global warming

What comes to mind when you hear the words "natural resources?" Oil. Water. Nature. Nature? In fact, yes, nature is one of the big ones. Ecologists and economists have a name for the natural resources that nature provides: "ecosystem services." They've calculated that globally the dollar-value of those services could be $54 trillion annually in 1997 dollars--for comparison the Gross World Product for 2008 was around $62 trillion. Most people don't call nature's resources "ecosystem services" though.

I admit it. In my heart of hearts, I'm hoping for the best. Those scenarios of climate change we see splashed across the newspapers and magazines include a wide range of possibilities, and I keep my fingers crossed that we'll end up closer to the best case. But just three weeks ago the best case got a lot worse.

When you’re in the middle of a forest fire, trees exploding all around you, smoke burning your lungs, and fireballs dropping from the sky, it’s hard to think about much except getting out of there alive.  That’s kind of where we are with thinking about global warming nowadays—the direct impacts on people.  How many lose their homes when sea level rises?  What new diseases are going to make their way out of the tropics?  How many dollars will it take to cut carbon emissions? But really, those flames and fireballs are just the beginning of the problem, if you survive them.

I know of a scientist who wrote that changes in small constituents of the atmosphere-namely carbon dioxide-could greatly influence the heat budget of the Earth. He predicted Arctic temperatures would rise about 8 or 9 degrees Celsius if atmospheric carbon dioxide was increased 2.5 to 3 times its present value. He later became concerned that man-made carbon dioxide pollution could contribute to this warming, and he even published a few books on the subject. So what, right? Everybody knows about global climate change!