2nd Period Article "Feeling the Heat"

Feeling the Heat

Whether it’s record temperatures, rising seas, or disappearing rivers, the effects of climate change are already being felt in a growing number of countries

By Patricia Smith | February 29, 2016

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§  A Global Threat

§  The Paris Climate Deal

LinberAnej lives in the Marshall Islands, a tiny nation in the Pacific Ocean that’s slowly but surely being swallowed by the sea. Every day, Anej joins a group of men and boys who wade into the water at low tide and gather chunks of concrete and metal scraps to rebuild a seawall in front of his home. 

It’s a losing battle. The temporary barrier is no match for the rising tides that regularly flood the shacks and muddy streets with salt water and raw sewage. 

“It’s insane, I know,” says Anej, 30, who lives with his family of 13 in a four-room house. “But it’s the only option we’ve got.”

Standing near his house, he says, “I feel like we’re living underwater.”

Thanks to climate change, it may not be long before the Marshall Islands are literally underwater, most scientists agree. That’s because the rise in Earth’s temperature causes a host of side effects, including flooding from rising seas, severe drought, and more destructive weather in general. 

With low-lying nations like the Marshall Islands already feeling the effects of climate change on a daily basis, the world has started to take action after many years of delays. In December, the U.S. and 194 other nations agreed to a landmark accord (see box, below) that commits them to lowering the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are heating up the planet. The goal is to try to prevent the worst effects of climate change from happening. 

Those effects are already evident around the world (see map, below), according to scientists. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels have forced millions to leave coastal villages along the Bay of Bengal. In Mali, an impoverished African country, drought is making farming increasingly difficult. And in the northwestern U.S., the Pacific Ocean is encroaching upon lands the Quinault Indian Nation has lived on for thousands of years.

In January, weather researchers confirmed that 2015 was the hottest year worldwide since record keeping began in the 19th century, eclipsing 2014, which previously held the record. The vast majority of scientists say human activities are to blame.

Despite accumulating evidence, however, there’s still widespread skepticism in the U.S. about whether climate change is real. About a third of Americans say it isn’t a serious threat, and many Republican lawmakers are skeptical. 

‘Evidence Is Overwhelming’

But 97 percent of climate scientists say the problem is urgent, according to a 2014 report by the world’s largest scientific organization, which warned that the world was running out of time to deal with climate change. 

“The evidence is overwhelming: Levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are rising,” said the report, by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “Temperatures are going up. Springs are arriving earlier. Ice sheets are melting. Sea level is rising. The patterns of rainfall and drought are changing. Heat waves are getting worse.” 

How did we get into this situation? Scientists say the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal—mostly from cars and power plants—has caused a buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. There are other sources too: Cows raised for meat or dairy production, for example, emit methane gas during digestion. 

These invisible gases let sunlight through but prevent some of the resulting heat from radiating back out to space. Because they behave like the panes in a greenhouse, they’re called greenhouse gases, and their influence on Earth’s temperature is called the greenhouse effect. The higher the concentration of greenhouse gases, the warmer the planet gets.

Severe Weather

The level of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, is up 41 percent since the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century. If current trends continue, it could double in a few decades. Already, the planet has warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1800s. 

That may not sound like much, but many scientists see links between warmer global temperatures and more severe weather. For example, they say the prolonged drought in California has been intensified by climate change. And one of the most worrisome effects may be the melting of much of the Earth’s ice in the polar regions, which is likely to raise sea levels and flood coastal regions. 

Ironically, some of the countries that have contributed the least to the planet’s warming—because they’re poor and have fewer cars and power plants—are among those suffering most from the effects. 

In Mali, climate change has raised temperatures and sharply reduced rainfall. With more than 80 percent of the population dependent on agriculture for survival, the lack of rain seriously threatens food supplies.

“In Mali, we are facing droughts and a coming desertification; we have a rainy season which went from a six-month duration to a month and a half in just a few years,” says MaïgaSinaDamba, a former government minister. “So climate change is a daily life issue for us.” 

With an annual per capita income of $660 last year and more than 43 percent of its population living in poverty, Malians don’t have the tools to adapt to their changing environment. 

“I saw with my own eyes the River Niger vanish into the sands, as the months went by,” says Mali’s president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. The Niger River is the third longest in Africa, and it supports 112 million people in nine countries.

While Mali’s problem is not enough water, in the northwestern U.S., the problem is too much water. The Quinault Indian Nation may abandon its small village on the outer coast of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula because the rising Pacific Ocean threatens to engulf it. For now, a seawall is protecting the village, but a $60 million plan to move the entire village further inland is being considered.

An Underwater Cemetery

The Marshall Islands faces a similar problem. Most of the nation’s 1,000 or so islands, located in the North Pacific, near the equator, are less than 6 feet above sea level—and few are more than a mile wide. 

In the capital, Majuro, waves have overtaken a seaside cemetery; about 10 rows of coffins and headstones have washed out to sea. People have begun burying their dead in above-ground concrete tombs, but even those are now threatened by rising waves. Farmers are also struggling with salt water soaking their fields and killing their crops. 

If climate change causes sea levels to rise further, islanders who today experience deluges of tidal flooding once every month or two could see their homes unfit for human habitation within decades.

Displacing 18 Million?

In terms of global impact, the situation in Bangladesh is even more dire. Climate change there could make millions homeless in one of the world’s most turbulent regions. By 2050, 17 percent of its land could be inundated,  displacing about 18 million people, according to scientists’ projections, and creating a potential security threat.

“There are a lot of places in the world at risk from rising sea levels, but Bangladesh is at the top of everybody’s list,” says Rafael Reuveny, an environmental affairs professor at Indiana University at Bloomington. “And the world is not ready to cope with the problems.”

Bangladeshis have already started moving away from the lowest-lying villages in the river deltas of the Bay of Bengal. Rising tides are a big factor. Surveys indicate that as many as 1.5 million of the 5 million slum inhabitants in Dhaka, the capital, moved there from villages near the Bay of Bengal.

John Pethick, a former professor at Newcastle University in England, analyzed decades of tidal records and found that high tides in Bangladesh are rising 10 times faster than the global average. He predicts that seas in Bangladesh could rise as much as 13 feet by 2100, four times the global average.

Tariq Karim, Bangladesh’s ambassador to India, estimates that as many as 50 million people could flee the country by 2050 if sea levels rise as expected. 

“We need a regional and, better yet, a global solution,” Karim says. “And if we don’t get one soon, the Bangladeshi people will soon become the world’s problem, because we will not be able to keep them.”

But many climate change experts fear time for action may be running out. Bill McKibben, a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont and a climate activist, is alarmed by rising average temperatures. If the Earth gets too hot, there may be a point of no return when it comes to preventing the worst effects on humans.

“We’re living through history,” says McKibben, “and not the good kind.”