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David Ray Griffin is emeritus professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. He has written 30 books. His most recent book is Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis? (Clarity Press, 2015).
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Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened World: (2 articles)
Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened
World: The First Five
By David
Ray Griffin
Although
the 10 Commandments expressed in the Hebrew Bible were written for a particular
people at a particular time, they contain a universal ethic, which can be summarized
in the so-called Silver Rule, namely: Do
not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.[1]
Because
of changing circumstances, which bring new problems, the Silver Rule always
needs to be reformulated for the most urgent ethical problems of the time. Today,
the overriding ethical problems arise from the climate change caused by global
warming, which is depriving people around the world from some of their most
basic rights.
The
Declaration of Independence, which is foundational for the United States, includes
the right to life among the basic human rights. This right implies a right to
all those things that are essential to life, such as food, water, and clean air.
But the fossil-fuel corporations have been robbing people of these rights.
I am
suggesting, therefore, Ten Climate Commandments. This essay, the first in a
series of two, provides the first five commandments. The second essay will
provide the second five.
1. Thou Shalt Not Ruin Civilization's Climate.
Civilization emerged about 10,000 years ago, after the
emergence of the Holocene epoch, which was the 'Goldilocks zone' for
civilization: not too hot, not too cold. That ideal climate existed because the
level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere hovered around 275 parts per million (ppm).
However, since the rise of the industrial age, based on
fossil-fuel energy, the level of CO2 has been rising
steadily, so that now it is above 400 ppm. This increase has already caused the
planet's average temperature to rise 0.85 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees
Fahrenheit), and the CO2 in the atmosphere is already
fated to push the temperature up further, because there is a lag -- most
recently estimated to be about 10 years - between the CO2 emissions and the effect on the temperature.[2]
By 'catapulting
ourselves way out of the Holocene,' as one physicist put it,[3] we have
already changed the planet significantly. This catapult is causing many changes
that violate climate commandments.
2. Thou
Shalt Not Impose Hotter Weather on People.
One of the changes caused by global warming is the
rise of increasingly extreme weather, one of which is worse heat waves. What matters
to us is not the average temperature, but the 'extremely hot days,' meaning
ones that are above the 90th percentile for that region.
Over the past 15 years, the number of extremely hot
days has soared.[4]
In 2003, a European heat wave was so much hotter than previous ones
that Great Britain reached 100 degreesF (38.5 degreesC) for
the first time ever.[5] In
2013, China had its worst heat wave ever, with 40
cities remaining above 104˚F (40˚C) for 31 days.[6] And in
2014, India experienced its longest heat wave, which was so hot that the
streets of Delhi were virtually empty.
Although other kinds of extreme
weather may be more dramatic, 'Heat is the number one weather-related killer in
the United States,' claiming 'more lives each year than floods, lightning,
tornadoes and hurricanes combined.'[7]
Worldwide, people have had increasingly
deadly heatwaves imposed on them by global warming. For example, an estimated 70,000
people died in the European heat wave of 2003 and 50,000 in Russia's
2010 heat wave.[8]
Referring to the fact that
this excessive heat has been imposed on us by fossil-fuel corporations, Bill
McKibben has said, 'We're hot as hell and we're not going to take it any more.'[9] By which
he meant: Not allowing fossil-fuel companies to continue spewing their waste
products into the atmosphere.
3. Thou Shalt Not Impose Drought on People
Although drought, which is the climate effect that has
thus far been most harmful to people, has occurred long before global warming
began, this warming has aggravated it. This
may seem counter-intuitive, because global warming causes more evaporation,
which leads to increased precipitation. But it changes where the precipitation
falls, so that 'the wet gets wetter and the dry gets drier.'[10]
Drought
is so harmful primarily because it is 'the single most common
cause of severe food shortages in developing countries,' said the U.N., and 'caused more deaths during the last
century than any other natural disaster.'[11]
More than a billion people are regularly hungry,
and this problem becomes even worse when there is prolonged drought. 'The U.S.
is the world's largest producer of corn and 2012 was supposed to be a banner
year,' but in many states, the heat and drought caused the corn to 'shrivel and
die.' A plant biologist in Illinois said, 'Its like farming in hell.'[12]
Drought also causes fiercer wildfires, with longer fire
seasons. In the western United States, 'the fire season now lasts
two months longer and destroys twice as much land as it did four decades ago.'[13]
4. Thou Shat Not Increase Destructive Storms.
Global
warming, by raising the temperature, increases the amount of water the
atmosphere holds, thereby resulting in more precipitation.
As a result,
there has been an increase in extreme rain storms, known as deluges. In 2010, a
deluge flooded a fifth of Pakistan, forcing eight million people to evacuate,
and California suffered the heaviest rainfall since records have been kept.'[14] In 2012, southwestern Australia
had more than 8 inches of rainfall in 24 hours, breaking all-time
records.[15] And in April 2014, Florida
and Alabama both received over two feet of rain in 24 hours.[16]
Global
warming also results in extreme snowstorms, such as the 'Snowpocalypse'
of December 2009, which was at that time 'the largest December snowstorm on
record.'[17]
Global warming also intensifies the strength of
hurricanes, because the warmer oceans have more energy. As a result, 'category
4 and 5 storms have almost doubled in number and proportion since 1970.'[18] The two
most destructive Hurricanes in American history, Katrina and Sandy, both
developed when the water was extremely warm.[19]
As for Tornadoes, there had long been doubt about
whether global warming makes them more powerful, but recent evidence has shown
that it does.[20]
5. Thou Shalt Not Deprive People of Clean Water
There has been lots of talk
about 'peak oil,' said Lester Brown, but 'the real
threat to our future is peak water.' According to a book entitled Blue Gold, 'There is simply no way to overstate the fresh
water crisis on the planet today.'[21] This
crisis has been caused by global warming (combined with the world's rising
population).
Most dramatically, global
warming has been melting
our 'reservoirs in the sky' - glaciers and snowpack - from
which billions of people get their water for drinking and agriculture.[22] The
glaciers of the Andes, upon which 80 million people are dependent, have shrunk
'30 to 50% since the 1970s.'[23] In
Asia, between 1.5 to 3 billion people get their water from the Himalayas, but 'Himalayan glaciers are disappearing at an accelerating rate.'[24] According to Lester
Brown, 'The world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food
production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia.'[25]
Accordingly, the fossil-fuel corporations, along with the
governments that have supported them, are in the process of stealing fresh
water from billions of people, as discussed in the book Blue Gold, which is subtitled: The
Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water.[26]
The most massive theft, however, is by the corporations
responsible for global warming and the politicians who have allowed it to
continue over the past decades.
David Ray
Griffin is emeritus professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont School of Theology
and Claremont Graduate University. The present article is drawn from material
in his most recent book, Unprecedented:
Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis? (Clarity Press, 2015).
[1] Hans Kung, A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998), 98-99.
[2] Katharine L Ricke and
Ken Caldeira, 'Maximum Warming Occurs about One Decade after a
Carbon Dioxide Emission,' Environmental
Research Letters, 2 December 2014.
[3] Stefan Rahmstorf, 'Paleoclimate: The End of the Holocene,' Realclimate.org., 22 September 2013.
[4] Joe Romm, 'Nature
Stunner: As Climate Change Speeds Up, the Number of Extremely Hot Days Is
Soaring,' 26 February 2014.
[5] Jean-Marie Robine et al., 'Death
Toll Exceeded 70,000 During the Summer of 2003,' National Center for
Biotechnology Information, 31 December 2007; 'Sizzling Temperatures Break UK
Record,' BBC News, 11 August 2003.
[6] Nick Wiltgen, 'Shanghai
Still Broiling as Deadly, Relentless Heat Wave Grips China,' Weather Channel,
14 August 2013.
[7] NOAA National Weather Service,
Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services, 2012.
[8] Robine et al., 'Death Toll
Exceeded 70,000'; Ricardo Machado Trigo, 'The 2010 Russian Heat Wave,' April
2012.
[9] Bill McKibben, 'We're Hot as Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Any
More,' TomDispatch, 4 August 2010.
[10] Stephen Lacey, 'Climate Change:
How the Wet Will Get Wetter and the Dry Will Get Drier,' Climate Progress, 5
September 2012.
[11] 'World Water Day,' UN Water, 22
March 2012.
[12] Max Frankel, 'Intensifying
Midwestern Drought Threatens Farmers, Water Supplies,' Climate Progress, 6 July
2012; Jeff Wilson, 'U.S. Corn Growers Farming
in Hell as Midwest Heat Spreads,' Bloomberg, 9 July 2012.
[13] James West, 'How
Climate Change Makes Wildfires Worse,' Mother
Jones, 13 June 2013.
[14] 'UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon: Pakistan Floods Are Worst Disaster I've Ever
Seen,' Associated Press, 15 August 2010;
'California Rain Shatters Records, and More Is Coming,' Associated Press, 21
December 2010.
[15] Christopher C. Burt, 'Extreme Rainfall Event in Western Australia,'
Weather Underground, December 17, 2012.
[16] Katie Valentine, 'While the
West Dries Up, the East Is Drenched,' Climate Progress, 1 May
2014.
[17] Kathryn
Prociv, 'Three Year Anniversary: Snowpocalypse of
December 18-19, 2009,' Washington
Post, 19 December 2012,
[18] Erin Overbey, 'Sandy and the Rise
of Extreme Weather,' New Yorker, 1
November 2012; Quirin Schiermeier, 'Hurricanes Are Getting
Fiercer: Global Warming Blamed for Growth in Storm Intensity,' Nature, 3 September 2008.
[19] 'Facts about Katrina: Surviving
Katrina,' Discovery Channel, 2008; Dan Satterfield, 'What Those
Who Understand Atmospheric Physics Are Talking about after Sandy,' Dan's Wild
Wild Science Journal, 1 November 2012.
[20] Joe Romm, 'Update:
Tornadoes, Extreme Weather and Climate Change, Revisited,' Climate Progress, 4
March 2012; Jill Elish, 'Researchers Develop Models to
Correct Tornado Record,' Florida State
University, 5 September 2013.
[21] Lester R. Brown, 'Peak
Water: What Happens when the Wells Go Dry?' Earth Policy Institute, 9 July
2013; Maude Barlow
and Tony Clark, Blue Gold: The Fight to
Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water (New Press, 2002).
[22] Lester Brown, 'Melting Glaciers Mean Double Trouble for Water
Supplies,' National Geographic, 20
December 2011; Jon Gertner, 'The Future Is Drying
Up,' New York Times Magazine, 21
October 2007.
[23] 'Andean Glaciers
Melting at 'Unprecedented' Rates,' Reuters, 23 January 2013.
[24] John Cook, 'Himalayan Glaciers:
How the IPCC Erred and What the Science Says,' Skeptical Science, 2010.
[25] Lester Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), 68.
[26] Maude Barlow and Tony Clark, Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate
Theft of the World's Water (New Press, 2005).
Ten Commandments for
a Climate-Threatened World: The Second Five
David Ray Griffin
In 'Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened World: The
First Five,' I suggested these commandments for our time: (1) Thou Shalt Not
Ruin Civilization's Climate. (2) Thou Shalt Not Impose Hotter
Weather on People. (3)
Thou Shalt Not Impose Drought on People. (4) Thou Shat Not Increase Destructive
Storms. (5) Thou Shalt Not Deprive People of Clean Water. This second essay suggests
five more:
6. Thou Shalt Not Deprive People of Food
In a
2012 book, Full Planet, Empty
Plates, Lester Brown said: 'The world is in transition from an era of food abundance to one
of scarcity.'[1]
As to why, there are two main causes. Whereas one
is the continued growth of the world's population, the other was indicated by a
2012 statement by Oxfam: 'Increased hunger is likely to be one of
climate change's most savage impacts on humanity,' so 'the food security
outlook in a future of unchecked climate change is bleak.'[2]
As to how climate change is contributing to this bleak
outlook, Brown said: 'Of all
the environmental trends that are shrinking the world's food supplies, the most
immediate is water shortages' [as discussed in the fifth commandment].[3]
But climate change has also reduced food
availability by means of heat, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, sea-level rise,
and the destruction mentioned in the next two commandments: ocean acidification
and sea-level rise.
7. Thou Shalt Not Ruin People's Seas
For food,
the ocean is as important as fertile land. But the CO2 spewed into the world over the past century is
threatening seafood even more than land-based food.
Part of the reason is that about '90 percent of the warming of the planet is absorbed
in heating the oceans.'[4] and
the ocean has been warming quickly, much more than scientists had realized,
with the result that waters
are becoming too warm for many sea animals. For example, Maine has had to
cancel its shrimp season the past two years because the water in the Gulf of
Maine had become too warm for the plankton on which shrimp feed.[5]
The other
major problem, resulting from the fact that '[a]bout 30 percent of the carbon dioxide that people have put
into the atmosphere has diffused into the ocean,'[6] is ocean acidification, sometimes
called global warming's 'equally evil twin.'[7] This
greater acidity, which has increased 'a whopping 30 percent' since the
beginning of the Industrial Age, is making it increasingly difficult for sea
animals such as plankton, corals, crabs, and mussels to produce enough
calcium to make their skeletons.[8]
This is already having effects. 'In the Pacific
Northwest and British Columbia, the waters have become so acidic that the once-thriving shellfish
industry there is on life support.' And scallops near Vancouver
reportedly have had a mortality rate of 95 to 100 percent over the past two
years.[9]
If phytoplankton and corals
disappear, this will mean the disappearance of all sea animals, which have
served as the primary source of food for 3.5 billion people.[10] And yet
fossil-fuel companies are still being allowed to put increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, 30 percent of which will
be added to the ocean's acidity.
8. Thou Shalt Not Flood People's Lands
During the 20th century, the ocean rose about 8
inches on average, due to the expansion from the warming ocean plus run-off
from melting glaciers. If the burning of fossil fuels continues, scientists
expect the ocean to rise from 3 to 7 feet during the 21st century,
and even a three-foot (one-meter) rise will be devastating.[11]
According
to the IPCC, 'Bangladesh is slated to lose the largest amount of cultivated
land globally due to rising sea levels. A one-meter rise in sea level would
inundate 20 percent of the country's landmass.'[12]
Vietnam is presently one of the
world's leading producers of rice, but 'a three-foot sea level rise will
eliminate half of the rice production of Vietnam.' Because almost three-fourths
of the country's population lives in areas that are threatened by sea-level
rise, 'Vietnam could face the most devastating consequences of global sea
level rise.'[13]
In Egypt, half of the country's
agriculture takes place in the delta, but farmers there 'are
losing crops to the rising water table as the salty seawater contaminates the
groundwater and makes the soil infertile.'[14]
These are merely three examples of the devastation that
sea-level rise is starting to cause to coastal regions around the world, where
almost one-fourth of the world's population lives.[15]
9. Thou Shalt Not Force People to Migrate
Climate refugees, meaning people who have been forced by
climate change to migrate to another country, or another part of their own country,
can be produced by many features of climate change, such as heat, drought, and
shortage of food or water. But the main cause is, and will increasingly be,
sea-level rise.
People have already been forced to migrate from many
island nations, such as Maldives, the Carteret Islands, and the Sundarbans. At
least 200 people were already leaving the Sundarbans back in 2009.[16]
But sea-level rise is forcing, or soon will be forcing, people
in bigger countries to move. For example, over a million Bangladeshis had
already moved by 2009, and scientists expect there to be 20 million climate
refugees from Bangladesh by 2030 and as many as 35 million by 2050. According
to Lester Brown, moreover, 'The country where rising seas threaten the most
people is China, with 144 million potential climate refugees.'[17]
'According to some estimates,'
say experts Frank
Biermann and Ingrid Boas, 'more than 200 million people might have to
give up their homes due to climate change by 2050.'[18]
10. Thou Shalt Not Lie to Justify Any Such Acts
The
fact that cigarettes cause cancer was repeatedly demonstrated by scientists in
the 1960s, and even the tobacco companies agreed: In 1965,
the head of research at Brown and Williamson - which makes Marlboro cigarettes
- stated that tobacco industry scientists were 'unanimous in their opinion that
tobacco smoke is carcinogenic.'[19]In 1967, nevertheless, Brown and Williamson, along with the other tobacco
companies, claimed: 'There is no evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung
cancer.'[20]
In the coming decades, moreover, these companies spent many millions of dollars
to publicize this claim.[21]
In
1989, a committee created to give scientific advice to the oil industry said: 'The
scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human
emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be
denied.' The 'contrarian theories,' continued the committee, 'do not offer convincing
arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced
climate change.'[22]
Nevertheless, besides continuing to deny the truth of climate science, the oil
industry has spent many millions of dollars to fund organizations to promote
these contrarian theories.[23]
Conclusion
According to the Silver Rule, we should not do to others
what we would want not done to ourselves. We certainly would not have wanted
previous generations to have ruined the climate for us. And yet our generation
is in the process of ruining it for all subsequent generations, perhaps even
making it impossible for civilization to continue.
Why are our media and political leaders allowing this? As
Charles Justice has said, 'There is no justification for putting the human' race
at risk for the sake of oil company profits.'[24]
[1] Lester R. Brown, Full Planet,
Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of
Food Scarcity (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012), 1.
[2] 'Climate Change vs. Food Security: A Bleak
Future for the Poor,' Oxfam International, 5 September 2012.
[3] Lester R. Brown, 'The Geopolitics of Food Scarcity,' Der Spiegel Online, 11 February 2009.
[4] Dana Nuccitelli, 'We Haven't Hit the Global Warming Pause Button,' Guardian, 23 June 2013.
[5] John Upton, 'Oceans
Getting Hotter Than Anybody Realized,' Climate Central, 5 October 2014; Bryan
Walsh, 'Why Warming Oceans Could Mean Dwindling Fish,' 16 May 2013; Joanna M. Foster,
'The 2014 Shrimp Season in the Gulf of Maine Has Been Canceled,' 4 December
2013; Bill Trotter, 'Officials Cancel 2015 Gulf of Maine Shrimp Season, Citing
Weak Shrimp Stock,' Bangor Daily News,
12 January 2015.
[6]
'Effects of Changing the
Carbon Cycle,' Earth Observatory, NASA.
[7] Scott C. Doney et al., 'Ocean Acidification:
The Other CO2 Problem,' Annual Review of Marine Science, January 2009.
[8] Kathleen McAuliffe, 'Ocean Acidification: A
Global Case of Osteoporosis,' Discover,
July 2008; 'Ocean Acidification: Global Warming's Evil Twin,'
Skeptical Science, 2012; 'Acid Oceans Warning,' ARC
Center of Excellence Coral Reef Studies, October 2007.
[9] Tom Lewis, 'Billions of Shellfish Die as
Ocean Turns to Acid,' Daily Impact, 24 March 2014; Randy Shore, 'Acidic Water
Blamed for BC's 10-Million Scallop Die-Off,' Green Man Blog, Vancouver Sun, 26 February 2014.
[10] Tom Lewis,
'West Coast Marine Ecosystem May Be Crashing,' Daily Impact, 8 May 2014; 'Oceans,'
Rio+20: The Future We want, United Nations; Save the Sea.
[11] Rob Young and Orrin Pilkey, 'How High Will Seas Rise?
Get Ready for Seven Feet,' Environment 360, 14 January 2010; Lauren Morello and
ClimateWire, 'Polar Ice Sheets Melting Faster than Predicted,' Scientific American, March 9, 2011.
[12] 'Bangladesh: Rising Sea Levels Threaten
Agriculture,' UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), 1 November 2007.
[13] Rob Young and Orrin Pilkey, 'How High Will
Seas Rise? Get Ready for Seven Feet,' Environment 360,14 January 2010; Tom Narins et al.,
'Where Are Rising Sea Levels Threatening Human and Natural Environments?'
Association of American Geographers, 2010.
[14] Jonathan Spollen, 'Rising Sea Threatens Millions in Egypt,' The
National, 20 November 2008.
[15] 'Sea
Level Rise,' Greenpeace, 4 July, 2012.
[16] 'Maldives President: Australia Should
Prepare for Climate Refugees,' Responding to Climate Change, 13 February 2012; 'Climate Change Displacement Has Begun -- But Hardly
Anyone Has Noticed,' Guardian, George
Monbiot's Blog, 8 May 2009; Jayanta Basu and Zeeshan Jawed, 'Sea
Change,' Telegraph (Calcutta), 14
June 2009.
[17] Emily Wax, 'In Flood-Prone
Bangladesh, a Future That Floats,' Washington
Post, 27 September 2007; Pinaki Roy, 'Climate Refugees of the
Future,' Climate Change Media Partnership, 31 May 2009; Lester Brown, 'Raging Storms, Rising Seas Swell Ranks
of Climate Refugees,' Grist, 16 August 2011; Al Gore, 'Rising Seas from Antarctica to Bangladesh: The Story of Rising
Seas,' Climate Reality Project, 31 January 2012.
[18] Frank Biermann and Ingrid Boas, 'Protecting Climate Refugees: The Case
for a Global Protocol,' Environment Magazine,
November-December 2008
[19] Stanton A. Glantz et al., The Cigarette Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1996), 18.
[20] Company
Statement on Smoking and Health, 12 May 1967l.
[21] Yussuf Saloojee and Elif Dagli, 'Tobacco industry tactics for
resisting public policy on health,' Bulletin of the World Health
Organization, 2008.
[22] Andrew C. Revkin, 'Industry Ignored Its
Scientists on Climate,' New York Times,
24 April 2009.
[23] 'Greenpeace Presents ExxonSecrets.org; Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty
on Climate Science (Union of Concerned Scientists, January 2007).
[24] Charles Justice, 'Slavery and
Fossil Fuels,' Earthjustice.blogspot.com, January 2008
Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened
World: The First Five
By David
Ray Griffin
Although
the 10 Commandments expressed in the Hebrew Bible were written for a particular
people at a particular time, they contain a universal ethic, which can be summarized
in the so-called Silver Rule, namely: Do
not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.[1]
Because
of changing circumstances, which bring new problems, the Silver Rule always
needs to be reformulated for the most urgent ethical problems of the time. Today,
the overriding ethical problems arise from the climate change caused by global
warming, which is depriving people around the world from some of their most
basic rights.
The
Declaration of Independence, which is foundational for the United States, includes
the right to life among the basic human rights. This right implies a right to
all those things that are essential to life, such as food, water, and clean air.
But the fossil-fuel corporations have been robbing people of these rights.
I am
suggesting, therefore, Ten Climate Commandments. This essay, the first in a
series of two, provides the first five commandments. The second essay will
provide the second five.
1. Thou Shalt Not Ruin Civilization's Climate.
Civilization emerged about 10,000 years ago, after the
emergence of the Holocene epoch, which was the 'Goldilocks zone' for
civilization: not too hot, not too cold. That ideal climate existed because the
level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere hovered around 275 parts per million (ppm).
However, since the rise of the industrial age, based on
fossil-fuel energy, the level of CO2 has been rising
steadily, so that now it is above 400 ppm. This increase has already caused the
planet's average temperature to rise 0.85 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees
Fahrenheit), and the CO2 in the atmosphere is already
fated to push the temperature up further, because there is a lag -- most
recently estimated to be about 10 years - between the CO2 emissions and the effect on the temperature.[2]
By 'catapulting
ourselves way out of the Holocene,' as one physicist put it,[3] we have
already changed the planet significantly. This catapult is causing many changes
that violate climate commandments.
2. Thou
Shalt Not Impose Hotter Weather on People.
One of the changes caused by global warming is the
rise of increasingly extreme weather, one of which is worse heat waves. What matters
to us is not the average temperature, but the 'extremely hot days,' meaning
ones that are above the 90th percentile for that region.
Over the past 15 years, the number of extremely hot
days has soared.[4]
In 2003, a European heat wave was so much hotter than previous ones
that Great Britain reached 100 degreesF (38.5 degreesC) for
the first time ever.[5] In
2013, China had its worst heat wave ever, with 40
cities remaining above 104˚F (40˚C) for 31 days.[6] And in
2014, India experienced its longest heat wave, which was so hot that the
streets of Delhi were virtually empty.
Although other kinds of extreme
weather may be more dramatic, 'Heat is the number one weather-related killer in
the United States,' claiming 'more lives each year than floods, lightning,
tornadoes and hurricanes combined.'[7]
Worldwide, people have had increasingly
deadly heatwaves imposed on them by global warming. For example, an estimated 70,000
people died in the European heat wave of 2003 and 50,000 in Russia's
2010 heat wave.[8]
Referring to the fact that
this excessive heat has been imposed on us by fossil-fuel corporations, Bill
McKibben has said, 'We're hot as hell and we're not going to take it any more.'[9] By which
he meant: Not allowing fossil-fuel companies to continue spewing their waste
products into the atmosphere.
3. Thou Shalt Not Impose Drought on People
Although drought, which is the climate effect that has
thus far been most harmful to people, has occurred long before global warming
began, this warming has aggravated it. This
may seem counter-intuitive, because global warming causes more evaporation,
which leads to increased precipitation. But it changes where the precipitation
falls, so that 'the wet gets wetter and the dry gets drier.'[10]
Drought
is so harmful primarily because it is 'the single most common
cause of severe food shortages in developing countries,' said the U.N., and 'caused more deaths during the last
century than any other natural disaster.'[11]
More than a billion people are regularly hungry,
and this problem becomes even worse when there is prolonged drought. 'The U.S.
is the world's largest producer of corn and 2012 was supposed to be a banner
year,' but in many states, the heat and drought caused the corn to 'shrivel and
die.' A plant biologist in Illinois said, 'Its like farming in hell.'[12]
Drought also causes fiercer wildfires, with longer fire
seasons. In the western United States, 'the fire season now lasts
two months longer and destroys twice as much land as it did four decades ago.'[13]
4. Thou Shat Not Increase Destructive Storms.
Global
warming, by raising the temperature, increases the amount of water the
atmosphere holds, thereby resulting in more precipitation.
As a result,
there has been an increase in extreme rain storms, known as deluges. In 2010, a
deluge flooded a fifth of Pakistan, forcing eight million people to evacuate,
and California suffered the heaviest rainfall since records have been kept.'[14] In 2012, southwestern Australia
had more than 8 inches of rainfall in 24 hours, breaking all-time
records.[15] And in April 2014, Florida
and Alabama both received over two feet of rain in 24 hours.[16]
Global
warming also results in extreme snowstorms, such as the 'Snowpocalypse'
of December 2009, which was at that time 'the largest December snowstorm on
record.'[17]
Global warming also intensifies the strength of
hurricanes, because the warmer oceans have more energy. As a result, 'category
4 and 5 storms have almost doubled in number and proportion since 1970.'[18] The two
most destructive Hurricanes in American history, Katrina and Sandy, both
developed when the water was extremely warm.[19]
As for Tornadoes, there had long been doubt about
whether global warming makes them more powerful, but recent evidence has shown
that it does.[20]
5. Thou Shalt Not Deprive People of Clean Water
There has been lots of talk
about 'peak oil,' said Lester Brown, but 'the real
threat to our future is peak water.' According to a book entitled Blue Gold, 'There is simply no way to overstate the fresh
water crisis on the planet today.'[21] This
crisis has been caused by global warming (combined with the world's rising
population).
Most dramatically, global
warming has been melting
our 'reservoirs in the sky' - glaciers and snowpack - from
which billions of people get their water for drinking and agriculture.[22] The
glaciers of the Andes, upon which 80 million people are dependent, have shrunk
'30 to 50% since the 1970s.'[23] In
Asia, between 1.5 to 3 billion people get their water from the Himalayas, but 'Himalayan glaciers are disappearing at an accelerating rate.'[24] According to Lester
Brown, 'The world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food
production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia.'[25]
Accordingly, the fossil-fuel corporations, along with the
governments that have supported them, are in the process of stealing fresh
water from billions of people, as discussed in the book Blue Gold, which is subtitled: The
Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water.[26]
The most massive theft, however, is by the corporations
responsible for global warming and the politicians who have allowed it to
continue over the past decades.
David Ray
Griffin is emeritus professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont School of Theology
and Claremont Graduate University. The present article is drawn from material
in his most recent book, Unprecedented:
Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis? (Clarity Press, 2015).
[1] Hans Kung, A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998), 98-99.
[2] Katharine L Ricke and
Ken Caldeira, 'Maximum Warming Occurs about One Decade after a
Carbon Dioxide Emission,' Environmental
Research Letters, 2 December 2014.
[3] Stefan Rahmstorf, 'Paleoclimate: The End of the Holocene,' Realclimate.org., 22 September 2013.
[4] Joe Romm, 'Nature
Stunner: As Climate Change Speeds Up, the Number of Extremely Hot Days Is
Soaring,' 26 February 2014.
[5] Jean-Marie Robine et al., 'Death
Toll Exceeded 70,000 During the Summer of 2003,' National Center for
Biotechnology Information, 31 December 2007; 'Sizzling Temperatures Break UK
Record,' BBC News, 11 August 2003.
[6] Nick Wiltgen, 'Shanghai
Still Broiling as Deadly, Relentless Heat Wave Grips China,' Weather Channel,
14 August 2013.
[7] NOAA National Weather Service,
Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services, 2012.
[8] Robine et al., 'Death Toll
Exceeded 70,000'; Ricardo Machado Trigo, 'The 2010 Russian Heat Wave,' April
2012.
[9] Bill McKibben, 'We're Hot as Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Any
More,' TomDispatch, 4 August 2010.
[10] Stephen Lacey, 'Climate Change:
How the Wet Will Get Wetter and the Dry Will Get Drier,' Climate Progress, 5
September 2012.
[11] 'World Water Day,' UN Water, 22
March 2012.
[12] Max Frankel, 'Intensifying
Midwestern Drought Threatens Farmers, Water Supplies,' Climate Progress, 6 July
2012; Jeff Wilson, 'U.S. Corn Growers Farming
in Hell as Midwest Heat Spreads,' Bloomberg, 9 July 2012.
[13] James West, 'How
Climate Change Makes Wildfires Worse,' Mother
Jones, 13 June 2013.
[14] 'UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon: Pakistan Floods Are Worst Disaster I've Ever
Seen,' Associated Press, 15 August 2010;
'California Rain Shatters Records, and More Is Coming,' Associated Press, 21
December 2010.
[15] Christopher C. Burt, 'Extreme Rainfall Event in Western Australia,'
Weather Underground, December 17, 2012.
[16] Katie Valentine, 'While the
West Dries Up, the East Is Drenched,' Climate Progress, 1 May
2014.
[17] Kathryn
Prociv, 'Three Year Anniversary: Snowpocalypse of
December 18-19, 2009,' Washington
Post, 19 December 2012,
[18] Erin Overbey, 'Sandy and the Rise
of Extreme Weather,' New Yorker, 1
November 2012; Quirin Schiermeier, 'Hurricanes Are Getting
Fiercer: Global Warming Blamed for Growth in Storm Intensity,' Nature, 3 September 2008.
[19] 'Facts about Katrina: Surviving
Katrina,' Discovery Channel, 2008; Dan Satterfield, 'What Those
Who Understand Atmospheric Physics Are Talking about after Sandy,' Dan's Wild
Wild Science Journal, 1 November 2012.
[20] Joe Romm, 'Update:
Tornadoes, Extreme Weather and Climate Change, Revisited,' Climate Progress, 4
March 2012; Jill Elish, 'Researchers Develop Models to
Correct Tornado Record,' Florida State
University, 5 September 2013.
[21] Lester R. Brown, 'Peak
Water: What Happens when the Wells Go Dry?' Earth Policy Institute, 9 July
2013; Maude Barlow
and Tony Clark, Blue Gold: The Fight to
Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water (New Press, 2002).
[22] Lester Brown, 'Melting Glaciers Mean Double Trouble for Water
Supplies,' National Geographic, 20
December 2011; Jon Gertner, 'The Future Is Drying
Up,' New York Times Magazine, 21
October 2007.
[23] 'Andean Glaciers
Melting at 'Unprecedented' Rates,' Reuters, 23 January 2013.
[24] John Cook, 'Himalayan Glaciers:
How the IPCC Erred and What the Science Says,' Skeptical Science, 2010.
[25] Lester Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), 68.
[26] Maude Barlow and Tony Clark, Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate
Theft of the World's Water (New Press, 2005).
Ten Commandments for
a Climate-Threatened World: The Second Five
David Ray Griffin
In 'Ten Commandments for a Climate-Threatened World: The
First Five,' I suggested these commandments for our time: (1) Thou Shalt Not
Ruin Civilization's Climate. (2) Thou Shalt Not Impose Hotter
Weather on People. (3)
Thou Shalt Not Impose Drought on People. (4) Thou Shat Not Increase Destructive
Storms. (5) Thou Shalt Not Deprive People of Clean Water. This second essay suggests
five more:
6. Thou Shalt Not Deprive People of Food
In a
2012 book, Full Planet, Empty
Plates, Lester Brown said: 'The world is in transition from an era of food abundance to one
of scarcity.'[1]
As to why, there are two main causes. Whereas one
is the continued growth of the world's population, the other was indicated by a
2012 statement by Oxfam: 'Increased hunger is likely to be one of
climate change's most savage impacts on humanity,' so 'the food security
outlook in a future of unchecked climate change is bleak.'[2]
As to how climate change is contributing to this bleak
outlook, Brown said: 'Of all
the environmental trends that are shrinking the world's food supplies, the most
immediate is water shortages' [as discussed in the fifth commandment].[3]
But climate change has also reduced food
availability by means of heat, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, sea-level rise,
and the destruction mentioned in the next two commandments: ocean acidification
and sea-level rise.
7. Thou Shalt Not Ruin People's Seas
For food,
the ocean is as important as fertile land. But the CO2 spewed into the world over the past century is
threatening seafood even more than land-based food.
Part of the reason is that about '90 percent of the warming of the planet is absorbed
in heating the oceans.'[4] and
the ocean has been warming quickly, much more than scientists had realized,
with the result that waters
are becoming too warm for many sea animals. For example, Maine has had to
cancel its shrimp season the past two years because the water in the Gulf of
Maine had become too warm for the plankton on which shrimp feed.[5]
The other
major problem, resulting from the fact that '[a]bout 30 percent of the carbon dioxide that people have put
into the atmosphere has diffused into the ocean,'[6] is ocean acidification, sometimes
called global warming's 'equally evil twin.'[7] This
greater acidity, which has increased 'a whopping 30 percent' since the
beginning of the Industrial Age, is making it increasingly difficult for sea
animals such as plankton, corals, crabs, and mussels to produce enough
calcium to make their skeletons.[8]
This is already having effects. 'In the Pacific
Northwest and British Columbia, the waters have become so acidic that the once-thriving shellfish
industry there is on life support.' And scallops near Vancouver
reportedly have had a mortality rate of 95 to 100 percent over the past two
years.[9]
If phytoplankton and corals
disappear, this will mean the disappearance of all sea animals, which have
served as the primary source of food for 3.5 billion people.[10] And yet
fossil-fuel companies are still being allowed to put increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, 30 percent of which will
be added to the ocean's acidity.
8. Thou Shalt Not Flood People's Lands
During the 20th century, the ocean rose about 8
inches on average, due to the expansion from the warming ocean plus run-off
from melting glaciers. If the burning of fossil fuels continues, scientists
expect the ocean to rise from 3 to 7 feet during the 21st century,
and even a three-foot (one-meter) rise will be devastating.[11]
According
to the IPCC, 'Bangladesh is slated to lose the largest amount of cultivated
land globally due to rising sea levels. A one-meter rise in sea level would
inundate 20 percent of the country's landmass.'[12]
Vietnam is presently one of the
world's leading producers of rice, but 'a three-foot sea level rise will
eliminate half of the rice production of Vietnam.' Because almost three-fourths
of the country's population lives in areas that are threatened by sea-level
rise, 'Vietnam could face the most devastating consequences of global sea
level rise.'[13]
In Egypt, half of the country's
agriculture takes place in the delta, but farmers there 'are
losing crops to the rising water table as the salty seawater contaminates the
groundwater and makes the soil infertile.'[14]
These are merely three examples of the devastation that
sea-level rise is starting to cause to coastal regions around the world, where
almost one-fourth of the world's population lives.[15]
9. Thou Shalt Not Force People to Migrate
Climate refugees, meaning people who have been forced by
climate change to migrate to another country, or another part of their own country,
can be produced by many features of climate change, such as heat, drought, and
shortage of food or water. But the main cause is, and will increasingly be,
sea-level rise.
People have already been forced to migrate from many
island nations, such as Maldives, the Carteret Islands, and the Sundarbans. At
least 200 people were already leaving the Sundarbans back in 2009.[16]
But sea-level rise is forcing, or soon will be forcing, people
in bigger countries to move. For example, over a million Bangladeshis had
already moved by 2009, and scientists expect there to be 20 million climate
refugees from Bangladesh by 2030 and as many as 35 million by 2050. According
to Lester Brown, moreover, 'The country where rising seas threaten the most
people is China, with 144 million potential climate refugees.'[17]
'According to some estimates,'
say experts Frank
Biermann and Ingrid Boas, 'more than 200 million people might have to
give up their homes due to climate change by 2050.'[18]
10. Thou Shalt Not Lie to Justify Any Such Acts
The
fact that cigarettes cause cancer was repeatedly demonstrated by scientists in
the 1960s, and even the tobacco companies agreed: In 1965,
the head of research at Brown and Williamson - which makes Marlboro cigarettes
- stated that tobacco industry scientists were 'unanimous in their opinion that
tobacco smoke is carcinogenic.'[19]In 1967, nevertheless, Brown and Williamson, along with the other tobacco
companies, claimed: 'There is no evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung
cancer.'[20]
In the coming decades, moreover, these companies spent many millions of dollars
to publicize this claim.[21]
In
1989, a committee created to give scientific advice to the oil industry said: 'The
scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human
emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be
denied.' The 'contrarian theories,' continued the committee, 'do not offer convincing
arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced
climate change.'[22]
Nevertheless, besides continuing to deny the truth of climate science, the oil
industry has spent many millions of dollars to fund organizations to promote
these contrarian theories.[23]
Conclusion
According to the Silver Rule, we should not do to others
what we would want not done to ourselves. We certainly would not have wanted
previous generations to have ruined the climate for us. And yet our generation
is in the process of ruining it for all subsequent generations, perhaps even
making it impossible for civilization to continue.
Why are our media and political leaders allowing this? As
Charles Justice has said, 'There is no justification for putting the human' race
at risk for the sake of oil company profits.'[24]
[1] Lester R. Brown, Full Planet,
Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of
Food Scarcity (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012), 1.
[2] 'Climate Change vs. Food Security: A Bleak
Future for the Poor,' Oxfam International, 5 September 2012.
[3] Lester R. Brown, 'The Geopolitics of Food Scarcity,' Der Spiegel Online, 11 February 2009.
[4] Dana Nuccitelli, 'We Haven't Hit the Global Warming Pause Button,' Guardian, 23 June 2013.
[5] John Upton, 'Oceans
Getting Hotter Than Anybody Realized,' Climate Central, 5 October 2014; Bryan
Walsh, 'Why Warming Oceans Could Mean Dwindling Fish,' 16 May 2013; Joanna M. Foster,
'The 2014 Shrimp Season in the Gulf of Maine Has Been Canceled,' 4 December
2013; Bill Trotter, 'Officials Cancel 2015 Gulf of Maine Shrimp Season, Citing
Weak Shrimp Stock,' Bangor Daily News,
12 January 2015.
[6]
'Effects of Changing the
Carbon Cycle,' Earth Observatory, NASA.
[7] Scott C. Doney et al., 'Ocean Acidification:
The Other CO2 Problem,' Annual Review of Marine Science, January 2009.
[8] Kathleen McAuliffe, 'Ocean Acidification: A
Global Case of Osteoporosis,' Discover,
July 2008; 'Ocean Acidification: Global Warming's Evil Twin,'
Skeptical Science, 2012; 'Acid Oceans Warning,' ARC
Center of Excellence Coral Reef Studies, October 2007.
[9] Tom Lewis, 'Billions of Shellfish Die as
Ocean Turns to Acid,' Daily Impact, 24 March 2014; Randy Shore, 'Acidic Water
Blamed for BC's 10-Million Scallop Die-Off,' Green Man Blog, Vancouver Sun, 26 February 2014.
[10] Tom Lewis,
'West Coast Marine Ecosystem May Be Crashing,' Daily Impact, 8 May 2014; 'Oceans,'
Rio+20: The Future We want, United Nations; Save the Sea.
[11] Rob Young and Orrin Pilkey, 'How High Will Seas Rise?
Get Ready for Seven Feet,' Environment 360, 14 January 2010; Lauren Morello and
ClimateWire, 'Polar Ice Sheets Melting Faster than Predicted,' Scientific American, March 9, 2011.
[12] 'Bangladesh: Rising Sea Levels Threaten
Agriculture,' UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), 1 November 2007.
[13] Rob Young and Orrin Pilkey, 'How High Will
Seas Rise? Get Ready for Seven Feet,' Environment 360,14 January 2010; Tom Narins et al.,
'Where Are Rising Sea Levels Threatening Human and Natural Environments?'
Association of American Geographers, 2010.
[14] Jonathan Spollen, 'Rising Sea Threatens Millions in Egypt,' The
National, 20 November 2008.
[15] 'Sea
Level Rise,' Greenpeace, 4 July, 2012.
[16] 'Maldives President: Australia Should
Prepare for Climate Refugees,' Responding to Climate Change, 13 February 2012; 'Climate Change Displacement Has Begun -- But Hardly
Anyone Has Noticed,' Guardian, George
Monbiot's Blog, 8 May 2009; Jayanta Basu and Zeeshan Jawed, 'Sea
Change,' Telegraph (Calcutta), 14
June 2009.
[17] Emily Wax, 'In Flood-Prone
Bangladesh, a Future That Floats,' Washington
Post, 27 September 2007; Pinaki Roy, 'Climate Refugees of the
Future,' Climate Change Media Partnership, 31 May 2009; Lester Brown, 'Raging Storms, Rising Seas Swell Ranks
of Climate Refugees,' Grist, 16 August 2011; Al Gore, 'Rising Seas from Antarctica to Bangladesh: The Story of Rising
Seas,' Climate Reality Project, 31 January 2012.
[18] Frank Biermann and Ingrid Boas, 'Protecting Climate Refugees: The Case
for a Global Protocol,' Environment Magazine,
November-December 2008
[19] Stanton A. Glantz et al., The Cigarette Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1996), 18.
[20] Company
Statement on Smoking and Health, 12 May 1967l.
[21] Yussuf Saloojee and Elif Dagli, 'Tobacco industry tactics for
resisting public policy on health,' Bulletin of the World Health
Organization, 2008.
[22] Andrew C. Revkin, 'Industry Ignored Its
Scientists on Climate,' New York Times,
24 April 2009.
[23] 'Greenpeace Presents ExxonSecrets.org; Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty
on Climate Science (Union of Concerned Scientists, January 2007).
[24] Charles Justice, 'Slavery and
Fossil Fuels,' Earthjustice.blogspot.com, January 2008
9/11 and Global Warming: Are They Both False Conspiracy Theories? (0 articles)
This
essay is addressed to members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who believe that 9/11
attack was a false-flag operation, orchestrated by the Bush-Cheney
administration so as to appear to be an attack by Muslims. Some members of this
movement believe that, given the way in which people have been deceived by the
official account of 9/11, we should suspect global warming theory is another
false conspiracy theory. I argue that the conclusion that the official account
of 9/11 is false provides no reason to suspect global warming theory to being another
hoax. Written to challenge a view of some members of the 9/11 Truth Movement,
this essay makes no effort to evaluate this movement's beliefs.
This
essay is addressed to members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who believe that 9/11
attack was a false-flag operation, orchestrated by the Bush-Cheney
administration so as to appear to be an attack by Muslims. Some members of this
movement believe that, given the way in which people have been deceived by the
official account of 9/11, we should suspect global warming theory is another
false conspiracy theory. I argue that the conclusion that the official account
of 9/11 is false provides no reason to suspect global warming theory to being another
hoax. Written to challenge a view of some members of the 9/11 Truth Movement,
this essay makes no effort to evaluate this movement's beliefs.
10 Climate Commandments (0 articles)
These 2 articles deal with 10 ways in which fossil-fuel corporations that cause global warming, along with the governments that have allowed them to do so, are violating the Silver Rule, which says: Do not do to others what you would not want them to
do to you.
These 2 articles deal with 10 ways in which fossil-fuel corporations that cause global warming, along with the governments that have allowed them to do so, are violating the Silver Rule, which says: Do not do to others what you would not want them to
do to you.
