Politics and IPCC Global Warming Report

Nicanor Perlas
04 February 2007

The world is buzzing with discussions and debates over the recent Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Part 1 of the IPCC Report entitled, “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis” finally pulled the rug from underneath the rapidly shrinking minority who question both the reality of global warming and that humans are greatly responsible for the dangerous heating up of the planet. IPCC concludes that global warming is real and is poised to wreak unprecedented havoc on human civilization. However, the IPCC Report, because it is the product of consensus among dozens of governments and hundreds of scientists, contains a fatal flaw. Its marginalization of politically sensitive but alarming empirical data removes the sense of urgency needed to avoid the global disasters staring humanity in the face.

Achim Steiner, Director of the UN Environmental Program had strong words for those who continue to cast doubt on the reality of global warming. “Feb. 2 may be the day where the question mark was removed from behind the debate about whether human activity had anything to do with climate change. It’s a milestone, and a moment of shift. . . . . Anyone who continues to risk inaction on the evidence presented will one day be considered irresponsible”.

The IPCC Report warns us all that humanity faces serious threats due to global warming. These include increasing:

• frequency of super storms and typhoons. (The 5 super typhoons that hit the Philippines in 2006 were not flukes. It is a foretaste of things of come. – TF!) Damage will be in the billions of dollars.
• droughts as global warming removes more moisture from the soil and redistributes it unevenly. African agricultural production is expected to slump 15% to 35%. Global food production is predicted to decline by 10%, [increasing the risk of hunger and starvation, as well as food-related conflicts. TF!]
• intensity of rains and flash floods.
• severity and frequency of heat waves as well as cold nights
• unpredictability of climate patterns wreaking havoc on cropping cycles in agriculture
• outbreaks of agricultural pests and human diseases as ecological niches and habitats are altered by global warming. For example, changed habitats will allow mosquitoes to thrive better, exposing 80m more people to malaria in Africa as well as 2.5-billion more exposed to dengue fever globally
• incidence of permanent flooding as sea levels rise by as much as two feet. All the coastal cities of the world, including Metro Manila, New York, London, Tokyo, Calcutta, and others, are at risk. Tens of millions will be displaced.
• Threat of extinction of as many as 20 to 50% of land
• Scarcity of fresh water supply. Scientists expect fresh water availability in Southern Africa and Mediterranean to be reduced by 50%.

The IPCC also confirmed scientific fears that global warming would continue despite the stabilization in the rate of carbon emissions. The current problems we have with global warming are a product of human activity many years ago. And what we have been doing and will do today, even with dramatic drops in carbon emissions, will have adverse impacts on global climate for centuries to come. (See Figure.)

For many this new information may be enough to spur them to action. However, there is a fatal weakness in the IPCC Report that can erode people’s will to action.

The IPCC predicted that, by the Year 2100, surface temperature of the earth will rise between 1.8 and 4.0 Celsius and that sea levels would increase by 7.1 inches to 23.3 inches. Unfortunately, this prediction underestimates and marginalizes the new findings pointing to the totally unexpected and alarming rapid melting of ice cover in both North and South Poles and the massive ice mass sitting on top of Greenland.

In 2002, the Larsen B ice shelf of Antartica broke off and vanished in a little over a month. The Larsen B ice shelf is substantial, having an area of 1,255-square-miles. NASA satellite photos also reveal that 53 cubic miles of ice cover in Greenland is melting every year, twice its melting rate in 1996.

In addition, the IPCC also pushes the occurrence of severe dislocations many decades into the future. This time distortion and the underestimation of ice remove the sense of urgency needed to spur the present generation of decision makers, especially government officials and business executives, into dramatic action. With politicians concerned more with voting cycles than ecological planetary cycles and oil executives like those of Exxon Mobile focused on narrow short-term profits, this marginalization of the key data and time horizons is a recipe for global disaster.

Rumblings of independent scientists are surfacing. The prominent climate scientist, James Hansen of NASA, warns that increasing sea levels should be measured in feet and not in inches. And other scientists emphasize that the drastic effects of global warming will come decades earlier and not towards the end of the 21st century.

Stefan Rahmstorf, another leading climate scientist who has inside access to the IPCC report process, argues for a larger 55-inch or almost 5 ft. rise in sea levels. He said that the IPCC is “obviously not the full story because ice sheet decay is something we cannot model right now, but we know it’s happening. And he said that a “document like that [referring to the IPCC Report] tends to underestimate the risk.’

Bob Corell, chair of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a multinational research effort, shares similar sentiments as Hansen and Rahmstorf. “If the IPCC comes out with significantly less than one meter (about 39 inches of sea level rise), there will be people in the science community saying we don’t think that’s a fair reflection of what we know,” The IPCC Report predicted a maximum of 23.3 inches rise in sea level.

The 2007 IPCC Report is valuable in many ways. It explains current erratic and bizarre manifestations of global climate that billions are currently experiencing. With the IPCC Report, nay-sayers no longer have a solid scientific ground to stand on in their campaign to sow confusion and doubt over the massive challenge that confronts humanity over the increasing warming of the planet.

However, the IPCC Report fails in just that area that counts, that is, in spurring people to action. Many will continue to say: “Yes, global warming is a problem. But it is still too far away in the future to be of any concern for me. Let the future generations worry over it. Besides, when the crisis does come, there will be more than enough time to migrate to higher elevations and to mitigate the relatively mild impacts of global warming.”

But humanity will be in for a rude awakening, IPCC Report or not. The earth itself is providing and will increasingly provide dramatic evidence that we are abusing and raping Nature to a degree than can create a tragic backlash for humanity. We have become a geological force at the scale of our entire planet. But we have not evolved morally to cope with the unprecedented power we have in our hands.

As the ice-caps and ice sheets melt unexpectedly and dramatically, as we all bear the brunt of heat waves, howling typhoons, massive droughts, resurgent diseases, resource and climate-induced conflicts and wars, and a host of other disasters, hopefully we all find the collective humility to acknowledge our crime against nature and change our destructive ways. For we cannot look for guidance from any period of history since we emerged into earth existence in the misty dawn of time. Only in our humility and our repentance will we develop enough inner courage and resolve to mobilize our collective wisdom and talents as humanity to restore the integrity of life’s balance on earth and secure our future.