Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of
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holes punched through ceilings as people tried <strong>to</strong> escape rising<br />
water. The musty smell <strong>of</strong> decay was everywhere, overlaid with<br />
an oily stench. Despair hung like Spanish moss in <strong>the</strong> hot, dank<br />
July air.<br />
Ninety miles <strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> south, <strong>the</strong> Louisiana delta is rapidly sinking<br />
below <strong>the</strong> rising waters <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Gulf. This is no “natural” process<br />
but ra<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> result <strong>of</strong> decades <strong>of</strong> mismanagement <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> lower<br />
Mississippi, which became federal policy after <strong>the</strong> great fl ood <strong>of</strong><br />
1927. Sediments that built <strong>the</strong> richest and most fecund wetlands<br />
in <strong>the</strong> world are now deposited <strong>of</strong>f <strong>the</strong> continental shelf—part<br />
<strong>of</strong> an ill-conceived effort <strong>to</strong> tame <strong>the</strong> river. The result is that <strong>the</strong><br />
remaining wetlands, starved for sediment, are both eroding and<br />
compacting, sinking below <strong>the</strong> water and perilously close <strong>to</strong> no<br />
return. Oil extraction has done most <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> rest <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> damage by<br />
crisscrossing <strong>the</strong> marshlands with channels that allow <strong>the</strong> intrusion<br />
<strong>of</strong> saltwater and s<strong>to</strong>rm surges. Wakes from boats have widened<br />
<strong>the</strong> original channels considerably, fur<strong>the</strong>r unraveling <strong>the</strong><br />
ecology <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> region. The richest fi shery in North America and a<br />
unique culture that once thrived in <strong>the</strong> delta are disappearing, and<br />
with <strong>the</strong>m <strong>the</strong> buffer zone that protects New Orleans from hurricanes.<br />
“Every 2.7 miles <strong>of</strong> marsh grass,” in Mike Tidwell’s words,<br />
“absorbs a foot <strong>of</strong> a hurricane’s s<strong>to</strong>rm surge” (2003, p. 57).<br />
And <strong>the</strong> big hurricanes will come. Kerry Emanuel, an MIT scientist<br />
and former <strong>climate</strong> change skeptic, researched <strong>the</strong> connection<br />
among rising levels <strong>of</strong> greenhouse gases in <strong>the</strong> atmosphere, warmer<br />
sea temperatures, and <strong>the</strong> severity <strong>of</strong> s<strong>to</strong>rms. He’s a skeptic no longer<br />
(2005, pp. 686–88; also Trenberth, 2007). The hard evidence on<br />
this and o<strong>the</strong>r parts <strong>of</strong> <strong>climate</strong> science has moved beyond <strong>the</strong> point<br />
<strong>of</strong> legitimate dispute. Carbon dioxide, <strong>the</strong> prime greenhouse gas, is<br />
at <strong>the</strong> highest level in at least <strong>the</strong> last 650,000 years and probably a<br />
great deal longer, and it continues <strong>to</strong> accumulate by ∼2.0+ parts per<br />
million per year, edging closer and closer <strong>to</strong> what some scientists<br />
believe is <strong>the</strong> threshold <strong>of</strong> runaway <strong>climate</strong> change. British scientist<br />
James Lovelock compares our situation <strong>to</strong> being on a boat upstream<br />
from Niagara Falls with <strong>the</strong> engines about <strong>to</strong> fail.