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| NEW INTERNATIONALIST 206 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| THIS MONTH'S THEME | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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How to turn down
the heat 1. ABANDON GROWTH
Hot air 2. CUT FOSSIL FUELS 3. BOOST ALTERNATIVES 4. BAN CFCs 5. SAVE THE TREES 6. FIGHT FOR FAIRNESS
Simply - Cooling the greenhouse 7. LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR |
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GLOBAL WARMING |
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| FROM THIS MONTH'S EDITOR | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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But now it appears we've also done something about it - though hardly for the better. By pumping chemical pollutants into the atmosphere we're reinforcing the 'greenhouse effect', a natural way of warming the earth which until recently was part of the obscure argot of atmospheric scientists. Today the greenhouse effect is as likely to be the focus of daily conversations as the weather. The planet is heating up and world weather patterns are changing. The problem is we may not be able to control the change we've set in motion. But we can certainly try. This is why we have structured this issue of the NI as a series of lessons in how to turn down the heat. Let no-one claim that the situation is confused, that we cannot tell what action to take: the way to tackle the climate crisis is as bright and clear as the sun, if only the will were there. Having spent several months wrestling with the esoterica of climatology I have come to respect what James Lovelock calls the Gaia principle - essentially the interconnectedness of life with the earth itself. Lovelock says 'the air is not just an environment for life but is also part of life'. It is the complexity of this interdependence that is both so baffling and so unsettling. I'll mention one small but illuminating example I stumbled across while researching this issue. Government biologists in northern Manitoba found last year that the local moose population was dwindling. But they had no idea why. When they examined the bodies they found the animals were infested with ticks. Not unusual in itself since the parasites are found regularly on all moose. But in this case the numbers were five or six times higher than usual. In rubbing up against trees and rocks to rid themselves of the ticks the moose scraped off most of their protective winter guard-hairs. Their bodies thus exposed, the animals weakened and soon fell to disease. That solved the riddle of the moose deaths. The more nagging question was: why had the tick population blossomed so suddenly?' Here's where global warming comes into play. Winter snows have been abnormally light the past few years in this part of northern Canada. Ticks normally gorge themselves on moose blood, then tumble to the ground where, with the usual heavy snows, most freeze - though some would survive to breed young for the following spring. Now, however, they are snuggling into warm leaves and burrowing into the soil. The result: an explosion of the pests. Bad news for the moose - and for local native people who still depend on the huge animals for their winter larder. Links in a chain: it is this kind of overlapping, interdependent relationship between people and the natural environment that is thrown into stark relief by global warming. And why it is critical that steps are taken now to turn down the heat. |
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Wayne Ellwood
for the New Internationalist Co-operative |
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Letters
FRONT COVER PHOTO: |
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If
the American humourist Mark Twain were alive today he would probably consider
retracting his famous comment that 'everyone talks about the weather, but
no-one does anything about it'. The weather is still of course the opening
gambit in many a conversation: passing reference to the rain, the heat or
the cold is part of the neighbourly banter of everyday life.
