proof that the
actor or person of reasonable intelligence and
prudence, should reasonably have
anticipated danger to others created by his or
her negligent act.“
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"Foreseeability encompasses not only that
which the defendant foresaw, but that which
the defendant ought to have foreseen."
(Gifis, 1991)
Hotspots
• Lots of attention to
hotspots
• Hotspots can be found
along a continuum,
from transformation to
firepoint
• Hotspots capture
attention but areas of
concern (AOCs) are
where actions should
be taken
Too costly, too late.
Move on.
The proverbial 11th
hour; little time to act
Focus
should be
here
This level captures
attention
Changes become critical
Human induced; not
all changes are bad
Natural changes;
different timescales
What one generation
leaves for the next
generation
Problems of Attribution
• For Prediction of cause-effect
• For Societal Responses
– Prevention
– Mitigation (pro-action)
– Adaptation (re-action)
Little Agreement on Rates, because ...
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Poor information/data
Honest scientific disagreements
Varying perceptions (by factors of X)
Political Aspects associated with the
various rates (and processes)
• See Brian Martin’s “Bias of Science”
on the supersonic transports (SSTs)
Example #1: Stratospheric ozone depletion
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Increase in CFCs as …
 Refrigerant, air
conditioners
 electronics cleanser
 Foam blowing agent
Skin cancer fear
The Role of the ‘ozone hole’
Montreal Protocol
Rapid rate of change in CFC
use
Example #2: Tropical Deforestation in the
Brazilian Amazon
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How to define rates of
change
How to characterize
rates of change
Who is interested in
identifying the
correct rate?
Who cares about this
rate?
Example #3: Caspian Basin
• Caspian Sea Level
Changes
– 1930s, a 2+ meter
decline began
– 1978, a 2+ meter
increase began
• How to attribute causes
– Natural?
– Anthropogenic
• Why bother to attribute
causes?
Example #4: Galapagos Islands
• Increasing …
– Number of illegals settlers
from the mainland (Ecuador)
– Overfishing, illegal fishing
methods
– Feral animals (cats, dogs,
goats) brought to the islands
– Invasive species (chickens,
insects) competing with
native species
– Population increase
– Tourist numbers increase
(and all that entails)
Example #5: Lake Victoria Basin
• Introduction of the Nile
Perch (circa 1960) for
export to Europe
• Decrease in native
species
• Increase in loss of
indigenous fishing sector
• Increase in population in
the basin
• Increase in deforestation
• Increase in water
hyacinth
Challenges
• Past lessons of managing drylands need to be
applied
• Making “what ought to be” the proper use of drylands
“the actual use”
• Convincing governments to consider the limits of
exploitation of the natural environment
• Convincing governments to plan beyond their tenure
in office
• Convincing governments to put a proper value on
nature