ANT 2000, Intro to Anthropology, Week 14, Spring 2004

Part I – Global Warming and Climate Change

Case: Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect

Question: Are humans changing the Earth’s climate?

Researchers: Roger Revelle and Hans Suess

We are living in a petrochemical world. Petroleum and petroleum by-products are an essential aspect of our society and economy. Fuel for energy and transportation, polyester clothing, plastics, cosmetics – are all produced from fossil fuels or their by-products. We are, however, now faced with the fact that there is an environmental price to pay for living in this hydro-carbon era.

In 1988, several factors came together that illustrated the importance of the crisis and made the Earth the “Man of the Year” on the cover of major magazines:

1. NASA said that the theory of global warming had been confirmed, and the big question now was: how fast would climate change accelerate?

2. The nation of Bangladesh suffered the largest floods in recent history, due to deforestation of the watershed in the neighboring Himalayan mountains, which had historically been able to hold much of the water that the monsoons bring. Without these forests and their root systems, the water simply ran downhill, producing 25 million “environmental refugees.”

3. Smoke from forest-clearing fires in the Brazil, encompassing an area roughly the size of the nation of Austria, was seen from space by NASA satellites.

The Greenhouse Effect occurs when additional heat energy from the Sun, that normally reflects off the Earth into space, is trapped by an excess of carbon dioxide (CO2) that has been added to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels and forests.

Global Warming refers to the increase in the Earth’s average mean temperature caused by manmade greenhouse gasses, especially CO2, being released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, and causing the earth to heat up over time.

According to the U.N. Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC), if the industrialized nations of the world simply continue to burn fossil fuels at current rates, that is to conduct “business as usual,” there will be a long-term rise of sea levels large enough to inundate the deltas of the developing world, along with the urban areas of New York City, Miami, Cleveland, the Netherlands and many other low-lying areas. This would be caused by the melting of the polar ice caps, due to a rise in the Earth’s temperature. According to the IPCC computer projections, by 2075 world sea levels could rise in the range of 1.5 feet on the low side to 9 feet on the extreme high side.

Given this scenario the only long-term solution is the eventual transition to a solar/hydrogen economy. Among the events which could accelerate this transition are:

1) political instability in the Middle East, which deceases the access of the industrialized nations to oil;

2) acceleration of the Greenhouse Effect, leading to major disruptions due to rising sea levels; stronger storms and hurricanes; and shifting agricultural patters; and

3) more rapid use of fossil fuels, leading to a faster-than-predicted decline and depletion of the world’s oil reserves

The television news report, “Environmental Reports: Beyond 2000,” documents the development of the “Green Car,” which contains an electric motor powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The major by-product emitted by this car is not CO₂, but rather H₂O (water). One of the major energy policy issues of this century will be the question of how and when the industrialized nations will begin the large scale commercialization of the hydrogen fuel cell and other forms of renewable energy.

Recommended resources:

Daniel Yergin, The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power.

Bill McKibben, The End of Nature.

Jeremy Rifkin, The Hydrogen Economy.

Bjørn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Union of Concerned Scientists (www.ucsusa.org).

WorldWatch Institute (www.worldwatch.org)