Chilly and Screwed?

When I worked at the Elevate Film Festival, I once got into an argument with
one of the founders about Doomsday. It went a little like this:

MAYA: But you can't deny that climate change will cause some destruction!
ELEVATE: That is only one outcome... and is too negative for our audiences.
MAYA: How is it negative to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best? Climate change is already causing population shifts in search of clean water and other resources, and people need to know how to be prepared.
ELEVATE: It's simply too Doomsday end-of-the-world. We need something more ... "elevating".

Okay, yes: the predictions of the effects of climate change are coming from scientists and not philosophers, artists or spiritualists. They tend to be a bit more pragmatic than idealized or imaginative. But why discount them entirely? Let's examine the evidence.

By 2050, climate change will cause mass migrations from rising seas, floods, and drought, according to a new report released by researchers at Columbia's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).

Its major findings are not new, and are only supporting what other scientists have been saying.

HAZARDS

Remember our little friend Hurricane Katrina? Climate change is making bigger and badder natural disasters like cyclones, floods and droughts. (I know that sentence is grammatically incorrect, but I have Michael Jackson's song "Bad" stuck in my head.) This will impact most of the coasts of the world. Climate change over the next 20 to 70 years can be expected to increase hurricane flooding in Corpus Christi, Texas, home of three U.S. refineries, according to a study by Texas A&M University.

Another severe problem is drought. Remember the rule of Threes: We can live 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food, and 3 months without love. Rains in parts of Mexico and Central America are projected to drop as much as 50% by 2080! Farmers in Mex and North Africa’s Sahel region may already be moving in part due to changing rains.

SEA LEVEL RISE

The earth has two massive ice sheets: Antarctica and Greenland. Let's name them Chilly and Screwed.

Due to the earth warming, their melting could raise sea level enormously. Even just partial melting of these ice sheets will have a dramatic effect on sea height. Senior scientists are noting that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections of sea level rise during this century of about 0.6 feet- 1.9 feet are already obsolete and that a rise of 6.56 feet during this time is possible.

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has analyzed the effect of a 33-feet rise in sea level, providing a sense of what the melting of the world’s largest ice sheets could mean. The IIED study begins by pointing out that 634 million people live along coasts at or below 33 feet above sea level, in what they call the Low Elevation Coastal Zone. This massive vulnerable group includes one eighth of the world’s urban population.

One of the countries most vulnerable is China, with 144 million potential climate refugees. India and Bangladesh are next, with 63 and 62 million respectively. Vietnam has 43 million vulnerable people, and Indonesia, 42 million. Others in the top 10 include Japan with 30 million, Egypt with 26 million, and the United States with 23 million.

Sea level rise directly threatens the existence of some 40 countries. Saltwater intrusion, flooding and erosion could destroy agriculture in the densely populated Mekong, Nile and Ganges deltas. A rise of 6 feet--well within some projections for this century-- would inundate nearly half the Mekong. Some Pacific island nations like the Maldives (pop. 300,000) are already considering prospects for total relocation.

FOOD SUPPLY DAMAGE

When it rains, it pours. (Ironically.) Scientists say regions that already face food security issues are among the most vulnerable. Lobell and his team from Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment focused on 12 areas in Latin America, Asia and Africa, where many of the world's hungriest people live. The impact on agriculture from even modest temperature increases is already being observed. Climate in these regions is particularly likely to become drier and hotter. The crops that they rely on are particularly sensitive to drying and warming.

Melting of alpine glaciers in the Himalayas (which is already happening) will devastate the heavily irrigated farmlands of Asia by increasing floods and decreasing long-term water supplies. The glacier-fed basins of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irawaddy, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow rivers currently support over 1.4 billion people.

VIOLENCE OVER RESOURCES

As the planetary crisis becomes a more stark reality, violence will begin increasing. In fact, it already has begun. For example, a water crisis in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh recently resulted in death. A mob of about six people killed a family for illegally drawing water from the municipal supply even as onlookers rushed back and forth to collect water before the pipe ran dry. The poorest areas are being affected the most because of inequitable water distribution. If this isn't a wake-up call of what water scarcity can do to a society, we're not sure what would be more effective, short of actual war.

The issues include: privatization, unfair distribution, corporate unaccountability, pollution and ecological changes causing increased shortages.

Sources:
Melting Ice Could Lead to Massive Waves of Climate Refugees by Lester Brown
Mass Migrations From Climate Change Forecast by Report by Daniel Kessler
Violence Over Water Already Happening in India by Jaymi Heimbuch
Government Study Warns of Climate Change Events by John M. Broder
Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
Climate Change Threatens Food Supply in Many Regions