Levees Not War

First they put the planet in square brackets, now they have deleted it from the text. At the end it was no longer about saving the biosphere: it was just a matter of saving face. As the talks melted down, everything that might have made a new treaty worthwhile was scratched out. Any deal would do, as long as the negotiators could pretend they have achieved something. —George Monbiot, “Copenhagen Negotiators Bicker and Filibuster While the Biosphere Burns,” The Guardian (UK)

The grudging and minimalist agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen between the U.S., China, India, Brazil, and South Africa to take steps “to reduce global emissions so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius” over the next century was something—but, as with other collective bargaining agreements we could mention—disappointed most participants. A deal was worked out among major emitters of greenhouse gases to curb those emissions, to provide financial assistance (a Copenhagen Green Climate Fund) for developing nations to build clean-energy economies, and to try to ameliorate the effects of climate change on states that are particularly at risk.

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NASA

If Greenland melts, the seas will rise 23 feet. Greenland + Antarctica = 38 feet.

[Editor’s note: The Arctic and Antarctic may seem a long way from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, but melting ice caps and warming oceans lead to rising sea levels and fiercer hurricanes. ’Nuff said?]

While everyone else is blogging about the stimulus plan (keep it up) we want to tell you about the “Polar-Palooza” talk we heard this weekend at the New York Times building, hosted by Andrew Revkin, environment reporter for the Times (see his great blog Dot Earth here) and author of The North Pole Was Here. Revkin moderated a discussion by four scientists studying the climate conditions and biology of the North and South poles and Greenland.

The talk’s title, “Stories from a Changing Planet” sounds innocuous—like there’s nothing to worry about? Indeed the tone was friendly, likely to encourage people to care about what is happening to the poles rather than to threaten with doom scenarios—but the subtext (like the bulk of an iceberg) was chilling. How scary? If all the ice on Greenland were to melt, the seas would rise 23 feet. If Antarctica also were to melt, seas would rise 38 feet. How would a Category 5-strength levee hold up against that?

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