OK, we already knew that, but Robert T. Watson brought it to life for a Cornell audience Oct. 10 in Olin Hall with a rapid-fire array of data, maps and graphs showing that coming climate changes will exacerbate poverty and political conflict. The good news he offered was that scientists can make a difference -- if they are good politicians.
Watson, chief scientist and director of the Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Network of the World Bank, spoke as part of the seminar series "Global Climate Change: Past, Present and Future," sponsored by Cornell's Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Until recently he chaired the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the Bush administration refused to renominate him to the post, a move that was seen by some as politically motivated.
Watson warned that global warming will, among other problems, have an impact on agricultural production, forestry and water quality and produce more extreme weather events (paradoxically including both drought and flooding, depending on where you are). Unfortunately, he added, most of these impacts will fall hardest on the poorest countries. Seventy-five percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and depend on natural resources for their survival, he said.
One of these countries, Bangladesh, will lose 17 percent of its land area to coastal flooding as ice caps melt and the sea level rises. Why not build dikes like the Netherlands? Because Bangladesh is too poor to manage such an undertaking. Like Bangladesh, Watson said, many of the countries most affected by climate change have the fewest resources to deal with it.
A general warming also will reduce biodiversity, Watson said. The greatest groupings of different species, he explained, are located at the southern extremes of Southern Hemisphere continents, and as habitats grow warmer, plants and animals will have no place to migrate other than into the ocean.
Projections of global warming are based on the increasing presence in the atmosphere of industrially produced carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, trapping heat that otherwise would be radiated into space. Watson reminded the audience that the coal and oil industries have been highly successful in lobbying against restrictions on the use of fossil fuels or the removal of subsidies that encourage their use.
"We should include in the price of coal the costs of air pollution, human health effects and other results of its use," he said. Incentives also should be created for alternative energy, he said, noting that there is a tax credit that offsets the higher cost of a hybrid automobile, but hardly anyone knows about it.
There are, he added, other approaches, such as systems that capture carbon dioxide and dissolve it in the oceans, but research in these areas needs more support.
Scientists can make a difference when they do "good science" that clearly proves its point, Watson said. As an example, he pointed to the Montreal Protocols of 1987, which led to a sharp reduction in the release of chlorofluorocarbon gases that were depleting the ozone layer. In that case, he added, scientists involved policymakers at every step of the process, making the Montreal Protocol "an excellent example of how good science influences policy."
The immediate challenge for the United States, said Watson, is for Congress to implement the Kyoto Protocols calling for a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Although the United States has resisted, Watson said, many private industries have voluntarily reduced emissions, and most have seen costs go down and profits rise as a result. "What do these guys know that people in Washington don't?" he asked.
The United States should recognize that there is no conflict between economic growth and responsible energy use and that developing new energy technologies offers an economic opportunity, he said. The nation, Watson concluded, should be taking a position of moral leadership on the issue.
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