A few days ago, The New York Times published
a report on the drying up of the Great Salt Lake, a story I am ashamed to admit
had flown under my personal radar. We are not talking about a hypothetical
event in the distant future: The lake has already lost two-thirds of its
surface area, and ecological disasters — salinity rising to the point where
wildlife dies off, occasional poisonous dust storms sweeping through a
metropolitan area of 2.5 million people — seem imminent.
اضافة اعلان
As an aside, I was a bit surprised that the article
did not mention the obvious parallels with the Aral Sea, a huge lake that the
Soviet Union had managed to turn into a toxic desert.
In any case, what is happening to the Great Salt
Lake is pretty bad. But what I found really scary about the report is what the
lack of an effective response to the lake’s crisis says about our ability to
respond to the larger, indeed existential threat of climate change.
If you are not terrified by the threat posed by
rising levels of greenhouse gases, you are not paying attention — which, sadly,
many people are not. And those who are or should be aware of that threat but
stand in the way of action for the sake of short-term profits or political
expediency are, in a real sense, betraying humanity.
Who cares if Miami is 6m underwater in 100 years?
That said, the world’s failure to take action on
climate, while inexcusable, is also understandable. For, as many observers have
noted, global warming is a problem that almost looks custom-designed to make
political action difficult. In fact, the politics of climate change are hard
for at least four reasons.
First, when scientists began raising the alarm in
the 1980s, climate change looked like a distant threat — a problem for future
generations. Some people still see it that way; last month a senior executive
at the bank HSBC gave a talk in which he declared, “Who cares if Miami is 6m underwater in 100 years?”
This view is all wrong — we are already seeing the
effects of climate change, largely in the form of a rising frequency and
intensity of extreme weather events, like the megadrought in the American West
that is contributing to the death of the Great Salt Lake. But that is a
statistical argument, which brings me to the second problem with climate
change: It is not yet visible to the naked eye, at least the naked eye that
does not want to see.
Weather, after all, fluctuates. Heat waves and
droughts happened before the planet began warming; cold spells still happen
even with the planet warmer on average than in the past. It does not take fancy
analysis to show that there is a persistent upward trend in temperatures, but
many people are not convinced by statistical analysis of any kind, fancy or
not, only by raw experience.
Then there is the third problem: Until recently, it
looked as if any major attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would have
significant economic costs. Serious estimates of these costs were always much
lower than claimed by anti-environmentalists, and spectacular technological
progress in renewable energy has made a transition to a low-emission economy
look far easier than anyone could have imagined 15 years ago. Still, fears
about economic losses helped block climate action.
Finally, climate change is a global problem,
requiring global action — and offering a reason not to move. Anyone urging US
action has encountered the counterargument: “It does not matter what we do,
because China will just keep polluting.”
There are answers to that argument — if we ever do
get serious about emissions, carbon tariffs will have to be part of the mix.
But it is certainly an argument that affects the discussion.
As I said, all of these issues are explanations for
inaction on climate, not excuses. But here is the thing: None of these
explanations for environmental inaction apply to the death of the Great Salt
Lake. Yet the relevant policymakers still seem unwilling or unable to act.
Remember, we are not talking about bad things that
might happen in the distant future: Much of the lake is already gone, and the
big wildlife die-off might begin as early as this summer. And it does not take
a statistical model to notice that the lake is shrinking.
It does not matter what we do, because China will just keep polluting.
In terms of the economics, tourism is a huge
industry in Utah. How will that industry fare if the famous lake becomes a
poisoned desert? And how can a state on the edge of ecological crisis still be
diverting water desperately needed to replenish the lake to maintain lush green
lawns that serve no essential economic purpose?
Finally, we are not talking about a global problem.
True, global climate change has contributed to reduced snowpack, which is one
reason the Great Salt Lake has shrunk. But a large part of the problem is local
water consumption; if that consumption could be curbed, Utah need not worry
that its efforts would be negated by the Chinese or whatever.
So this should be easy: A threatened region should
be accepting modest sacrifices, some barely more than inconveniences, to avert
a disaster just around the corner. But it does not seem to be happening.
And if we cannot save the Great Salt Lake, what
chance do we have of saving the planet?
Read more Opinion and Analysis
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
