Report is a worldwide alarm. Will we listen?

Bill Knight column for Dec. 6, 7 or 8

            It’s been two weeks since the release of the federal government’s 4^th Annual Climate Assessment by hundreds of scientists working with 13 federal agencies such as the Pentagon and NASA as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, plus outside experts – two weeks of feelings of dread and fitful sleep.

            I’m surely not the only pop-culture fan who sees parallels in Superman’s scientist dad, Jor-El, discovering the impending destruction of Krypton and warning leaders to take action, to no avail – dooming that world.

            The real-life 1,600-page study was published two days before one of the worst November storms to hit Illinois. Based on more than 1,000 previous studies, it’s a devastating report detailing the effects of human-caused climate change. Two days later, the Greater Peoria Farm Show featured Iowa climatologist Elwynn Taylor speaking on what the Corn Belt might face with projected weather patterns.

            The report says more than 90 percent of the change is caused by humans. A few debate the amount of human contributions to the problem, but most concede that responding is vital. For example, Taylor (neither a skeptic nor a Chicken Little) said, “The only responsible computation to date to my knowledge of the contribution people have made to climate change is 5 percent. Bankers care about 5 percent. We should, too.”

            If not, we face increased and more intensive storms, rising sea levels, warmer winters letting insects survive to be destructive in following seasons, oceans’ declining oxygen, water shortages, and more heat waves, droughts and wildfires.

            “Observations collected around the world provide significant, clear and compelling evidence that global average temperature is much higher and is rising more rapidly than anything modern civilization has experienced, with widespread and growing impacts,” the report says.

            The data is especially troubling for the Midwest, where resulting weather, bugs and diseases will hurt livestock, and damage crops and stored grains. Illinois State Climatologist Jim Angel, who contributed to the assessment, said, “Some of those things don’t grab headlines as much but are still significant. We kind of got a taste of that in 2012 with the big drought that shook not only U.S. markets but world markets. Those kinds of things should be a big concern by midcentury.”

Illinois became 1.2 degrees warmer and 10 to 15 percent wetter in the past century, and farmers are trying to adapt.

“The question is, can they adapt fast enough?” Angel asked.

            Of course, climate change isn’t just a challenge for the Farm Belt; it’s a crisis for the planet, which will also see more breathing problems from greater pollution, declining property values, and, as temperatures rise, falling economies.

            “Annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century – more than the current Gross Domestic Product of many U.S. states,” the report says.

            “Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization,” researchers wrote. “The impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify. Americans increasingly recognize the risks climate change poses to their everyday lives and livelihoods and are beginning to respond.”

            Conservative Washington Post columnist and one-time denier Max Boot responded, writing, “I’ve owned up to the danger. Why haven’t other conservatives? They are captives, first and foremost, of the fossil-fuel industry, which outspent green groups 10 to 1 in lobbying on climate change from 2000-2016. But they are also captives of their own rigid ideology. It is a tragedy for the entire planet that the United States’ governing party is impervious to science and reason.”

            Short-term selfishness, doubts or denials aren’t limited to conservatives. For instance, unions concerned about jobs in mining and sectors using fossil fuels have been slow to respond.

“Several unions, marshalled by the Steelworkers and including the Amalgamated Transit Union and National Nurses United, have been concerned about global warming for years and joined environmental groups in the BlueGreen Alliance,” said Mark Gruenberg of Press Associates Union News Service. “Yet the labor movement by and large has been silent about this existential threat. It’s time to speak up.”

            After all, worrying about old jobs ignores predictions about new jobs, so reluctance to act seems more a resistance to change, period.

The globe’s changing climate isn’t giving inhabitants much choice.

            Earthlings can’t remain uninvolved or expect our children to act.

            Even Superman couldn’t save what his father’s generation neglected.