January, 2015 …. El Bolson, Argentina
As I write this editorial on a hot afternoon in the Andean town of El Bolson, Argentina, I am sitting in the glorious garden of Café Flores. I have before me a pot of cold tea and a cup of ice: Andean “iced tea”. The barista has also insisted that I enjoy a slice of raspberry cheesecake: a very sweet, creamy and light concoction that bears no resemblance to anything found in N. America with that name.
Café Flores
This river valley, deep in the Andes, is famous for its fertile volcanic soil and a plenitude of clean water. So clean, in fact, that travelers from afar – such as myself – may drink the water and partake of the local fruit and vegetables with impunity. All is “paradiso” until one looks up into the barren, rocky peaks. Last winter, no snow fell here and little rain this spring and summer. It could be a temporary “blip” caused by the El Nino-like conditions in the Pacific. It could be.
In a nutshell: that describes the problem of discussing Global Climate Change. The challenge ahead is systemic and desperately hard to pin-point one place and time when the effects of global warming are readily visible. As in: “Look. There. That’s it.” Particularly this past winter when the eastern seaboard has been in a deep freeze for weeks. (Causing one pundit to proclaim: “If this Global Warming gets any worse, I’m gonna freeze to death.” Man on the Street interview, NBC NEWS, January, 2015.)
I did see it the summer I visited Alaska. The glaciers of the Arctic are melting; the rivers area deep blue-green from the minerals in the melting ice flows freely into the North Pacific. One can see the barren rocks scraped clean from a thousand-thousand years of glacial ice now dry for miles inland as the Great North American Ice Shield recedes further each year.
Mendenhall Glacier
There have been more studies than can be iterated here describing the melting ice caps at either end of the globe as well as on mountain peaks; such as the rugged teeth of Mount Pilquetron in the Cordillera de Los Andes that soar high above the river valley where I write this editorial. Peaks where one can readily see the water channels where falls and rivers would normally flow feeding the River Azul, now dry and filled with the ever-present dust.
Mt. Pilquetron
As artists and scholars the question we may – no, must – ask is his: How will we live? In 100 years what will the world look like? What stories will we, the human people, tell ourselves in order to survive?
Or, will we?
Will it all end leaving behind a world of seething acid oceans and dry rocky peaks?
Imagine this world: a world of colossal storms that sweep acid seas crashing against shorelines where dead civilizations have left behind the detritus of a million years of habitation.
Of the highest mountain peak devoid of ice with dust blowing against a too-hot sky.
It is almost… but, not quite too late.
Climate change, as the media has dubbed the global environmental challenge of the years ahead, is, briefly put, a collection of deep changes in the Earth’s eco-system on a macro scale that has been observed by a half century of record keeping by researchers across several diverse fields from the most obvious: atmospheric science and climatology to the somewhat lesser obvious oceanography, fire-abatement, botany, and animal behavior and even farther afield in agricultural finance, recreation, city planning and macro-economics.
Partially because the evidence is spread out over so many fields, and because much of the research is contained in highly technical field-specific publications, it is difficult for the layperson to obtain a clear picture of what we, as a species, are facing in the coming years. As Andrew Guzman in Overheated: The Human Cost of Climate Change (2013) explains:
Some of the confusion surrounding climate change can be explained by the complexity of the science involved. Understanding the workings of the earth’s climate is a massive task that remains a work in progress in even the most sophisticated scientific circles (p. ix).
While doing research for my Master’s thesis in the late 1990s I was invited to attend the annual meeting of The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) in Asilomar, CA. While there, I encountered researchers who studied – as one researcher present put it – “the weather”: representatives of NOAA and its sister organizations from many countries. I attended several sessions both during the conference and subsequent meetings of ISSS over the course of the next decade. As the papers were presented, each one addressing one small aspect of observable changes in weather patterns and sea rise resulting in an increase of severe storm activity, spreading desertification and melting glacial ice, a picture began to coalesce describing an environmental adjustment on a global scale: one with a higher global mean temperature and both a larger ocean and a dryer world. A world with seas that will drown coastal areas from Anchorage to the Horn of Africa. A world where deserts will swallow whole regions that straddle the equator and beyond. In those years, it was unclear what was causing this change, but the likely culprit appeared to be the increase of carbons (i.e.: greenhouse gases: GHS) and soot in the Earth’s atmosphere, followed by widespread deforestation in both tropical and temperate regions. This data has proven itself to be correct in the succeeding years of studies across many disciplines: from tracking the alterations in the yearly migration patterns of North American hummingbirds to the measurement of the water content of the winter snow-pack of the Andes to the water conflicts of the migratory tribal peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa to the biodiversity of the Arctic Tundra.
I live on the West Coast of the United States, with warming temperatures also comes the melting of glacial ice with rising ocean levels. A recent report by the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources: Sea-Level Rise for the Coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington: Past, Present, and Future (2012), this rise will equate to:
- Sea level along the California coast south of Cape Mendocino is projected to rise 4-30 cm (2-12 in) by 2030, relative to 2000 levels, 12-61 cm (5-24 in) by 2050, and 42-167 cm (17-66 in) by 2100.
- For the Washington, Oregon, and California coasts north of Cape Mendocino, sea level is projected to change between -4 cm (-2 in) (sea-level fall) and +23 cm (9 in) by 2030, -3 cm (-1 in) and +48 cm (19 in) by 2050, and 10-143 cm (4-56 in) by 2100. These values are lower than projections further north.
To explain further (using EPA statistics drawn from IPCC reports between 2007 and 2010):
Warming temperatures contribute to sea level rise by; expanding ocean water, the melting of mountain glaciers and both Arctic and Antarctic ice caps causing portions of the major ice sheets of the remnants of the Pleistocene Epoch “North American Ice shield” (which covers a large portion of Alaska and Northern Canada to the North Pole) the Antarctic and Greenland glaciers to melt or flow into the ocean. This “great glacial melt” would also include the glacial ice of the northern regions of Siberia, Scandinavia, and Iceland, as well as the glacial ice of the southern Andes south of Chiloe Island and the Chilean Archipelago. In addition, every mountain chain on Earth that contains glacial ice has reported receding ice and early, or lower snow falls during the winter months from the Himalayas to the Andes to the Sierras and the Cascades that create a dragon-back of volcanic peaks running down the Pacific Coast of North America. These mountain chains both store in winter (through snow), and during the summer melt, provide much of the world’s fresh water through a naturally occurring network of rivers, lakes and streams.
Alaska by Gilbert Qu
From the collected EPA data:
Projection of sea level rise from 1990 to 2100, based on three different emissions scenarios. Also shown: observations of annual global sea level rise over the past half-century (red line), relative to 1990. (NRC, 2010):
Ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could contribute an additional one (1) foot of sea level rise, depending on how the ice sheets respond. [NRC (2011). Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts over Decades to Millennia. National Research Council. [The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, USA.]
Regional and local factors will influence future relative sea level rise for specific coastlines around the world. For example, relative sea level rise depends on land elevation changes that occur as a result of subsidence (sinking) or uplift (rising). Assuming that these historical geological forces continue, a 2-foot rise in global sea level by 2100 would result in the following relative sea level rise: (IPCC, 2007)
- 2.3 feet at New York City
- 2.9 feet at Hampton Roads, Virginia
- 3.5 feet at Galveston, Texas
- 1 foot at Neah Bay in Washington state
Relative sea level rise also depends on local changes in currents, winds, salinity, and water temperatures, as well as proximity to thinning ice sheets. (IPCC 2007)
It does not take the proverbial “rocket scientist” to understand what the amount of projected sea rise will mean to coastal communities: flooded land, destroyed communities, fisheries under threat, farmlands under salt water. For the great cities, this will mean large tracts of inhabited land will be … under water. Imagine for a moment the low lying areas of your favorite harbor city, most of the world’s great cities are harbor cities, with the most intensely and longest inhabited areas in the lowest lying areas. As the seawater rises, these areas will be flooded: the harbors destroyed, the coastlines remade much further inland. Cities such as Buenos Aires where I visited in December, or Montevideo, Uruguay where I attended the annual Festival to Yemaya in early February, or Miami or Venice, much of which is at or below sea level, will simply be …. gone.
This apocalyptic scenario is not just a projection into what may happen in the next century, it is happening now: each year flooding increases into neighborhoods not just during winter storms, but every astronomical high tide. Consider Miami – even Rolling Stone, that self-appointed pinnacle of expertise on all things regarding popular culture, has taken notice:
And still, the waters kept rising, nearly a foot each decade. By the latter end of the 21st century, Miami became something else entirely: a popular snorkeling spot where people could swim with sharks and sea turtles and explore the wreckage of a great American city. … Even more than Silicon Valley, Miami embodies the central technological myth of our time – that nature can not only be tamed but made irrelevant. Miami was a mosquito-and-crocodile-filled swampland for thousands of years, virtually uninhabited until the late 1800s. … You would never know it from looking at Miami today. Rivers of money are flowing in from Latin America, Europe and beyond, new upscale shopping malls are opening, and the skyline is crowded with construction cranes. But the unavoidable truth is that sea levels are rising and Miami is on its way to becoming an American Atlantis. It may be another century before the city is completely underwater (though some more-pessimistic scientists predict it could be much sooner), but life in the vibrant metropolis of 5.5 million people will begin to dissolve much quicker, most likely within a few decades. The rising waters will destroy Miami slowly, by seeping into wiring, roads, building foundations and drinking-water supplies – and quickly, by increasing the destructive power of hurricanes. “Miami, as we know it today, is doomed,” says Harold Wanless, the chairman of the department of geological sciences at the University of Miami. “It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when.” (Goodell, 2013)
I will state here that I am (certainly) not a science researcher in issues of global climate, but a social scientist: I study people. Beyond that, I am a poet and an artist whose job it is to observe the world around me in detail. I have been, over the years since entering graduate studies, undertaken the use of the tools of the arts in deepening understanding (Weber, et. al.) in human science studies. In particular, as a member of an experimental theatre group in Berkeley CA exploring difficult themes of human experience in the performance arts. From this came, in 2008, this journal, Coreopsis: A Journal of Myth and Theatre, where, as editor, a “conversation” has developed with referees and contributors from many parts of the world. An artist’s job, as previously stated, is to observe the world around us in detail. The environmental stresses caused by global climate change have become an important part of that ongoing “conversation”.
Climate change is not a task for our children to understand and to survive: it is unfolding now.
It is almost …but, not quite, too late.
El Tallado Bosque
It will take all of us. Everywhere. To make the changes necessary to live. The first step is to choose: to live and to take action.
If we give in to cynicism or despair, we will die.
We the artists and scholars can create a vision to live by as we, the human people, find that path to a livable future.
Some things, precious, irreplaceable things, will be lost: We can tell their stories and remember with word, pictures, song and say: this was here. There was beauty and grace here.
Some things will continue: adapting and evolving: we can tell their story in celebration.
The world will change: the oceans will rise and the shape of continents change and reform.
We can remember.
We can tell the story of what is to come.
And … we can create new stories.
Are you ready? There is a great deal of work to be done ahead. This issue is dedicated to that challenge and the work to be done.
Lotus
References:
Goodell, J. Rolling Stone. June 20, 2013 1:20 PM ET.
Retrieved 8/8/13:http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-city-of-miami-is-doomed-to-drown-Sea-
Guzman, A. (2013) Overheated: The Human Cost of Climate Change.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press
Level Rise for the Coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington: Past, Present, and Future (2012) Board on Earth Sciences and Resources.
Retrieved: June 30, 2013. http://dels.nas.edu/Report/Level-Rise-Coasts/13389