The endangered species
p. 13 · Read in the full issue
SOUTH Pacific Islanders : dinosaurs of the next century. Thus Ernest Bani of Vanuatu described the people of the South Pacific in an address to the IPCC Responses Strategies Working Group Geneva, in 1989, in which he appealed to the industrial nations to devise more judicious policies towards the environment “to prevent us from becoming endangered species or the disnosaurs of the
next century,”
Since Malthus, people always think of economics as the dismal science. They are wrong. That distinction belongs to enviromental science. This new science is now telling us downright eerie and blood curdling stories. What are we to make of them? We can, if we choose, adapt the attitude of the unbelieving Heine: “If life hereafter is a lie, then I’m right to disbelive
it, but if it’s true God will forgive me since He is love”. That is, no harm in following the ecologists’ advice no matter how things will work out.
The global warming better known as the Greenhouse Effect has been caused, scientists tell us, by burning of fossil fuels and biomass, by industrial activities, the cutting down of forests, and by certain types of livestock. These have been responsible for the presence of a menacing profile of Greehouse gases whose atmosphere concentrations have all risen about 20 per cent in a matter of seven decades.
The contributions of the human Greehouse gases to this profile,-according to a recent study are: carbon dioxide 55 per cent, CFCs 17 per cent, Methane 15 per cent, other CFCs 7 per cent, Nitrous oxide 6 per cent. Other gases that play a part in global warming are ozone and sulphur dioxide.
And so, according to a weather watcher in Tonga, “the 1980 s go down as the warmest decade ever recorded on planet Earth. In more than a century of record keeping, the four hottest years have all been in this decade.” And in 1986, Nukualofa had the highest temperature ever recorded for a year more than one degree above normal and more than half of a degree above previous records. Similar patterns of new average temperatures hold for other South Pacific Islands.
In fact some scientists expect global warming to get worse, raising average temperatures by four degrees Centigrade, the result of a four-fold increase in global CO2.
For the South Pacific that would be disastrous as it would lead to grave water shortages, severe dry seasons and possible desertification. Papua New Guinea, the Solomons, and mid Pacific territories like Kiribati and Line Islands would really suffer, with the first two developing cyclone periods of their own. On the other hand the severity of floods
and hurricanes would increase in the usual
places.
The same studies also affirm the possibility of sea level rise by about 30 to 50 cm caused by sea surface water expansion through warming or melting of Polar ice. Such a scenario would be devastating to peoples of low-lying atolls and islands, for example, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Kiribati, Marshalls and Line Islands. This, of course, would lead direct to greatly changed coastal ecology and loss of much valuable dry land. Nuku’alofa, where 20 per cent of Tonga’s population live, could lose up to 15 per cent of its area from a 50-centimetre rise in sea level.
Other undesired effects of climate warming would include bad breaks for marine life and fish species. South Pacific people are quite familiar with effects of long bouts of warm
weather on fish and sea life their main source of food.
And fresh water supplies would be inconstant and unreliable with adverse impacts on agriculture, hygiene, and life style.
It would also create new health problems, increased heat and humidity would be ideal for bacterial and viral activity and the breeding of vectors that carry and spread diseases like malaria, filariasis, and dengue and can even introduce these to areas formely free of them. At the same time, the increase of the level of dust in the air may forward the incidence of respiratory complications for South Pacific people. And this is not to mention the huge economic and financial costs of the various adjustments that would be needed.
As I write these lines a scientist friend assures me that the present volcanic activities in the Phillipines and elsewhere would, if they get past a certain threshold, cancel the whole Greenhouse Effect by neutralising the gases. “Remember Krakatoa?” he asked. “I wasn’t around then,” I replied, “but what about Krakatoa?” He said: “Well, it had such a tremendous cooling effect on world climate. We may be in for a repeat performance if these volcanoes step up their work.”
But this poses a dilemma: either we perish by the Greenhouse Effect or be blown to smithereens by blasting volcanoes. There is no substitute for good old level-headed prudence and thoughtful action which is the gist of the environmentalists’ message. It’s only when they get going on holism, sacred nature and all that balderdash that they become really objectionable.
One thing must never be forgotten: even thoughtful action is no perfect insurance against possible hazards there is none. Nature is blind and like truth, is no respecter of persons. She wiped out the dinosaurs of old once. Man especially in Pacific aided by his own folly, may be in line for extinction. But there’s really no time to be cynical. □