So farewell then Arctic ice. The REM song seems appropriate to me, particularly since their name stands for rapid eye movement (one of the stages of sleep), and we are sleepwalking into a different state for our planet.
The record low ice coverage set earlier this week may have attracted only sparse mention on the main news channels, but in the context of its importance for the planet should have dominated the headlines. Instead we were bombarded with stories about a relatively minor hurricane and treated to extensive analysis of a man who may become the US President in a year’s time; a man who thinks addressing climate change is a joke. More attention too was paid to Tim Yeo, a former environment minister who thinks it would be a good idea to build a new runway at Heathrow; after all, there’s no issue about the climate is there? How can our news focus so much attention on the trivial with just a throwaway coverage of the truly important? Does this sound angry, well that’s probably because I am.
Back to that Arctic ice, and I make no apologies for covering it again in this column despite having mentioned it less than a month ago. The extent of the melt this year is so far in excess of the previous record that it renders questions of whether we will see an ice free Arctic redundant; the only question now is when. Each record low makes it easier for an even more extreme melt to happen in succeeding years as multi-year ice is replaced by that which has formed over a single winter and the volume of ice is falling even faster than the extent. So suggestions that we could see an ice-free Arctic ocean before the end of the current decade now look highly plausible - Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University suggests it could be gone as soon as 2015.
With the rapid increase in temperatures in the high latitudes is coming a new threat to global warming in the form of increased methane emissions. A crucial feedback which is likely to give an unpleasant upward twist to the pace of global warming.
This isn’t just an issue for the polar bears, walrus, seals and other forms of aquatic life which rely on the ice for their existence – though how they will survive in these changed conditions is certainly a serious question. It is also an issue of fundamental importance for all of us given the impact which the Arctic has on our climate. Our dismal summer this year may have been influenced by the abnormal conditions in the Arctic, as may the heatwave in the US which has devastated crops and contributed to sharp rises in food prices in the last couple of months.
The further we drive our climate away from the conditions which have existed for virtually the whole of human development, the greater the risk that we will see more occurrences of crops being destroyed by drought, or excessive rain. We don’t know what we are letting ourselves in for and this at a time when there are more people than ever before for our farming system to feed. How many thousands (millions?) will have to starve before world leaders take climate change seriously. And incidentally before they ban the absurd practice of turning food into fuel – 40% of the US corn crop is made into ethanol, rather than used as a foodstuff.
How much more of our natural world are we willing to see slip away with only a hint of remorse? The environment mustn’t get in the way of business as usual. Growth is good. Repeat to the end.
This is a copy of the blog posted at http://oneworldcolumn.blogspot.co.uk/
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