EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Transcript: Today's Live Q&A With NSA Leaker, Edward Snowden
- 'Tip of the Iceberg': Senators Warn Far More Data May Not Be Safe
- Playing the Obama Bumper Sticker Game
- Intentional and Evil: Court Marshall Sexually Assaults Woman, Then Arrests Her When She Protests
- David Brooks, Tom Friedman, Bill Keller Wish Snowden Had Just Followed Orders
- Transcript: Today's Live Q&A With NSA Leaker, Edward Snowden
- The Terror Con
- Remembering Satyajit Ray’s Hirok Rajar Deshe: On Edward Snowden, Resistance and Inverted Totalitarianism
- Pentagon Bracing for Public Dissent Over Climate and Energy Shocks
- Bank of America Lied to Homeowners and Rewarded Foreclosures, Former Employees Say
Popular content
Today's Top News
Fiddling While America Burns
The United States is the richest, most powerful nation in history -- this you have heard many times before. What you have not heard so often is that America has also been, for nearly 200 years, the safest, most secure nation ever. Far from being aware of that fact and enjoying it, we have become a nation filled with fear and anxiety. But we fear the wrong invader.
Not since the British burned our capital in 1814 has a foreign army succeeded in invading our continental domain. Pearl Harbor lay thousands of miles from our mainland homes. And the World Trade Center bombing was no real invasion or victory of a foreign power, but one act by a handful of fanatics, all killed. Their brothers are hiding in caves along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, no more able to invade America, if we keep our eyes open, than camels could take over our national parks.
Yet a far more serious threat has appeared that our leaders are ignoring. It is global climate change. And it has the potential to bring the United States down economically, socially and agriculturally, making us a much poorer and weaker nation.
In February the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest major report of scientific data. Based on the greenhouse gases already affecting the atmosphere, and on expected increases in those gases under various economic scenarios, the IPCC projects -- too cautiously, many say -- that the Earth's overall surface temperature will rise 3 to 7 degrees by the end of this century, and the sea may rise almost 2 feet.
In an April IPCC report, world policy-makers were told to expect long-term flooding of coastal areas, more intense tropical storms, increased drought in drought-prone areas, and a decline in crop productivity with increased risk of hunger.
Here is where the danger comes to the United States: Not only may we be forced to protect people on the coasts, or move them inland, we will also be in great danger of losing our agricultural heartland -- the Corn Belt and the Wheat Belt. Today, half of our wheat crop goes overseas. In a few decades we may not have enough food to support our own population, let alone share with others.
And our Western cities may be paying a lot more for water, if they can find any, than for the last drops of oil.
We are most threatened today, not by terrorists, but by impersonal physical forces. And as the century goes on, that invasion will gather speed and effect with biological threats like invasive plants and malaria.
Such talk, we are told, is scare mongering. We also are told that defensive measures would cost too much.
Yet which place is worse off today? New York, which lost two major buildings and thousands of lives to terrorists? Or New Orleans, which lost many lives as well and may never recover much of its displaced population or destroyed territory after being hit by a hurricane that drew its energy from warming gulf waters?
And how can we not afford to invest in conservation and alternative energy sources to defend our own land against the ravages of global climate change, but afford to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which cost $120 billion a year? And pay four to five times that, depending on the calculation, for the military as a whole? And spend more than $40 billion more on the Homeland Security Department?
All that money to defend a country that is the most secure and safe in the world from outside human invasion!
Our homeland is facing a change of unprecedented danger, one that we have helped create by wasteful consumption. This is likely to be the greatest threat to security and prosperity in our history.
When will our leaders stop beating the drums about "a war on terrorism" and start facing the real dangers we face? When will they wake up and take action -- today, this year? Will they wait until Washington is under water and the Great Plains are a burning desert?
Donald Worster, author of books including "Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas," is an environmental historian at the University of Kansas. He wrote this comment for the Land Institute's Prairie Writers Circle, Salina, Kan.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
20 Comments so far
Show AllThere is a far greater threat to the future of the US and the human species than global warming. And that is the Bush-Cheney criminal gang and their fascist allies among the corporate elites, especially in the corporate media. Unless we defeat the fascists, nothing else matters.
"Will they wait until Washington is under water and the Great Plains are a burning desert?"
Sadly, I fear that the answer is yes. We Americans, on the whole, suffer from the same sort of know-nothing/know-it-all blindness that afflicted the Norse colonists in Greenland. Why change your ways when your ways are "HOW THINGS SHOULD BE"? Why learn from other peoples and try new ideas when you are "EXCEPTIONAL" and therefore don't need any new/outside information?
I hope and pray daily that I am wrong, so that my daughter (and all her peers) can live in a world worth living in. But then I read the day's news, see how fixated my countrymen are on the most insipid of issues while the planet burns around them, and I mourn.
The article started out as a good read,
but the author loses all credibility when referring to
the 911 attackers as dead or relatives returned to their caves.
If America is in fact burning, it is because Americans are being lied to and fed propaganda.
I am surprised that a so called progressive website would not only host but disseminate this. Probably the biggest lie ever told. I dont respect dishonesty, nor a website that propagates it.
Kivals I totally agree.
Worster greatly understates the global warming problem.
First of all forget flooding. Focus on flooding and too many people don't care. Why should they? Talk about giant, flaming balls of methane that destroy everything in their paths, including the few crops that might be able to be grown in some few remaining non-desert areas.
Three to seven degrees, most talk in Europe is about keeping warming to no more than 2 degrees (3.6 degrees F). That's because there seems to be a consensus there that once the average global temperature warms to that point, man-made warming will no longer matter, the Earth will continue to warm on its own because of gasses released from some areas that are now permafrost. Later the oceans themselves will be more volatile and release more global warming gasses.
The Earth has undergone periods of extinction before when up to 95% of all species were wiped out. The earth has also been warmer. But this period of warming may well be more rapid than ever before. This means that species will have less time to adapt so even a greater percentage of species may be wiped out.
Where, ever, in history, have human beings demonstrated the capacity to think and plan generations into the future? We're only here for about 75 years, and it is apparently impossible for us to seriously react to long term problems as a result, because we inevitably narrow our focus on personal survival, not that of those who may be around a hundred years from now.
Need proof? Coastal areas worldwide which have been weather devastated time and again remain overpopulated. The idea of rebuilding a city BELOW sea level. The continued building of trailer home parks in tornado alley.
If these people haven't learned their lesson, what hope is there for the rest of us?
JBCramer: Your comments are a bit cryptic. Can you explain your outrage? The brothers in caves bit has a racist tinge to it, although the idea that Al Qaeda types hang out near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border seems to be common knowledge. And as far as I know the 9/11 highjackers ARE dead. In your subjective opinion, what IS the biggest lie ever told?
Frank asks a good question:
Where, ever, in history, have human beings demonstrated the capacity to think and plan generations into the future? We're only here for about 75 years, and it is apparently impossible for us to seriously react to long term problems as a result, because we inevitably narrow our focus on personal survival, not that of those who may be around a hundred years from now.
****************
The Native American aboriginal peoples (more commonly misnamed "Indians" by European invaders) existed in the tens of millions fopr tousands of years on this continent in harmony with nature and thier environment.
These people wer not savages who sat around campfires grunting "ugh" at each other. As Innuit totems in the Arctic to Inca pyramids in Peru attest they were sophisticated cultures which traded extensively in goods and knowledge. To give yopu an idea of thier scientific sophistication visit:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/chaco/index.html
and watch the video presentation on the mysteries of chaco canyon.
Frank also observes:
Need proof? Coastal areas worldwide which have been weather devastated time and again remain overpopulated. The idea of rebuilding a city BELOW sea level.
*******************
True enough as far as New Orlerans is concerned since it was never much more than a plantation where the workabees were so much headcount, and "masa" didn't much care what happened to them.
However, the Netherlands has quite a substantial portion of its land that is below sea level and protected by the strongest and most secure system of dikes that the Dutch can build.
Also the Native Americans who inhabited the Missouri River basin understood they were on a flood plain and built their dwellings on stilts.
But, again, these are examples of people who understood their natural surroundings and planned their civilizations accordingly.
The mark of most Indo-European peoples is their ecological devastation of the lands they move through. From the moonscapes of the Middle East, (formerly known by such nbames as "fertile crescent" and "cradle of civilization") to the deserts of North
Africa ( a place formerly rich with forrests, wild life and fertile land on which grain could be grown).
Europe has been deforested and toxiclly polluted from industry. The North American continent is going ther same way, only at warp speed.
Our peoples mostly regard the eivironment as something to be ravished, pillaged and spoiled and then discarded and moved away from. Problem is we have run out of anywhere else to move on to.
Canadians will welcome fleeing (unarmed) US refugees with open arms....
thank you, North of the Border! can i be on the vanguard and can you sign me up today?
and they keep telling us there's no money to do anything....
An excellent article. Global climate change will indeed soon make us sentimental for a time when we feared terrorists.
Our planet has taken ill, and by squandering time we're narrowing our options to bring it back to good health. Are we to throw away everything, abandon both our past and our future? Is it too late to save us from ourselves?
Ours is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention we can give it.
Thank you, Professor Worster.
For me, the problem with this whole "end of the world", millinarianism thing is that, on the one hand, intellectually I can appreciate the rational argument of societal collapse (i.e., too many people competing for too few resources), but, on the other hand, emotionally I can't seem to change my behavior. I guess that human denial is so powerful that it's too comforting to think that despite all the evidence to the contrary that all the predictions simply won't come true and I can continue working, saving for retirement, etc., etc. Such is the overwhelming power of Denial.
Of course, it was Denial that dissuaded too many Jews from getting out of Nazi Germany in time....
Look out Canada!
Better build a wall to keep out the southerners fleeing their ruined land.
I am doing a ditto for bildad. Please expand, JBCramer. Don't assume we know what you know. Obviously we don't. Tell us more.
Sorry to confuse you.
Common Knowledge doesn't make it true
The brothers in caves line is from the article....
How can the 911 hijackers be dead since the plane was remotely flown. Many of them have turned up alive since.
The greatest lie ever told is that Muslims were responsible for 911. This lie was and is intended to demonize all muslims and make their wholesale slaughter more palatable for Westerners Hijackers dead? Muslims responsible?
I dont think so....
More likely its our good buddies Israel and Saudi Arabia in confluence with the US, and Pakistan acting as the bag man.
Al Qaeda, Boogie Man, Tooth Fairy. All inventions to manipulate delicate minds.
Let me try to interpret for JBCramer. You see, in his alternate universe, the C.I.A. and the fascist government are the real 911 terrorists. And Al Qaida are simply the patsies used by this vast conspiracy in it's quest for world dominion. I'm surprised, Ron and bildad, that you don't know about this. You are probably part of the disinformation campaign, like Common Dreams obviously is.
JBCramer, since you no longer have any respect for us phony "progressives" why don't you go hang out at one of you true-blue websites, or something.
Global warming started with the Industrial Revolution which was fed on fossil fuels. What else corresponds precisely with this? The development of Capitalism.
Capitalism's exploitation of fossil fuels through hyper-consumption has been the cause of global warming. Therefore, as long as unrestrained capitalism remains the dominant economic system, global warming will not be adequately controlled.
Global warming as silver lining.
After visiting post-Katrina New Orleans, I have come to the conclusion that the only force powerful enough to bring down Capitalism is global warming (save democracy, but it has yet to make much of a showing).
"When will our leaders stop beating the drums about "a war on terrorism" and start facing the real dangers we face?"
I would say, when there's more easy money in global warming.
Look for books about "Abrupt Climate Change" in your library or bookstore. Note climate graphs which show concentrations of CO2 vs temperature over the last 100,000 years. See the sudden shift in temperature as we left the last ice age where the CO2 went from 180 to 280. That change of 100 caused a temperature shift of several deg C. The relatively stable climate of the past 10,000 years permitted growing of crops, civilization, etc. Then we started raping the Earth of fossil energy. We have built up CO2 to 380 now and rising at 3 per year. This means as quickly as the climate is able to do so, it is set up to change by several deg C. Watch the climate reports here on Common Dreams indicating the ice is melting FASTER than predicted. Every little while you'll see a climate report hinting that science is beginning to catch up with what is on the way. Study up. Humanity's greed for stored "OIL" has turned up the heater -- the stored methane in Siberia and the frozen greenhouse gases in the ocean are just waiting for their turn. We probably are in store for more like 20 deg C change (20C -- rather fitting -- the revenge of C02).
"the safest, most secure nation ever" where are you getting this stuff?