Changes due to global warming underway
It’s only a question of timing, SACPA told
Does Hurricane Irma signal the danger of increasingly frequent and devastating tropical storms? Is it part of a developing pattern? Scientists are reluctant to blame a single event on the global issues of climate change, the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs was told Thursday.
But Kent Peacock, a philosophy professor at the University of Lethbridge, said some changes are clearly underway. With greenhouse gases trapping more heat in the atmosphere, the oceans are warming, the polar ice is melting — and the oceans will be rising. “It’s only a question of timing,” he said. At the end of the last ice age, 20,000 years ago, Peacock said the world’s oceans rose five to seven metres per century.
“What if half of Florida was under water?” he asked. Would U.S. politicians recognize global warming then?
Already, he said, ice sheets are suddenly collapsing in the Arctic, and “scientists are freaking about it.”
While many scientists are alarmed at how fast the northern permafrost and icefields are thawing, Peacock said some are also warning of a “tipping point,” which could accelerate the whole process.
Climate change is already a factor in social upheaval, he said, with drought and loss of cultivated land one of the reasons at least 30 million people have become refugees.
If the world’s leaders do little to reduce their nations’ carbon emissions, Peacock predicted “climate refugees” will become a global threat.
“What if 10 million climate refugees want to come to Alberta?”
While this province may have the human resources to respond to global crises — and the research resources to find some solutions — Peacock said Alberta can no longer count on oil and gas revenues to meet its citizens’ basic needs.
“Most of the oil has been sucked out of the ground, and most of the money has been sucked out of Alberta,” he said.
And while Premier Rachel Notley is providing strong leadership on climate change and economic diversification issues, Peacock said she is “dead wrong” in describing the oilsands as a source of energy and income well into the future.
Bitumen will be increasingly overpriced as the demand for oil and gas declines, he said. Carbon-based energy sources would not just be polluters, they would be much more expensive than environmentally benign alternatives.
India, Peacock noted, has scrapped plans for more coal-fired power generation in favour of less-costly “green” projects.
While some nations are making positive changes, he said politicians in western democracies seem trapped by their fouryear election cycles. They don’t offer a vision of the future as technologies rapidly change.
Alberta could play an important role in that transformation, Peacock suggested. Researchers could discover lighter-weight types of batteries for electric cars, for example — and create a new industry here. “Alberta could be a leader.” If not, those developments will happen elsewhere, as the markets for our oil and gas decline.
Some politicians may continue denying climate change, but Peacock warned it’s time to pay attention.
“We’ve got to at least accept the reality this can happen, and develop some options.”
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