Climate Change

National Geographic Global Warming Effects...Click Here

Background:
More than a decade ago a mass of ice the size of Rhode Island broke off the Larsen ice shelf and plunged into the Antarctic sea. Scientist Rodopho del Valle, stationed nearby, flew overhead. “A platform of ice more than forty miles wide,” he reported, “had been broken up into pieces that looked like polystyrene foam…smashed by a child. The first thing I did was cry.” Scientists had predicted that global warming would someday melt the ancient polar ice.” But the whole process,” says Dr. del Valle, “has been much quicker than we anticipated…Recently I’ve seen rocks poke through the surface of the ice that had been buried…for twenty thousand years.”

There is no arguing that global climate change has arrived. The statistics are endless and the evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, representing the combined expertise of 2,000 scientists from more than 100 countries concludes that global warming is occurring and humans have a major role in it. Not a singe paper in a large sample of peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 refuted the consensus positions, summarized by the National Academy of Sciences, that “most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in green-house gas concentrations.” In other words—the debate is over. We know the science. We see the threat and the time for action is now.
I
n a recent Associated Press article, scientist now worry about a more vicious cycle that was not part of their already gloomy climate forecast: warming already underway thaws permafrost; thawed permafrost releases methane and carbon dioxide; those gases reach the atmosphere and trap heat; the trapped heat thaws more permafrost and so on. Global warming gases trapped in the soil are bubbling out of the thawing permafrost in amounts far higher than previously thought and may trigger what researchers warn is a climate time bomb. Methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, is being released from the permafrost at a rate five times faster than thought. The permafrost issue has caused a quiet buzz of concern among climate scientists and geologists. Most of the methane-releasing permafrost is in Siberia. One study found that the amount of carbon trapped in the permafrost is much more prevalent than originally thought and may be 100 times the amount of carbon released into the air each year by the burning of fossil fuels.

Although the evidence is staggering, in the matter of climate, public perception has yet to catch up. Like the tourists on beaches who stood and gazed at an oncoming tsunami because it was outside their experience, society is reacting to the coming wave of climate change without urgency. Yet it is difficult to picture an America apathetic about the threat of global warming or political leaders aggressively rejecting pleas to act. A Pew Global Attitudes Project poll in June 2006 found that only 19 percent of Americans care about global warming “a great deal.” Why is this? Perhaps we’re suffering from a sort of environmental exhaustion. Maybe our fear circuits are overloaded. Or maybe past successes in dealing with environmental problems have lulled us into a sense that with a few regulatory or technological tweaks any problem will pretty much go away. Or perhaps it’s the sheer abstraction. Or could it be that we sense the global warming threat really is awful, and facing the gargantuan task ahead is simply too much to bear.

SOS Related Activities:
IIn October 2006, SOS hosted two showings of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” at their first annual membership drive and fundraiser. There were more than 100 in attendance, with that many signing petitions asking the Town of Pagosa Springs and Archuleta County to support the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and for a funding contribution to a regional emissions inventory. The Town signed-on; the County declined both aspects.

Climate change series continued as the SOS’s theme for the first quarter 2007 environmental programming. The series began on January 26th with an environmental cinema showing of “The Great Warming” (over 40 in attendance). This was followed the next month with a February 23rd speaker presentation by local global warming expert, Dick White. The March 23rd work session focused on what we can do locally to reduce our carbon footprints. Due to poor attendance in the face of a blizzard, no action items were identified and the topic was tabled until further notice.

On June 5, 2007, Dick White, Chair of the Sustainability Alliance of Southwest Colorado (SASCO) and Denise Rue-Pastin, Chair of SOS, gave a climate change briefing to the Pagosa Springs Town Council. The briefing basically outlined what is involved with the Town’s signing onto the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, including handout reference materials, action/`what’s next’ items and a resource list.

What you can do...

• Join and support SOS activities with a $10 per year membership fee.
• Join the SOS Climate Change Subcommittee (see contact information below).
• Reduce the thermostat setting at home by one degree (or more) during the heating season. If you have air conditioning, increase the setting by one degree (or more) during the cooling season. For every degree lower you set your thermostat in the heating season, you reduce fuel consumption by three percent. Many people will never even notice a difference. For others, simply putting on a warm long-sleeve shirt or sweater will more than restore your comfort level. If you have air conditioning, each degree higher in the cooling season saves five percent in energy use. [NOTE: This measure alone eliminates 330 pounds of CO2 emissions per year per household]
• Reduce your driving speed by two miles per hour (or more) from the speed you would normally drive when traveling 60 miles per hour or more. For every mile per hour slower at highway speeds you reduce fuel consumption by 1 ½ to 2 percent. [NOTE: This measure alone eliminates 390 pounds of CO2 emissions per year per household]
• Replace three regular light bulbs (or more) with compact fluorescent bulbs, especially in extensively used lighting fixtures. Compact florescent bulbs last up to ten times longer as regular incandescent bulbs and use only one fourth as much energy for the same amount of light. [Note: This measure alone eliminates 600 pounds of CO2 emissions per year per household.]