Two major reports on climate change have been published in recent weeks, adding to the already imposing evidence that we humans are changing our planet in ways that threaten our own livelihoods and interests. The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (United Nations) and the American Climate Assessment are available in both summary and detailed form. They include historic trends, predictions for the future, and suggested courses of action. The reports leave no doubt about some basic conclusions. Climate change is under way. Burning fossil fuels adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and that is a major cause of climate change. Deforestation reduces the environment’s ability to remove the CO2. It is clear that human actions are the major causes of climate change. The changes on their way include extreme variance in weather – droughts in some places, floods in others, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and gradual death of coral reefs. We can slow them down, but it is too late to prevent them.
There is an important historical comparison. For generations doctors, scientists, and athletic coaches warned us about the dangers of tobacco use. But advertising, social pressures and addiction persuaded many of us to continue smoking and chewing. We suffered cancer, heart attacks, emphysema and other illnesses. Tobacco companies denied that tobacco use caused illness; and that it was addictive. They hired their own scientists to “prove” their statements and many people believed them. The companies battled every step of the way against laws preventing sale of cigarettes to minors and protecting non-smokers from second hand smoke. They exercised huge influence with lawmakers.
Today we see champions of the coal, petroleum and utility industries using similar tactics to deny climate change and to deny that it is caused by human actions. This is not just an academic debate. It will have far greater effect on us than the tobacco debate. Many millions of people living in coastal areas will lose their homes to sea level rise. Some will lose their lives. Some of the coastal land and infrastructure will disappear. Ocean food chains will be disrupted. Some heavily populated areas will lose their fresh water supplies.
Our environment is sick with an illness analogous to cancer. Have you seen a person with cancer or emphysema who was so addicted to tobacco that he continued to smoke? I have. I’ve seen people with tracheostomies (surgically created openings in their throats which are necessary for them to breathe) who were so addicted that they placed a cigarette in the opening and sucked smoke into their diseased lungs to satisfy the craving. Our addiction to fossil fuels and to cutting down more forests for development is comparable.
Addiction may not seem harmful to the addict. It may even seem beneficial. I recall saying that cigarettes helped me relax and helped me concentrate. They also satisfied a craving. The harm that they did was not immediate or absolute. It was gradual and insidious. Our addictions to fossil fuel and to development of forested land are similar. Fossil fuel and the electricity it produces warms, cools and lights our homes; transports us; and make our jobs possible. Modern life requires fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. We can’t totally prevent climate change but we can certainly make it less severe by putting less CO2 in our atmosphere.
It is convenient to believe that climate change is not real because that belief makes our addiction to fossil fuel seem ok. As evidence of climate change mounts, so does the damage to our land, infrastructure and health. Economic damage has also occurred. The costs of rebuilding New Orleans, New York, and New Jersey have been immense. Rebuilding coastal roads, managing huge forest fires and recovering after mudslides is also expensive. The time is coming when government funding for disaster relief will be unfeasible but so far, the economic and human costs of climate change have not been attached to fossil fuels or land development. We experience the benefits of fossil fuels and land development without associating the cost of damage to our climate, property and environment to the benefits. That is very much like the behavior of the smoker who experiences the pleasure of cigarettes without recognizing that those same cigarettes caused his cancer.
Those who benefit from selling fossil fuel and from deforestation may try to convince us that climate change is not real, that oceans are not rising, and that even if they are, fossil fuel is not the cause. Like tobacco companies before them, they will be successful until we recognize and act on the truth – that our energy consuming habits are the cause of many of our problems. Once a clear majority of us accept that truth, we will be able to act on it to use energy more wisely, doing less harm and finding a new equilibrium for our environment. But until most of us are both convinced and motivated to action, our society will continue doing what it has done – using ever more fossil fuel, clearing and developing more land for human habitation and gradually suffering the consequences which come in the form of climate change.
Our experience with tobacco should teach us at least one more relevant lesson – that once we accept and act on the truth, we can be healthier and happier than we were in our denial of the truth.