Why Global Warming is A Bigger Threat Than You Think

Diagram by FutureGeek, thanks to Gliffy.com


Global warming is no big deal. Maybe some moss goes extinct in Iceland. Big deal. Right?

Wrong.

Think of everything as an ecosystem. Everything is interconnected in some way. Changes in one system cause changes in another system.

The earth is an ecosystem. Society is an ecosystem. International politics is a system. Everything is a system.

Systems have self correcting mechanisms. When you eliminate predators, deer thrive. When deer thrive, they overgraze. When they overgraze, they eliminate their food sources.

The result is a deer holocaust.

Global warming is one huge self correcting mechanism - and it won't just affect the environment. It will affect the economy and international relations.

It will affect you.

Here's how:

Global warming will affect the economy:

• rising insurance costs
• cost of dealing with displaced populations, environmental refugees, and immigrants
• food insecurity
• money diverted from education and social programs
• rising price of fuel will affect transport costs of food and goods

Economies will affect geopolitics:

• money will be spent on border security and immigration control
• wars will be fought over dwindling resources

Geopolitics will affect biodiversity:

• resource extraction will be intensified to compete militarily with other nations and build new weapons
• wars will devastate the environment

Global warming will affect geopolitics:

• nuclear proliferation for energy
• food insecurity
• wars over resources
• drought and famine, monsoons and floods, hurricanes and other severe weather events will affect nations

Geopolitics will affect economies:

• money will be taken from education and social programs for military spending and immigration control

Global warming will intensify biodiversity loss:

• habitat destruction
• temperature changes will kill off sensitive species
• CO2 concentrations changing in ocean water will kill coral
• changing rain patterns will destroy tropical 'biodiversity paradises'
• earlier springs will mean more forest fires, which release more greenhouse gases, destroy habitat, and destroy forests which absorb excess CO2
• warmer winters mean that insects and invasive species expand their territory
• earlier springs affect migration, mating, and food availability
• Changing weather patterns will allow some organisms to reach epidemic population levels

The economy will affect biodiversity:

• resource extraction will intensify to recoup losses
• coal mining will increase for electricity
• oil prospecting will expand into pristine wilderness (ANWAR, anyone?)
• logging will increase for rebuilding
• losses from epidemics and fires will lead to increased logging of unmanaged forests
• Land use changes will allow certain species to thrive while others die off

Biodiversity loss will affect the economy:

• forest management techniques to maximize profit and production will increase forest fires and epidemics like the mountain pine beetle problem
• beneficial plant compounds will be lost
• erosion and flooding from deforestation will increase
• disease vectors will multiply, leading to increased health care and insurance costs

Global warming will intensify global warming:

• albedo loss in the arctic will lead to more heat absorption (Ice is shiny and reflects heat. When it melts, the ocean will absorb more solar energy)
• increased decomposition of vegetation from warmer temperature and permafrost thaw will release more greenhouse gases

Suggested reading:

Kevin Kelly, The Big Here.

Donella Meadows, Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System. Click here for pdf. Click here for html version.

Wikipedia on the Twelve Leverage Points.

Oxford Research Group, Global Responses to Global Threats.

Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies.

Wikipedia entry on Tainter

Joseph Tainter, Complexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies.

Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Jared Diamond, Speaking at the Long Now Foundation about Collapse. MP3 here, summary and online discussion here.

A Pentagon worst case scenario about global warming: An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security (pdf)

Global Warming's Increasingly Visible Impacts (pdf)

Tags:

• globalwarming
• biodiversity
• economics
• ecology
• politics
• environment
• climatechange