8 April 2007ConserveErik Curren
“Population growth and development in coastal areas [of North America] are very likely to increase risks and economic losses from sea-level rise, severe weather, and storm surge,” if global warming is left unchecked by the end of the century, warns the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Current adaptation is uneven and readiness for increased exposure is low.”
But don’t look for these warnings in the final Summary for Policymakers of the latest IPCC report, “Climate Change 2007: Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” — because you won’t find them. At the request of the U.S. government, this language was edited out before the final version of the summary was released to the public on Friday.
In the original draft, posted online yesterday by the activist group Climate Science Watch, the U.N. scientists also wanted to tell us that if temperatures rise four degrees Celsius (seven degrees Fahrenheit) from 1990 levels that the world could face a 29-45 centimeter (1-1.5 feet) sea-level rise.
The sea-level rise projections appeared at the bottom of a chart that helpfully laid out the potential impacts on each major area of the world at each degree of temperature rise.
For example, with temperatures four degrees Celsius higher than in 1990, Asia could see up to seven million more people at risk from flooding; dry areas in Africa could grow by up to eight percent; 45 percent of tree species in the Amazon rainforest could go extinct; and in North America, major cities could suffer up to eight times more weat waves.
But apparently the governments of China, Russia and Saudi Arabia who also edited the original summary along with the U.S. didn’t want us to see the chart or read any specific numbers on sea-level rise at all, since the whole chart is missing from the redacted final summary.
Finally, we should not be surprised that the government reviewers deleted this passage, which makes the deleted estimates of sea-level rise look conservative:
Very large sea-level rises that would result from widespread deglaciation of Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets imply major changes in coastlines and inundation of low-lying areas, with greatest effects in river deltas. Relocating populations, economic activity, and infrastructure would be costly and challenging. There is medium confidence that both ice sheets would be committed to partial deglaciation for a global average temperature increase greater than 1-2°C, causing sea-level rise of 4-6 m over centuries to millennia.
To be fair, the scientists admitted in the original summary they had only “medium confidence” (defined as a five-in-ten chance) in these catastrophic scenarios. Of course, 50-50 odds in Vegas would be unusually attractive. And when you buy property or liability insurance, a one-in-two risk factor is well worth planning against.
So, if there’s a one-in-two chance that either Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets will melt and drastically raise sea levels, shouldn’t our policymakers be planning for it? They already spend billions of dollars planning for much less likely events, such as another major terrorist attack on the U.S.
The lesson here is that while scientists are a famously conservative bunch who frustratingly refuse to make statements unless they have data to back them up, it is clear that in planning for catastrophic global warming, our governments are still trying to hear no evil and see no evil.
Today, we can call that a cover-up. Future generations might call it criminal negligence.
In particular, shame on Saudi Arabia. How could their motivation be any clearer? When you’re the top drug-pusher for a world addicted to oil, you just don’t have much credibility to water down science that says global warming is dangerous.
Shame also on fossil-fuel junkies China and the U.S. Like the Saudis, our governments are putting short-term economic interest ahead of the future of the survival of civilization on Earth.
