Yves here. KLG suggests that important local effects of climate change could persuade skeptics. His introduction:
Anthropogenic Climate Change/Global Warming (AGW) is still denied, by the usual suspects with axes to grind and also by the general population who are often following a lead. One of the most effective approaches may be to identify local consequences of climate change and what this will mean close to home. In this post the visible damage done by accelerating sea level rise in the Sea Islands of Georgia is used as an example. In this case, the damage has been slow in coming but could be on the cusp of palpable acceleration. The local consequences of that are likely to be severe in a shorter timeline than generally assumed. That another chain of similar islands slightly to the west will succeed the current islands will be of little comfort as the people look back on what was wrought by their forebears. Which will probably be their fate, too.
By KLG, who has held research and academic positions in three US medical schools since 1995 and is currently Professor of Biochemistry and Associate Dean. He has performed and directed research on protein structure, function, and evolution; cell adhesion and motility; the mechanism of viral fusion proteins; and assembly of the vertebrate heart. He has served on national review panels of both public and private funding agencies, and his research and that of his students has been funded by the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, and National Institutes of Health
The first book-length treatment to my knowledge of anthropogenic climate change/global warming (AGW) for the general reader was The End of Nature (1989) by Bill McKibben. In my view McKibben made his case very well and has continued, for the most part, to do this in his subsequent work. [1] Since 1989, climate change has become noticeable as regions of the earth become deserts, optimal plant growth zones shift into different latitudes and animals regularly appear where they were previously uncommon. Regarding the latter, I grew up at the ocean edge of the Atlantic Coastal Plain of the United States, which is well “below” the “Gnat Line.” I now live in a place that was previously safe from these creatures that make life miserable throughout the summer when the air is still. Now, they are here. Since McKibben and those who have come after, none of these phenomena can be reasonably dismissed by “It’s just the weather.”
So why are so many reluctant to believe that human activities can and do lead to climate change? Such denial could be considered a new thing. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz shows in Happy Apocalypse: A History of Technological Risk (2024) that 18th-century Europeans, especially the French, were well aware that letting technological genies out of their bottles could result in unfortunate consequences. Charles Babbage, inventor of the first functional computer along with Ada Lovelace who was the first computer programmer, wrote in 1835 about the Industrial Revolution:
The chemical changes which thus take place are constantly increasing the atmosphere by large quantities of carbonic acid (i.e., carbon dioxide) and other gases noxious to animal life. The means by which nature decomposes these elements, or reconverts them into solid form, are not sufficiently known. (On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, Quoted from Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming by Andreas Malm).
It is clear that nature does not decompose these elements or reconvert them into solid form on a time scale that “works” for the ecosphere in its current form. Svante Arrhenius, who was a principal founder of the discipline of physical chemistry, published a paper in 1896 (pdf) on what would come to be known as the greenhouse effect caused by the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. His temporal prediction was wrong only because he could not imagine the scale of coal, oil, and natural gas use in the 20th century.
Much of the reluctance to “believe the science” of climate change is attributable to the many Merchants of Doubt who have plied their trade throughout the post-World War II era and continue to be ingenious in their efforts. But there is also the simple fact that climate change is not like the weather. AGW cannot be sensed easily by those not paying close attention to the world around us, especially as we as a society and polity have succumbed to the conceit that the natural world is there for our taking, with necessarily benign consequences.
Sea level rise has been nearest to my concerns about AGW because of where I came from. Despite the gnats (and mosquitoes, deer flies, chiggers, sharks, and venomous snakes on land and in the water), the southeastern coast of the United States from Amelia Island in North Florida to Charleston is a special place. Sir Robert Montgomery of Scotland called the coast of Georgia “The Most Delightful Country of the Universe” (1717) in early “promotional literature” for the colony south of Carolina that became Georgia in 1733. He, never having visited, left out the heat, humidity, bugs and the snakes. But even before the advent of air conditioning, he was not too far off the mark. [2]
The Sea Islands of Georgia [3] are geologically young at less than 10,000 years old. They are constantly changing at their margins due to natural alterations in patterns of water flow from the rivers of Georgia that drain into the Atlantic Ocean and from shifts in the sands where they face the sea. Tidal changes along the Georgia coast are large, ranging from six to nine feet from mean low water to mean high water, twice a day. So natural variation along the beaches from year to year is normal. But overall, these islands have been stable for at least 250 years in their high ground, 8-20 feet above sea level. This can be seen by comparing the maps prepared by John William Gerard de Brahm in the 18thCentury to present maps produced by the US Geological Survey. The smallest of tidal creeks are in the same places de Brahm drew them, even as the sandspits and sandbars shift from year to year.
Nevertheless, according to recent research on sea level rise along the Southeast Atlantic Coast and the Gulf Coast of North America, this stability is not likely to continue. The primary source used here was published in Nature Communications in 2023 (Dagendorf et al.). A more accessible summary was subsequently published by Inside Climate News and later reprinted with permission in The Current [4] on 16 July 2024. I will use some of the data presented in this popular article (which is based on the Dangendorf et al.) as a naïve exercise to illustrate why, in my view, AGW is so often so difficult to appreciate as our most pressing existential [5] threat that is not completely an artifact of politics – local, national, and global.
Mean sea level (MSL) is difficult to measure, but according to Dangendorf et al., MSL has increased approximately 1.5 mm per year since 1900 (~7 inches). This may seem inconsequential, in that (theoretically) when walking along the beach the water would cover your ankles. No big deal. But this increase is unprecedented over at least the last 3000 years.
This is not good and is consistent with other correlates of AGW, including the hockey stick graph. Specific measurements from North Florida (70 miles south of Jekyll Island, see below) are illustrated in Figure 1. Measured MSL rise was 2.8 mm/year in 1924, 3.4 mm/year in 1950, and 8.7 mm/year in 2003. This is consistent with the hypothesis that MSL rise in accelerating, with a trajectory more similar to #3 as a first approximation than either #1 or #2, with #1 being the first choice, as if we had one.
If this accelerating increase in MSL is real, then it can be modeled as a nonlinear process. Three points are not enough to fit these data to a curve, but interpolation and moderate extrapolation will allow this, strictly as an illustration, of what may be happening (Figure 2).
At least two key points emerge from Figure 2:
- MSL rise from 1928 through 2024 is essentially the same for both the linear and nonlinear models (~0.53 m/21 inches) but after this MSL rise accelerates quickly.
- By 2060, the nonlinear model predicts a cumulative rise in MSL of slightly more than two meters, or nearly seven feet versus about three feet for the linear model.
This estimate is only an exercise, but it is not too far removed from the moderate-to-large estimates in Dangendorf et al. The nonlinear curve also illustrates a common misconception regarding climate change. One cannot assume a linear relationship for anything, even if MSL rise along the southeastern coast during the past 100 years seems to be consistent with a slow, steady increase, until now.
Feedback loops and forcing mechanisms are common in the natural world, which is anything but linear. As the climate warms, the Greenland Ice Sheet will melt faster. As this freshwater flows into the North Atlantic, disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Gulf Stream can be expected, perhaps sooner rather than later according to a paper published last week in Nature Communications (summarized at this NC link yesterday). Note the protestations from experts that talk of this is “premature” since we don’t know the complete answer, yet. Such doubt is the handmaiden of denial of an unpleasant reality. The collapse of AMOC seems highly likely. When this happens, the sequelae will be grim in the British Isles.
In any case, a 3-foot rise in MSL along the southeastern coast of North America would be unmanageable, whatever the exact timetable. A 7-foot rise in MSL would be catastrophic. Along the coast of Georgia, none of the Sea Islands would be habitable and much of the mainland for 20 miles inland in some places would be marginally habitable. The same is true for most of Florida, especially South Florida, where despite the Resilient Florida Program of Governor Ron DeSantis, nothing can be done to hold back the sea, which in Miami also comes up through the rock.
This brings us to what is seen today in the Sea Islands of Georgia (map at Endnote 3). Tides are higher than before, with novel, playfully named “king tides” occasionally lapping at the edges of the pavement of the elevated causeways leading to the three islands connected to the mainland. This is new. As is the severe erosion of the northern end of Jekyll Island, which has become something of a tourist attraction at the recently named Driftwood Beach. What is generally not understood by visitors and a distressing number of locals is that through the 1980s Driftwood Beach was high ground, where as children my friends and I chased “red-headed scorpions” (actually the skink Plestiodon inexpectatus) in the wooded sand dunes while watching out for snakes and prickly pears. Jekyll has been called the nearest faraway place. It still is, but for how long?
There is little driftwood on Driftwood Beach except for the occasional stick. Rather, the “driftwood” consists of dead trees, mostly live oaks (Quercus virginiana) that are no longer on high ground. They have not drifted from anywhere. They remain in situ (Figure 3, personal photographs). The live oak skeleton in the left panel is now in the ocean along with many others. The dead trees in the right panel (live oak and palm) are at the edge of the rising highwater mark, where they have been killed by seawater.
There is naturally some discussion about whether Driftwood Beach is the result of normal changes in the shoreline due to the ever-present wind and large tidal flows. But similar areas are now more common than before on other Sea Islands. Whatever the cause, which is not necessarily unitary, this severe erosion on Jekyll Island has led to interventions that will be futile. Rising seas cannot be stopped. But several hundred yards south of Driftwood Beach, “Johnson Rocks” [6] have been piled at least 15-feet high, separating the remnant of a broad expanse of beach from the condominiums and houses behind them (Figure 4). This continues for more than two miles to the south and will eventually continue farther, provided the State of Georgia is willing to spend the money (Jekyll Island is essentially a state park, purchased for $675,000 in 1947 from the remnants of the Jekyll Island Club in what was termed Thompson’s Folly in honor
of then Governor Melvin E. Thompson). The sand behind the rocks has been imported.
The extensive walkways over the Johnson Rocks are expensive but temporary, especially on the ocean side. During my visit in May 2024 the distance from the last step to the sand was a 4-foot drop at several sites, which is too far for those of a certain age to reach the beach. The story of King Canute demonstrating his fundamental powerlessness to his courtiers comes to mind.
Suggestions of how to get the message across are most welcome. AGW is not “just the weather,” but when “the ‘market’ is the measure of all things,” nothing else matters. A good friend from our days as baseball teammates responded to my topophilia-driven angst by telling me that planet Earth is too large for humans to damage it, so this is just the way things are. Actually, no. The ozone hole is under repair intentionally, to use a keyword. Fifty years ago, the Clean Water Act returned speckled trout (a species unable to tolerate industrial pollution) to the local tidal river less than a half mile from my childhood neighborhood, while the Clean Air Act put Spanish moss back on the branches of the live oaks as local air pollution diminished in the 1970s.
Perhaps these successes were small things. According to David Wallace-Wells, we are too far gone to do anything but manage, probably poorly, the coming catastrophe. I suspect he is correct. But Michael Mann claims that all is not necessarily lost. Rebecca Solnit and colleagues tell us that it is Not Too Late, as they would. In idle moments I would like to ask Hank Paulson what he thinks. Several years ago, he and his wife Wendy bought Little St. Simons Island so that it could be preserved in perpetuity, through an easement granted to the Nature Conservancy, as the little paradise it is (though expensive to visit, but not to beach a boat on the shore of Buttermilk Sound and walk around for a few minutes while ignoring the implicit “No Trespassing” signs). The island’s “perpetuity” might not outlive his grandchildren.
Finally, the little book Sea Islands of Georgia: Their Geological History (Endnote 3) that has taught me much about The Most Delightful Country of the Universe concludes with this:
The islands are being constantly modified. There is no loss but a gain of growth from this modification. The sea level is rising faster than their growth. If no change occurs in the present rise of sea level they will be submerged in one thousand years. There will be another and quite similar chain born as these pass out.
A change has occurred and there can be no denial that this change of a few hundred years at most is our doing. This is obvious to the most casual observer who is willing to look. As Abraham Joshua Heschel said in a different but apposite context, “Few are guilty, but all are responsible.” The willfulness of politicians and corruption of science, by scientists and their antagonists-with-agendas, are not helpful. Nevertheless, hope is the basis for action while optimism is a foundation for nothing but lassitude and ultimately despair. There is work still to be done, and it will have to be done by citizens rather than consumers. Perhaps it is not too late, after all.
Notes
[1] McKibben’s outright dismissal of the question of funding for 350.org when asked in Michael Moore’s Planet of the Humans was not his finest moment, despite what one thinks of this “imperfect” documentary.
[2] Sidney Lanier (1842-1881): The Marshes of Glynn. Text is here. A not unreasonable gloss is here. Sidney Lanier is not for everyone, especially Robert Penn Warren and his fellow Southern Agrarians and New Critics. But Jay B. Hubbell ranked Sidney Lanier with Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman among late-19th century American poets…but for tuberculosis. The history of the Sea Islands and adjacent grounds after the Colony of Georgia succumbed to the political economy of its near neighbor to the north, despite significant resistance, is another matter altogether.
[3] The Sea Islands of Georgia: Their Geologic History. Count D. Gibson, University of Georgia Press, 1948. Only Jekyll, St. Simons/Sea Island, and Tybee are connected to the mainland by causeway.
Thus, the other islands have remained mostly in their natural state. Because I love maps, I cannot resist adding the map from the endpapers of the book here. Little St. Simons is the large island, mostly marsh, to the north of St. Simons/Sea Island. Wassaw, the small island between Ossabaw and Tybee, is not labeled.
[4] The Current is one of the excellent new independent news sources that have become essential as the traditional newspaper business has collapsed in on itself due to the rise of the internet.
[5] Existential(ism) for me means Camus, Sartre, and Kierkegaard. Who doesn’t feel like Sisyphus these days, or have a sense of sickness unto death or being nothing? Our collective political nervous breakdown has hijacked this previously useful philosophical concept, and “existential” has become just another PMC/neoliberal keyword such as freemarket, democracy, proactive, intentional, holistic, artisanal, mindfulness, and wellness. Still, it fits here.
[6] The seawalls of granite boulders common in the Sea Islands were first installed after Hurricane Dora (1964) washed away several beachfront houses on St. Simons Island, just to the north of Jekyll Island. The were promised by President Johnson during a tour of damaged areas after the storm. The seawalls are intended to protect the shore from the action of the Atlantic Ocean. It is not clear they do so in the long term. Previously the kinetic energy of waves and high seas dissipated harmlessly in the sand dunes above the high-water mark. While such seawalls work in the short term, it has been argued that Johnson Rocks also direct forces downward and contribute to beach erosion where they are installed. This is evident in the Village of St. Simons near the lighthouse, in sight of Driftwood Beach to the south across St. Simons Sound. The Johnson Rocks have done their job of protecting the village except during Hurricane Irma (2017) which was accompanied by an extremely damaging tidal surge from the northeast – something of a wakeup call for the complacent, but real estate prices have only continued to skyrocket. Where there was beach even at high tide not so long ago the water is now 6-8 feet deep. Previously no one built close to the shore or in the dunes between high ground and the ocean, but zoning commissions everywhere are amenable if the price is right. The only thing likely to alter that is a final collapse of the property and casualty insurance business.
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I think a key problem is that ‘denialism’ is a moving target. My impression is that there are very few true believers in denialism anymore. They fall into a variety of camps, most of which have some variance on ‘yes, the climate is changing, yes, its probably due to human interference, but its not going to be as bad as the catastrophists predict and anyway, technology and human ingenuity will deal with it’. Even quite knowledgeable people fall into this trap.
As an example, a few months ago the usually excellent data scientist Dr. Hannah Richie was interviewed by Chris Williamson on his podcast, who I guess falls into the ‘intelligent and thoughtful right winger’ camp, and I was somewhat horrified to hear her agree with him that things are not as bad as ‘the Greens’ make out and that our kids and grandkids will be ok so long as we all buy EV’s, etc. I don’t know if she believes this, or feels she has to push a generally ‘optimist’ viewpoint in order to fight off despair, but if I was a casual listener I would have come away thinking that everything was fine.
There is also just a general human capacity (which all of us, myself included, can be guilty of), of packaging our concerns away in discrete psychological packages which allows us to disassociate ourselves from the consequences. I can’t help noting that so many of the under 30’s I know who are supposedly deeply concerned about climate change are still taking Ryanair flights to Magaluf and buying SUV’s (‘because they are safer for our kids’) and so on. One of many things I’ve been wrong about recently was my belief that covid would fundamentally cure our fixation on having a right to cheap flights multiple times a year. If anything, its worse now than it was pre-2020.
I think as far as local changes go, this does make an impact, but it can also be a double edged sword. Its hard not to notice that farmers who are suffering from unpredictable weather patterns are not campaigning for regenerative agriculture, they are campaigning for fewer government restrictions on their right to choke their land out with nitrogen. In Europe, there has been a specific move for people to take their summer holidays in cooler northern climes rather than the now unbearably hot Mediterranean areas. But they are flying there of course. In the Paris Olympics, teams are bringing their own air con units instead of accepting the low energy designs of the Olympic villages. Countries like China and India are hotting up military spending to ensure control over the headwaters of key rivers rather than address the melting of the glaciers. There are sadly numerous examples.
Whoever the governments were that colluded to secretly blow up Nordstream, they obviously don’t give a hoot about climate change, methane, etc.
So why should Joe & Jane Blow / Hans und Hannelore Mustermann?
I find climate change and the associated troubles a difficult subject to write about. I’d add frequent and stronger storms are contributing to the unease of coastal dwellers as well. Anecdotal observation, along the mid-coast of Maine I’ve noted many new installations of “Johnson rocks” after last January’s storm driven super tides did their work.
Nice map.
We’ve been here nearly 20 years, so I have a nice baseline-a ringside seat if you will, to goings on in the forest for the trees at the all cats and no cattle ranch during a period when we really heated up, exacerbated by wild swings in the guise of dire drought years interspersed with epic winter snowfalls.
About 75 out of 425 trees never watered by the hand of man have perished on my watch, and there are no younger blue Oaks anywhere to be seen around these parts, so the western slopes of the Sierra being the only place they exist, means peril for the species as we do the big heat up.
In the higher climes its the bark beetle who is the agent of change, to give you an idea of how its going, another cabin owner and I did a survey of newlydeads in our cabin community in Mineral King in May, and it had to be updated last week as there are a number of new dead trees since then. They’re dropping like so many horizontal flies, killed by an angry 1/8th inch invader.
In the first bark bettle die-off in 2015-20, it was pine trees predominantly below 7,200 feet and not much above, now the die off is up to 9k, gonna run out of timber to feast on a few thousand feet higher.
I guess that one of the benefits of living in the same general area my whole life means that I get to see all changes that have occurred. I could start with the changes in the USDA plant hardiness zones that almost every gardener is aware of or should be. Climate and weather, including the reduction of cold weather and the fog, are two of them and if I may, I will add the disappearing insects and animals, particularly the birds. It might seem corny to say it, but I think that I can feel in some ineffable way the changes. A wrongness or sickness more sensed than seen.
Perhaps, I could compare it to the collapsing economic, governmental, and social web, much like an ecosystem, in the Bay Area. Much of it is still there, still functions, albeit greatly degraded, a shadow of what was even 25, never mind 50, years ago. It is that steadily increasing sense of wrongness or illness that I constantly feel and cannot totally ignored even when I try.
Unfortunately, I have no single indication that would overwhelm the doubters. Like with everything else going bad, I merely have too many small ones that are easily ignored. To paraphrase someone in the NC commentariat who likes to mention a person’s description of how he went broke, “gradually at first, then suddenly all at once,” which is what I think will happen with the climate; there will be something overwhelming like the disappearance of Miami, but until then…
“MSL rise from 1928 through 2024 is essentially the same for both the linear and nonlinear models (~0.53 m/21 inches) but after this (i.e., 2024) MSL rise accelerates quickly.” Shouldn´t we wait a little before asserting such “facts”?
“By 2060, the nonlinear model predicts a cumulative rise in MSL of slightly more than two meters, or nearly seven feet versus about three feet for the linear model.”
“If this accelerating increase in MSL is real…”
“disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Gulf Stream can be expected, PERHAPS SOONER RATHER THAN LATER according to a paper published last week…”
The article is filled with such PREDICTIONS and uncertainties. The whole theory is basically predicated on the accuracy of MODELS – and this, at least to the common man – is not Science in the sense of, say, physics. Also, the tendency of the media to describe every single severe weather phenomenon as the result of Climate Change is itself very unscientific and somewhat suspicious. Why do they do this? The fact is that there is plenty of room for skepticism outside of the political sphere, where no room is ALLOWED. And after all the dire predictions about the pandemic that were also uncritically reported by the MSM, such skepticism has been proven to be warranted.
From the post:
“Three points are not enough to fit these data to a curve, but interpolation and moderate extrapolation will allow this, strictly as an illustration, of what may be happening (Figure 2)”.
No, this is not physics, which is determined at the macro level by scientific “laws” that are well understood. Natural phenomena must be explained and understood at the proper level of integration. Chemistry is not even reducible to physics, and reducibility to physics declines exponentially from there.
Correlation is not causation. Models are models. But, if a plausible underlying mechanism that explains the observations exists (e.g., the greenhouse effect), then the precautionary principle should be followed. Bradford Hill, Richard Doll and Evarts Graham showed without a doubt that smoking causes lung cancer long before anyone had a clue about the genetic, molecular, and cellular changes that led to cancer. Thus the 1964 report of the US Surgeon General on smoking and health. It is true that all smokers do not get lung cancer, but 90% of the people who do get lung cancer are or were smokers. We should also note that the models of climate change have been conservative in their predictions. Things are probably a lot worse than anyone wants to believe.
As for the ongoing pandemic, the response has been a charlie foxtrot from the beginning, largely because biomedical science has become Biomedicine, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Pharma and Big Medicine. One needs only to compare our current situation to the scientific (not political or social) responses to HIV/AIDS forty years ago to see this.
Also from the post: “Note the protestations from experts that talk of this is “premature” since we don’t know the complete answer, yet. Such doubt is the handmaiden of denial of an unpleasant reality. The collapse of AMOC seems highly likely. When this happens, the sequelae will be grim in the British Isles.”
In any case, if AGW is a figment of our fevered imaginations and the world gets smaller and economies become more self contained while switching to renewables to the extent possible, what is the worst thing that can happen? The finite reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas will last that much longer.
Skepticism is in the political sphere. Same folks who brought you cigarettes don’t cause cancer and slow walked leaded gasoline. Oddly, those skeptics also believe neoliberal economic models, so their ability to evaluate models is highly suspect.
I’ve had trouble submitting this comment on a travel day, so apologies if it appears more than once.
From the post:
“Three points are not enough to fit these data to a curve, but interpolation and moderate extrapolation will allow this, strictly as an illustration, of what may be happening (Figure 2)”.
No, this is not physics, which is determined at the macro level by scientific “laws” that are well understood. Natural phenomena must be explained and understood at the proper level of integration. Chemistry is physics adjacent but is not reducible to physics, and reducibility to physics declines exponentially from there.
Correlation is not causation. Models are models. But, if a plausible underlying mechanism that explains the observations exists (e.g., the greenhouse effect), then the precautionary principle should be followed. Bradford Hill, Richard Doll and Evarts Graham showed without a doubt that smoking causes lung cancer long before anyone had a clue about the genetic, molecular, and cellular changes that led to cancer. Thus the 1964 report of the US Surgeon General on smoking and health before molecular oncology was a thing. It is true that all smokers do not get lung cancer, but ~90% of the people who do get lung cancer are or were smokers. We should also note that the models of climate change have been conservative in their predictions. Things are probably a lot worse than anyone wants to believe.
As for the ongoing pandemic, the response has been a charlie foxtrot from the beginning, largely because biomedical science has become Biomedicine, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Pharma and Big Medicine under the neoliberal dispensation. One needs only to compare our current situation to the scientific (not political or social) responses to HIV/AIDS forty years ago to see this.
Also from the post: “Note the protestations from experts that talk of this is “premature” since we don’t know the complete answer, yet. Such doubt is the handmaiden of denial of an unpleasant reality. The collapse of AMOC seems highly likely. When this happens, the sequelae will be grim in the British Isles.”
In any case, if AGW is a figment of our fevered imaginations and the world gets smaller and economies become more self-contained while switching to renewables to the extent possible, what is the worst thing that can happen? The finite reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas will last that much longer.
If one has lived only in cities, artificial landscapes, with central heating and air conditioning, AGW can be ignored as only the uncomfortable moment between a vehicle and a building. That is simplistic, but I believe it is the experience of many. They do not experience the natural world. They live within a construct. But have you noticed the rapid decline in the number of insects. No June bugs butting and buzzing against the screens. Almost no night flying moths or butterflies or mosquitoes. Birds become fewer. I remember the swirling clouds of starlings when I was young. Where are they? I remember the beach between the Cape Hatteras lighthouse and the beach in the late 1960s. When next I was there in the early 1990s that beach had disappeared.These are snapshots. KLG has painted a picture.
You could have central Washington DC get flooded and it would make no difference to the argument. They would explain to you that the planet is simply going through one of it’s natural cycles so if it is too hot/too cold/too stormy that we should expect it and learn to get used to it. That is the argument that my brother uses and if you argue different it is all because of a lefty plot or something. You could have southern Florida sink beneath the waves and they would argue that in the past something like that must have happened before so no reason to worry. It is just part of nature’s cycles.
You could have southern Florida sink beneath the waves and they would argue that in the past something like that must have happened before so no reason to worry. It is just part of nature’s cycles.
Your gambit is playing in real time. Perhaps “they” will change their tune once the water level reaches the hem of their bathing suits, heh heh.
KLG, I think you’re absolutely right that this kind of personal, experiential learning is what is most likely to change minds captured by the Merchants of Doubt and seduced by “comfort and convenience.” Hikers like Wuk, hunters, fishermen, gardeners, bird watchers, people who work outdoors, and old-timers generally can do the testifyin’, and that would be especially effective if they had previously been skeptics.
I wonder how many of us have been taught to read graphs and tables, the usual method of argument of those trying to change minds. Moreover, there’s skepticism about the motives and competence of the data collectors. In the case of the Merchants of Doubt, this is more than justified, and poisons the well generally. Experiential learning gets around all that quite nicely.
What concerns me is how all this affects our attitude toward Nature. We’ve been rolling along, thinking “Science” has tamed Nature, and that soon, even weather disruptions will be a thing of the past. As our impacts on Nature make her more unpredictable, even violent, I hope we react by learning to regard Her as Teacher rather than Destroyer. Our usual War on _____ approach to problems will definitely not work with Gaia.
I don’t know “how to get the message across”. It strikes me that a lot of people don’t care or possibly feel too powerless. I believe that my provincial (and possibly federal) government are using the linear projection model for sea level rise described in the article. According to public reports, the provincial government was advising residents on the North Shore of the province sometime in the last several years about sea level rise. It seemed to me that of all of the possible projections, the province along with the federal government were using the lowest estimate with the furtherest date of rise.
To add to your story about local climate damage, repair was made last Fall to two sections of the dike in my tributary river area. Large stones like in the photograph in this article were used to fill the gaps. Without exaggeration, the repair work was wiped out by the tide within 3 months. A local naturalist who is also a local political representative used a drone to record the loss. Aside from the naturalist/political representative, myself, the contracted repair workers and the contracting government agency nobody really knows about it. A small news item was produced but it was of interest for only the time that it aired.
Climate change is a tough subject to deal with in our era (post 2001). I have described our era as dominated by fantasies rather than reason and intellect. We are in a post rational age. We are unable to process the huge amount of information, ideas, frameworks so we move on the a Marvel Comics view of the world. Our political discourse, rarely on any high intellectual level historically, descend into gestures and rants. There are many causes of our situation and everyone is to blame–it is just history moving on. Without solid conceptual frameworks everything can be denied or accepted depending on emotions not analysis. The problem with emotions is that they require some kind of moral foundation otherwise they become mere self-indulgence or, what I believe is true, I know and I’m not listening to you or anyone. Thus we are not only prey to ignorance and anti-intellectualism but narcissism and alienation.
In our situation we have to reject Science (as an institution) since it has proved to be far to often corrupt almost as much as our other public institutions. Is Climate Change real? Certainly something is disturbing the weather but the vast, vast majority of even “educated” people in our US society don’t believe it or disbelieve it because they lack the framework to launch an inquiry in between all the confusion and chaos our lives are descending into. We can’t look into this stuff without acknowledging the rise of suicide, depression, addiction, despair, fear of not being able to pay the bills. Thus as certain as I’m writing this there is and cannot be any public pressure to do anything at all about Climate Change–in fact, we are lucky if we can escape this next few years without WWIII which is, aside from bills, my most urgent concern.
Chautauqua County New York, stretching from Lake Erie, south to the Pennsylvania border, covers four USDA Climate Zones. In the ten years since the 2012 zone list was published, each zone has bumped up into the next warmer zone. The two warmest zones run parallel to the shores of Lake Erie, always a prime area for grapes and cherries. The new zone there, 7a, eliminates the winter temps below zero degrees F. The Jamestown area has warmed from 5a in 1990, to 5b in 2012, to 6a in 2023. Last week, a conversation with an ‘oldest resident’ (94 and still going strong) family member, had them shaking their head and admitting that they just didn’t know when to plant the tomatoes any more: “Used to be we’d put them in after Memorial Day, but now, the neighbors are planting them in a coupla weeks earlier.”
Fine when we’re talking a few tomatoes and zucchini, but the county is known for its apples (certain varieties need a certain number of freeze days during the winter), as well as its cherries. On the plus side, the wine grapes seem to be thriving (so sorry, Welch’s!). And, hops as well.
When I hear “Climate change” I just stop them and ask, “ok ok, who do I write the check to?”
I was born into GI housing in 1952 outside of Minneapolis. It was a little Cape Cod house with no air conditioning and no insulation in the attic. I remember for two weeks in the summer was the only time of the year where we would have to sleep in front of a fan. Now from June through August it’s commonly around 90 degrees F or higher throughout the day. Air conditioning is mandatory.
Cross country skiing use to be a pastime from November through February. No more. It’s just rain and ice and a little snow.
What’s particularly scary in the summer are the droughts with farmers complaining about the dropping yields and whether they can survive another year or two. On earth.nullschool.net each year a dominant high pressure cell parks itself over Colorado and parches the Midwest for three months.
It was a little better this year with rain early. One might try to attribute that to the marine cloud brightening in SF Bay, but it’s still too early to tell.
Don’t worry it’s just weather.
Rush Limbaugh spent decades explaining this was a hoax to make money. And millions if not a billions, have been spent spending BS.
This isn’t simply a case of people not wanting to accept bad news or trying to ignore something that makes them feel powerless.
In my experience, using facts just doesn’t work to try to convince someone of anything if they don’t want to be convinced.
I’ve seen this with people who would definitely consider themselves serious environmentalists in regards to a wind farm that was being proposed in CA. The ones that were against it, were not swayed by facts. I worked hard to use logic and facts to prove their beliefs/so called facts were wrong, and it just didn’t work. I read about this technique and how it doesn’t work because its not actually about facts, to those folks its something deep and fundamental. Something that facts don’t seem to influence.
I would like to thank my high school biology teacher, George Craig, who in 1961 transmitted a clear idea of what carrying capacity and biological overshoot are all about. He used the common example of a pond, algae, nutrient energy and waste added to a system.
I’m surprised “overshoot” does not get mentioned more in these discussions.
Mass starvation from drought collapse of several of the planetary bread baskets might get peoples attention.
I think most people prefer happy talk and denial.
Living in a conservative area of ranchers and farmers, I haven’t found too many nonbelievers in climate change because most people work outside and pay lots of attention to rainfall and water.
The toughest thing to convince people of is that the change is human caused — instead, you get the argument that the climate has always been changing, and we are just experiencing natural variation. You can’t meet that one with stories out of your own experience, and I wonder what would be the handiest way to make a convincing case.
In my hometown in central WA I never had seen a wildfire other than once in the early 60s where we could see a fire from our house, which at the time was very unusual. There have been well over a dozen fires visible from the house I grew up in, just in the last 15 years.
I don’t think anything will stop some people denying climate change – the explanation I usually hear is that the earth has been warming and cooling for millions of years and that “this time is no different”. I saw a post on Facebook saying this just last week.
“My impression is that there are very few true believers in denialism anymore.” I guess it depends on the various media one follows. I think there are still tons of deniers. It seems almost pro forma for leaders on the right. (I am independent, not right-wing, but I read across the spectrum.)
Look what’s going on in Antarctica (and everywhere else!) in one of my go-to sources:
“Antarctic heatwave! Temperatures are some 24C [45F] above average in northern Antarctica at the moment in what should be the height of winter… Surface 2M air temperatures in the southern hemisphere are the warmest in recorded history at the moment for the time of year.”
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/07/30/30th-july-2024-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
Periodically I have civil discussions with an MD who is a libertarian. His view of global warming is that the problem is the people who believe in it. If we lock those people up, the problem is solved. All economic problems would be solved by competition unrestricted by rules and regulations. The morality of society will not improve until we kill or lock up all homosexuals. We need a benevolent dictator and the elimination of democracy to create a better society. For him, Bolsonaro is a great leader. He believes that all problems we see in the distribution of medical care is caused by Medicare which must be eliminated. For him, the worst president we ever had is FDR. Offsetting individual greed in a “free Market” is what is required for a “good” society. Immigration must be stopped or else we will all be eating insects like the immigrants.
Where in god’s name do you start with this type of attitude which is becoming conventional wisdom in my neck of the woods?
As for governmental response to global warming, Biden, who Bernie Sanders considers the most progressive president since FDR, is heavily reliant on carbon capture while supporting the Willow plant in Alaska’s North Slope. The oil companies are given billions to develop carbon capture which they are using to increase their yield of oil wells and gas wells while no authority sees that it will ever be meaning in reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. On the other side, Trump attracts votes by promising to drill baby drill.
KLG, this is a great posting and indeed, to the point. And it remainded me of a recent interview on CBC Radio, with a Canadian scientist/academic working in Texas.
Make it local, make it relevant:
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-429-what-on-earth/clip/16082694-awkward-how-cringe-convo-climate
Yes, yes, and yes! All politics is “local” because what people see with their own eyes is convincong, and people whp are convinced make for syrong supporters. (Modern democracy(tm) has been trying to subvert this by bringjng in a tvousand apathetic votes to swamp a hundred motivated votes. I think this is at the root of how politics have gotten so shallow…)
Remember when New Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi both together made a “Climate change is real” political “ad” on TV?
That probably scared the Merchants of Fossil into paying the Merchants of FUD-the-science into going into overdrive and overspend to seed Climate Denialism all over everywhere. And make it a badge of cultural honor.
Real Patriots don’t accept the reality of Global Warming. They will continue denializing it to “own the liberals.”
The louder the liberals say that a vote for Trump is a vote for global warming, the harder the Real Patriots will vote for Trump to own the liberals.
The liberals should really start working towards their own Separate Survival in their own regions of Geographical Dominance.
IIRC, Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson even made an ad in that series together.
The way I try to convey climate change to people is this:
In chemistry, there is a concept called dynamic equilibrium. Dissolve some stuff in water, say, “AB”, and some of it will break down into components A and B, so in the water you will have A, B, and AB. After a certain amount of time, the concentrations of each will stabilize, with a certain amount of A, a certain amount of B, and a certain amount of AB. But key is that nothing is static; the whole time AB is breaking down into A and B, and A and B are recombining into AB. That’s the dynamic equilibrium; constant change, same net result. Critically, what those concentrations are depends on key conditions, most relevantly, temperature. Change the temperature the reaction is happening at, and you change the equilibrium concentrations. Once you finish adding heat, the reaction can re-stabilize at new concentrations of A, B, and AB
OK, I say, once I’m sure the concept has taken hold: Imagine climate as a dynamic equilibrium of weather. The weather is in constant change, but it is sufficiently at equilibrium that we have stable patterns: Tornado Alley; the Main Development Region for Atlantic hurricanes; etc. Obviously the climate is way more complicated than the simple solution AB into A and B, but the basic conceptual analogy holds.
Now add two more more concepts: Momentum and Inertia. The climate is a massive, planetary dynamic equilibrium. It’s got so much momentum in it equilibrium, it’s really hard to knock out of pattern–tons of inertia.
We have added so much heat to the dynamic equilibrium of weather that is our climate the equilibrium must shift, and we are now seeing signs the inertia of prior equilibrium has been overcome. (The record ocean heat; various tipping points; glacial/ice sheet/sea ice melt; heat waves; etc.) When a system is not in equilibrium, it seems chaotic; the old patterns break, and new ones do not hold–the change is constant on the path to the new equilibrium. But that equilibrium cannot be established until we stop adding heat. And we keep adding heat. So we will build momentum in the dynamics of change, of weather chaos, until some future time when we not only reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions (from the whole planet, not just directly us, e.g. melting permafrost) but all of the heat the emissions can trap is trapped.
In short, the future dynamic equilibrium is retreating from us ever faster over the horizon.
Until that distant day when our climate destabilizes because planetary weather has reached a new dynamic equilibrium, life on the planet will deal with increasing weather chaos that is ever more extreme (more extreme because we are adding heat which means we are adding energy to the system.) How the details of destabilized weather play out in any one location will vary, of course, with big picture trend lines like rising seas impacting the whole planet. But that’s the big picture of the now: ever accelerating weather chaos with no end currently in sight.
I’m not trying to doomsay life on the planet’s destruction or anything like it; I believe humanity can do what it takes to stop adding energy to the climate system–indeed, to start removing (net) energy from the system. But that’s the big picture of what’s happening.
And when I explain that to people, and use concrete illustrations for points (like gyroscopes for the challenge of knocking a system out of its equilibrium) they generally get it. And it freaks them out. And then they promptly stop thinking about it because it’s just too much.
…distant day when the climate *re-stabilizes…
I could not think of a bigger waste of time than having anything to do with a obstinate climate denier.
Deniers or true believer environmentalists, I do not see any behaviour changes that matter AT ALL and I’ve been following closely since 1988 and was aware of AGW before that. It’s been all talk.
All I need do is produce is a couple of stats from 2023 to prove no one has done anything to reduce their consumption/CO2/Eco footprint in spite of decades of ever more dire warnings.
2023 Set Records in Global Fossil Fuel Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Key Takeaways
1 – In 2023, the world consumed more oil, coal and natural gas than any time in history, according to the Energy Institute’s “Statistical Review of World Energy.”
2 – Led by increases in consumption from China, India and non-OECD countries, energy-related greenhouse gas emissions increased by 2 percent.
3 – Global primary energy use also increased by 2 percent, even as renewable electricity generation increased strongly.
4 – India is now using more coal than the United States and the European Union combined.
5 – China continues to increase its consumption of fossil fuels despite its massive increases in renewable energy capacity.
6 – Europe is deindustrializing as its use of fossil fuels as a percentage of energy has fallen below 70 percent, its lowest since the Industrial Revolution.
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/2023-set-records-in-global-fossil-fuel-use-and-carbon-dioxide-emissions/
Clearly there are millions who are talking the talk, but not walking the walk.
To be fair, yes some folks have made modest reductions in their consumption/CO2/Eco footprint, but even combined, their efforts are statistically insignificant.
Big picture looks to me like the entire human race is in denial, BIG time.
As far as I’m concerned the planet is well into runaway climate change and combined with a host of other Overshoot predicaments, humans may not make it out of this century (with no help from nuclear war needed).
It also looks like techno industrial civilization, including industrial agriculture, may not make it past the half century mark. Troubles are many.
BTW, I’m no Guy McPherson disciple. I was made aware of the possibility of NTHE, by the late great Frank Fenner.
Humans will be extinct in 100 years says eminent scientist
https://phys.org/news/2010-06-humans-extinct-years-eminent-scientist.html
…
NTHE is academic, but if anyone is interested….
The Scientific Case for NTHE (Near-Term Human Extinction): Reviewing the Evidence
https://medium.com/@kconne/the-scientific-case-for-near-term-human-extinction-nthe-reviewing-the-evidence-2e5b8a12da26
19 ‘mass extinctions’ had CO2 levels we’re now veering toward, study warns
published August 4, 2023
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/19-mass-extinctions-had-co2-levels-were-now-veering-towards-study-warns
I’m pushing 60 with no spouse or kids, so I only worry about how to avoid or minimize damage becoming a victim of a climate change jacked disaster or Overshoot consequences.
Any and all talk of saving the planet or how to reduce emissions is just more bullshit theater – not only have we done nothing to reduce the risk of climate change, we have gone in the opposite direction. I don’t blame anyone. Humans can no more change their biological programming than any other creature, so I don’t blame, but I do not tolerate denial in any form and that includes magical thinking fixes.
Humans have been given dire warnings for two decades + and every year there are more green house gas emissions and more record smashing climate jacked disasters and when I point out all these facts, I get attacked. Not from true believer deniers (white, male, politically conservative, mostly 5 eyes citizens, mostly American). It’s people who are aware of climate change, but have tons to lose who attack messenger me. I’ve only pointed out, via stats and increasing disasters, that humans have done less than nothing and that the hour is late, very very late.
My family (from south central KY) started going to Jekyll Island in the ealy 90’s when Myrtle Beach became ridiculously overcrowded. It’s an amazing place. When I took my first real vacation since my parents died ( last parent died in 2018) I went straight to Jekyll Island. I visited Driftwood Beach and all the other natural areas on the island. It breaks my heart to think this wonderful place will be lost because of humanities hubris.