The Future (91 page)
Authors: Al Gore
58
“downstream effects of changes in crop yield variability”
Noah Diffenbaugh et al., “Global Warming Presents New Challenges for Maize Pest Management,”
Environmental Research Letters
, 2008.
59
aphids and Japanese beetles
Orla Demody et al., “Effects of Elevated CO
2
and O
3
on Leaf Damage and Insect Abundance in a Soybean Agroecosystem,”
Anthropod-Plant Interactions
, July 2008.
60
“That means crop losses may go up in the future”
Union of Concerned Scientists, “Crops, Beetles and Carbon Dioxide,” May 11, 2010,
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/Global-warming-insects.html
.
61
deactivating other genes used by soybeans
Jorge Zavala et al., “Anthropogenic Increase in Carbon Dioxide Compromises Plant Defense Against Invasive Insects,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, January 2008.
62
“appear to be helpless against herbivores”
Union of Concerned Scientists, “Crops, Beetles and Carbon Dioxide.”
63
“formidable enemies affecting food crops”
CGIAR, “Climate Change Puts Southeast Asia’s Billion Dollar Cassava Industry
on High Alert for Pest and Disease Outbreaks,” April 13, 2012,
http://ccafs.cgiar.org/news/press-releases/climate-change-puts-southeast-asia%E2%80%99s-billion-dollar-cassava-industry-high-alert
.
64
“five additional lifecycles per season”
Shyam S. Yadav et al.,
Crop Adaptation to Climate Change
(Ames, IA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), p. 419.
65
pests and plant diseases that expand with warmer temperatures
CGIAR, “Climate Change Puts Southeast Asia’s Billion Dollar Cassava Industry on High Alert for Pest and Disease Outbreaks.”
66
“Southeast Asia, Southern China and the cassava-growing areas of Southern India”
Ibid.
67
“increases in disease spread or incidence with climate warming”
“Global Warming May Spread Diseases,” CBS News, February 11, 2009,
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-205_162-512920.html
.
68
spread of diseases like dengue fever, West Nile virus, and others
Sonia Shah, “The Spread of New Diseases: The Climate Connection,”
Yale Environment 360
, October 15, 2009; Nicole Heller, “The Climate Connection to Dengue Fever,” Climate Central, May 12, 2010,
http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/the-climate-connection-to-dengue-fever/
.
69
“hosts and pathogens, the length of the transmission season, and the timing and intensity”
Union of Concerned Scientists
, “Early Warning Signs of Global Warming: Spreading Disease,”
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/early-warning-signs-of-global-9.html
.
70
“epidemics could be characterized by high levels of sickness and death”
Ibid.
71
worst outbreak of West Nile virus
Thomas Maugh, “West Nile Outbreak Worst Ever, CDC Says,”
Los Angeles Times
, September 5, 2012.
72
aerial spraying of the city for the first time since 1966
“Dallas West Nile Virus Outbreak Leads Texas City’s Mayor to Approve Aerial Spraying,”
Huffington Post
, August 15, 2012.
73
public safety officials issued an appeal
“Health Officials: No Need to Call 911 for Mosquito Bites,” CBS DFW, August 24, 2012,
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/08/24/health-officials-no-need-to-call-911-for-mosquito-bites/
.
74
The disease eventually spread
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “West Nile Virus,” November 20, 2012,
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/index.htm
.
75
“long-term extreme weather phenomena associated with climate change”
Paul Epstein, “West Nile Virus and the Climate,”
Journal of Urban Health
78 (2001): 367–71.
76
have been predicting the effects of climate change on West Nile
Christie Wilcox, “Is Climate to Blame for This Year’s West Nile Outbreak?,”
Scientific American
, August 22, 2012.
77
hottest decade ever measured
NASA GISS, “2009: Second Warmest Year on Record; End of Warmest Decade,” January 21, 2010,
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/
.
78
October 2012 was the 332nd month in a row
National Climatic Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “State of the Climate: Global Analysis, October 2012,”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/10
.
79
toxins in corn and other crops unable to process nitrogen fertilizer
“After Drought Blights Crops, US Farmers Face Toxin Threats,” Reuters, August 16, 2012.
80
a groundbreaking statistical analysis
James Hansen et al., “Perception of Climate Change,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, August 2012.
81
on only 0.1 to 0.2 percent of the Earth’s surface
Ibid.
82
seasons that are way outside the boundary of the statistical range that used to prevail
Ibid.
83
frequency of extremely hot temperatures has gone up dramatically
Ibid.
84
temperatures will likely rise by 4 degrees C (7.2 degrees F)
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics,
Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4 Degree C Warmer World Must Be Avoided
, Report for the World Bank, November 2012,
http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/Turn_Down_the_heat_Why_a_4_degree_centrigrade_warmer_world_must_be_avoided.pdf
.
85
“no certainty that adaptation to a 4 degree C world is possible”
Brad Plumer, “We’re on Pace for 4°C of Global Warming. Here’s Why That Terrifies the World Bank,”
Washington Post
, November 19, 2012.
86
“worst case” future projections are the ones most likely to occur
Brian Vastag, “Warmer Still: Extreme Climate Predictions Appear Most Accurate, Report Says,”
Washington Post
, November 8, 2012.
87
49 percent loss
Joanna Zelman and James Gerken, “Arctic Sea Ice Levels Hit Record Low, Scientists Say We’re ‘Running Out of Time,’ ”
Huffington Post
, September 19, 2012.
88
100 percent loss in as little as a decade
Muyin Wang and James Overland, “A Sea Ice Free Summer Arctic within 30 Years?,”
Geophysical Research Letters
36 (2009).
89
A Chinese ship, the
Snow Dragon
,
traversed the North Pole to Iceland and back
Jon Viglundson and Alister Doyle, “First Chinese Ship Crosses Arctic Ocean Amid Record Melt,” Reuters, August 17, 2012.
90
so that computer-driven trades can be executed more quickly
Christopher Mims, “How Climate Change Is Making the Internet Faster,” Grist, March 29, 2012,
http://grist.org/list/how-climate-change-is-making-the-internet-faster/
.
91
Arctic Ocean, which until now have been protected by the ice
Ivan Semeniuk, “Scientists Call for No-Fishing Zone in Arctic Waters,” Nature
News Blog, April 23, 2012,
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/04/scientists-call-for-no-fishin-zone-in-arctic-waters.html
.
92
movement of military assets into the region
“Arctic Climate Change Opening Region to New Military Activity,” Associated Press, April 16, 2012.
93
new drilling opportunities
“Shell Starts Preparatory Drilling for Offshore Oil Well off Alaska,” CNN, September 9, 2012,
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-09-09/us/us_arctic-oil_1_sea-ice-beaufort-sea-ice-data-center
.
94
consequences of an accidental wellhead blowout
Jim Kollewe and Terry Macalister, “Arctic Oil Rush Will Ruin Ecosystem, Warns Lloyd’s of London,”
Guardian
, April 12, 2012.
95
oil in the Arctic Ocean posed unacceptable ecological risks
Guy Chazan, “Total Warns Against Oil Drilling in Arctic,”
Financial Times
, September 25, 2012.
96
enough sunlight was penetrating to the ocean below
Kevin Arrigo et al., “Massive Phytoplankton Blooms Under Arctic Sea Ice,”
Science
, June 15, 2012.
97
consequences for the location and pattern
Jennifer Francis and Stephen Vavrus, “Evidence Linking Arctic Amplification to Extreme Weather in Mid-Latitudes,”
Geophysical Research Letters
39 (2012).
98
perhaps beyond
Petr Chylek et al., “Arctic Air Temperature Change Amplification and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation,”
Geophysical Research Letters
36 (2009).
99
Microbes turn the carbon into CO
2
or methane
Natalia Shakhova et al., “Extensive Methane Venting to the Atmosphere from Sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf,”
Science
, March 5, 2010.
100
shallow frozen lakes and ponds surrounding the Arctic
David Archer, “Methane Hydrate Stability and Anthropogenic Climate Change,”
Biogeosciences
4 (2007).
101
the heat absorption by the water
Katey Walter Anthony et al., “Geologic Methane Seeps Along Boundaries of Arctic Permafrost Thaw and Melting Glaciers,”
Nature Geoscience
5 (June 2012).
102
outgassing under way that exceeded what they expected
Shakhova et al., “Extensive Methane Venting to the Atmosphere from Sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.”
103
methane underneath the Antarctic ice sheet
J. L. Wadham et al., “Potential Methane Reservoirs Beneath Antarctica,”
Nature
, August 2012.
104
losing mass at an increasing rate
Eric Rignot et al., “Acceleration of the Contribution of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets to Sea Level Rise,”
Geophysical Research Letters
38 (2011).
105
west Antarctica and Greenland, however, already confirm
Ibid.
106
“It shocked the hell out of us”
Personal conversation with Bob Corell.
107
doubling time of the observed loss
James Hansen and Miki Sato, “Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change,” in
Climate Change: Inferences from Paleoclimate and Regional Aspects
, edited by A. Berger, F. Mesinger, and D. Šijački (New York: Springer, 2012).
108
“multi-meter” sea level rise in this century
Ibid.
109
twenty to thirty feet higher than the present—although it took millennia
Aradhna Tripati et al., “Coupling of CO
2
and Ice Sheet Stability over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years,”
Science
, December 2009.
110
50 percent of the world’s population
“CO
2
Emissions to Cause Catastrophic Rise in Sea Levels, Warns Top NASA Climatologist,”
Natural News
, January 15, 2007.
111
“In much of the developing world, coastal populations are exploding”
National Academies, “Coastal Hazards: Highlights of the National Academies Reports,” 2009,
http://www.oceanleadership.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/OHH.pdf
.
112
recent study by Deborah Balk
Gordon McGranahan et al., “The Rising Tide: Assessing the Risks of Climate Change and Human Settlements in Low Coastal Elevation Zones,”
Environment and Urbanization
19 (2007).
113
are already beginning to relocate
Brian Reed, “Preparing for Sea Level Rise, Islanders Leave Home,” NPR, February 17, 2011.
114
populations are also at risk in the Philippines and Indonesia
McGranahan et al., “The Rising Tide.”
115
The number of climate refugees
Stern,
The Economics of Climate Change
.
116
more than 200 million people
Neil MacFarquhar, “Refugees Join List of Climate-Change Issues,”
New York Times
, May 28, 2009.
117
mega-deltas of South Asia, Southeast Asia, China, and Egypt
Robert Nicholls,
IPCC 2007
, “Chapter 6: Coastal and Low-Lying Ecosystems,” 2007,
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch6.html
.
118
many have moved farther north across the border
Erik German and Solana Pyne, “Disasters Drive Mass Migration to Dhaka,”
Global Post
, September 8, 2010.
119
text messaging and email into cities throughout India
Vikas Bajaj, “Internet Analysts Question India’s Efforts to Stem Panic,”
New York Times
, August 21, 2012.