Climate concerns


Where will New York City be 50 years from now?

America like a swan with its head in the sand

I am not a scientist, but I know a problem when I see evidence of it. A few years ago, "60 Minutes," one of the few mainstream TV shows that I trust, showed a scary scenario. They took a location in the Arctic and showed what it looked like ten years before the show aired, and then they showed what it looked like on that day. 

The difference was frightening. It was frozen ten years ago, but one decade later, it was just water rushing into the Atlantic Ocean. 

 The ice was gone.

In that script, they mentioned that New York City will be submerged sometime in this century. 

Some current stories are focusing on this. Here is a story and headline from last Nov. in "The Guardian," a British paper. "Major storms could submerge New York City in next decade." <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/16/climate-change-report-new-york-city>

Those in the city have been studying this problem for years. The news is not positive based on this story from the New York Times. "In 2009, the New York City Panel on Climate Change issued a prophetic report. 'In the coming decades, our coastal city will most likely face more rapidly rising sea levels and warmer temperatures, as well as potentially more droughts and floods, which will all have impacts on New York City’s critical infrastructure,' said William Solecki, a geographer at Hunter College and a member of the panel." <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/is-this-the-end.html?pagewanted=all>

Today, I read this story about the Great Lakes: "Concerns mount over declining water levels in the Great Lakes." This is not a recent phenomenon, and it is a concern for the long haul. The Great Lakes, which contain 21 percent of the freshwater supply in the world, are at their all-time lows. 

Ann Clites, a Physical Scientist at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab, said this, "These low levels are not because of the precipitation for one year; the lakes are just too big and there are too many factors to say that. However, the last 15 years of low levels got the lakes ready to hit all-time record lows." 
<http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/concerns-mount-as-great-lake-l/14834545>

One of the interesting quotes about this problem comes from my least-favorite poet. T.S. Eliot wrote a line in "The Wasteland" that differed from the fiery apocalyptic view of the end of time put forth in the bible, "Fear death by water," he said, although he was probably not referring to climate change. 

My only point here is that we have a climate problem, one that has become political. However, we have to listen to scientists who are predicting some major problems in the next 50 years. I may not live to see this, but then again, I may depending on the severity of the problem. 

 For those of you who are young enough to be affected by this in this century, we should take this seriously.

America is like the swan with its head in the sand. This country has to take a good look at this problem.

Comments

  1. MarthaJuly 6, 2013 at 1:27 PM

    Eliot also wrote (in the same poem, if I remember correctly, but don't hold me to that), "This is the way the world ends, this is the way that the world ends, this us the way that the world ends: Not with s bang but a whimper." (Punctuation not necessarily accurate.) So while we are all whimpering about whether or not to believe and heed the scientists. . .

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hugh Brady ConradJuly 6, 2013 at 7:19 PM

    HI Martha,

    That was from "The Hollow Men" that he wrote in 1925.

    You had it basically correct:

    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper.

    I hate a grad class on Eliot and Yeats. I love(d) Yeats, but not Eliot. Still is that way.

    ReplyDelete

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