Years ago, we interviewed a man in an office with all the walls painted black. He had a great stereo system and was playing a Peter Gabriel tune when we arrived. It seemed that while in his darkened den the outside world simply vanished. His name was Michael Mann and he was producer of Miami Vice, a TV show that ironically was known for it bright pastel colors. His Mann-cave provided him a place to escape all the hoopla and buzz about his popular show.
Now there’s another Michael Mann who says many of us are living in caves like his namesake, avoiding the reality of what is happening to the climate. This Michael Mann, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, recently told The Guardian of London that low-lying island nations could see disastrous consequences of climate change far sooner than expected.
“The models have typically predicted that will not happen for decades but the measurements that are coming in tell us it is already happening so once again we are decades ahead of schedule,” Mann said, who is the director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center.
Meanwhile, more than a third of the people in the U.S. and Great Britain deny that there is any climate change going on, and that figure, ironically, has been rising along with the waters from the melting ice on the polar ice caps. “There’s a huge gap between what is understood by the scientific community and what is known by the public,” according to NASA scientist James Hansen.
Whether you think climate change is a normal pattern of nature or is being hurried along by 7 billion people and their carbon prints is irrelevant to the fact that the climate is rapidly changing.
It’s time for the deniers to abandon their caves and take a look at the science, which says the rise in average global temps, has been largely attributed to the burning of fossil fuels and the resultant increase in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. That’s the overwhelming conclusion of scientists, even if politicians and their corporate allies are doing their best to tell us it ain’t so.
Even if all the scientists are wrong, the bottom line is that disastrous consequences are coming our way. As the Greenland and the west Antarctic ice sheets disappear,”we [will] really start to see sea level rises accelerate,” Mann says. Unlike with the melting of sea ice, these ice sheets would introduce vast quantities of water into the world’s oceans, and could cause the evacuation of some islands.
“Island nations that have considered the possibility of evacuation at some point, like Tuvalu, may have to be contending those sort of decisions within a matter of a decade or so.”
For vulnerable island nations, like the Maldives, Kiribati, the Torres Strait Islands and many others, rising seas will bring significant coastal erosion and saltwater contamination of limited freshwater supplies. Environmental group Oceana recently noted that nations dependent upon the sea will face food security threats as greater temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide increase ocean acidity and put marine life at risk.
Yet, the disbelief that it is happening is widespread. So maybe one day we will step out of our Mann-caves and discover that we’re on an island and water is rising.
This year’s record melting, which occurred under more “normal” conditions than the previous record set in 2007, left Arctic sea ice at a minimum “nearly 50 percent lower than the average … for the years 1979-2000,” according to Climate Central.
Despite the increasingly clear picture painted by scientific observations and climate modeling, “There’s a huge gap between what is understood by the scientific community and what is known by the public,” according to NASA scientist James Hansen. Recent polling suggests that as much as 35 percent of the U.S. population and 37 percent of the British public remain unconvinced of the scientific reality of climate change.
It is surprising how many scoff at climate change. It’s real and we need to change and prepare.
We as people to own our lives and choices and stop blindly listening to govt. hype.
I remember the Gaia Theory, thank you for posting that and reminding us Lauren. I feel and notice nature even more lately, it is where I am happiest.
I wish that people would wake up!
to me it’s silly to argue about whether or not there’s global warming. the fact is that weather patterns ALL OVER THE WORLD have changed. now call it what you will, but something is happening…
I don’t disagree that climate change is happening, I just have a different view as to why. I still don’t understand though, as to why ‘global warming’ has recently been changed to ‘climate change’ … though maybe I have a theory!
It’s also interesting how we grasp at what scientists say when it suits us, but disagree with them when it doesn’t – dependent on the subject matter.
But, yes, changes may well be afoot – and they may not be very pleasant.
DJan, “being down” seems to be running in the universal waters of late. So many, many folks with whom I’ve spoken are really in a funk. Most of them admit they don’t know the cause; they just are feeling overwhelmed by circumstances in their lives. I think all of us are in this together, and there is a trickle-down effect. I heard a new poll on one of the better news affiliates tonite (not FOX, by any means), that demonstrates only one in five Americans today practice any type of spiritual or religious faith or follow any spiritual or religious path. One in five. Thet means for every five people, four are stumbling around in a miasmic quicksand having no clue what’s happening. That seems tragic to me. it’s my conviction that we must have some sort of conviction that Life always has a purpose, and that we as a group and as individuals, even if we don’t know the purpose, must TRUST that it exists. Without purpose and spiritual grounding of whatever kind….well, hopelessness fills in that void where purpose should be. And that, to me, is sad. I’m hoping for more positive
input into the Mass Consciousness soon. Then all and each of us will feel better. 🙂
Who’s surprised? Not me. We don’t believe that the food we eat has anything to do with our health or sickness, either. I worry that it’s the same old story: we only hear what we want to hear, and the fact that there is plenty out there to “prove” or “disprove” any point of view. I am depressed about the direction of our country, not to mention the rest of the world. Sorry to be so down today.
Some days, it’s tough not to be depressed by the direction of things!
Oh, forgot the link about Gaia Theory if anyone is interested in reading:
https://www.gaiatheory.org/
so true, and thank you for writing about this. Recently I visited the Bosque del Apache bird reserve in NM (the Festival of the Cranes is coming up in a month), and was stunned to see the great marshes virtually all reduced to mud flats…..and hardly any birds. It depressed me so much I had to leave, although I have great affection for that community.
I think it’s too big, and too much of a paradigm shift, for most people to “get”, and with the notable exception of Al Gore, our political leaders are, as you point out, facilitating the “cave” effect. We need tremendous education and we need now, and yet, with the immense amount of denial, it’s “business as usual”.
In the 80’s so many of us were utterly astounded when James Lovelock and his collaborator Lynn Margulis came out with the Gaia Hypothesis (it has now been called the Gaia Theory), which proposed that the Earth was one living, self-regulating organism, an utterly interdependant, evolving system of life. Since then this theory has become widely accepted within the earth sciences community. And yet, ask most people, and especially anyone under 30, about Gaia Theory and they will tell you they never heard of it.
Thank you for the links! Yeah, it’s sad how many people don’t know about Gaia. Even people OVER 30!