From the greenhouse effect to the floods devastating Bangladesh to the forest fires sweeping the American West, the culprit may be man himself, and that's our story tonight. This is ABC News Nightline reporting from Washington Ted Koppel.
Is it possible that the American passion for automobiles is somehow remotely responsible for the devastating floods that are now engulfing Bangladesh? Or try an even more remote indeed bizarre question, could that flooding somehow be connected to the industrial revolution, the mechanization of Great Britain and Northern Europe more than a hundred years ago?
Those questions are not quite as off-the-wall as they may seem. Indeed as the summers here in the United States seem to get hotter, we may be viewing with legitimate alarm the rise of fossil fueled industries in places like the People's Republic of China. We are, it turns out, in spite of all our best efforts at nationalism, just one planet after all. Here's Mark Parker.
1.40
The devastating floods in Bangladesh may just be an omen for low-lying coastal areas around the world. Scientists predict a rise in temperatures that will eventually melt the polar ice caps causing the oceans to rise. Forest fires like those ripping through Yellowstone National Park now may also become more frequent. Even the story of old wives lake causes concern. Just last year on Canada's western plane the water in old wives Lake covered nearly 300 square miles. Today the lake is gone.
**This used to be one of the bigger salt lakes in southern Saskatchewan, and unfortunately due to the drought, it has completely dried up and now we're just walking over the dry salt bed.**
What's this were walking through then?
**Some type of aquatic weed that was growing in the lake and they've all died and dried up now.**
Around the world scientists see a disturbing pattern. The hottest four years on record occurred in this decade alone and 1988 will probably be the hottest year of all. Some fear the so called greenhouse effect is beginning to wreak havoc. We are leaving a period of substantial climatic stability that has lasted for some hundreds even thousands of years and entering a period of very rapid changes in climate. In its natural state, the Earth is gently warmed by a layer of carbon dioxide that traps some of the sun's heat waves as they are reflected by the globe. The greenhouse effect is the result of too much carbon dioxide and other pollutants which like a greenhouse are trapping more heat each year, now raising the surface temperatures.
3.30
Scientists say this effect began with the Industrial Revolution when the burning of coal gas and oil created man-made carbon dioxide. More than five billion tons of it pour into the air each year now throwing the atmosphere off-balance. At the same time third world nations in search of wood and cropland are destroying the tropical rainforests at a rate of 27 million acres a year, an area that's nearly the size of Great Britain. Left alone these trees would have consumed carbon dioxide helping to keep the atmosphere in balance.
That leaves us with a planet that's warming up and dry this past summer in places like the American Midwest and Canada. Some scientists disagree. They believe the current drought which dried-up old wives lake here in Canada and as tormenting American farmers is simply the result of natural variations in climate, not the greenhouse effect, but most scientists do agree the earth is warming; and if this dry lakebed isn't the result of the greenhouse effect, it does show what could happen throughout the world in our lifetime.
4.38
If pollution and deforestation continue at the current rate, scientists predict the average global temperatures could rise from 4 to 9 degrees in just 40 to 60 years, maybe earlier, if pollution accelerates. Keep in mind that a 4 degree average temperature difference is all that separates our current climate from that of the Ice Age which ended 10,000 years ago.
**If the planet warms by as much as 9 or 10 degrees Fahrenheit, we will be outside the climatic regime that has been experienced in the last million years.**
5.16
Some areas will heat faster than others. this map prepared by NASA shows in red the areas that scientists predict will feel the worst heat rises in the upcoming years. Note the American Midwest where rising temperatures could destroy the rich cropland the growing climate would move north into less suitable terrain.
**One could consider quite conceivably a significant reduction in the production of grain that would mean one would go from a net exporter of food to a net import food. that clearly would have some significance for the political balance between the various superpowers of the world.** Scientists say that predicting greenhouse effects is relatively easy; the hard part is convincing all the countries of the world to make sacrifices for what must be global solutions.
**Norway: We have come to a point in history when we can no longer act primarily as citizens of any single nation state; we are irreversibly entitled to the same destiny.**
At a recent conference in Toronto scientists from around the world called for an unprecedented global law of the atmosphere. Currently the worst carbon dioxide polluters in the world are the industrial nations led by the United States and the Soviet Union. Scientists say those countries must take drastic steps to conserve energy and develop new fuels.
Ironically, this may bring nuclear power into greater favour. Politically the developing nations are an even bigger problem. For example, how do we sway China which is basing its new economy on energy from its abundant coal supplies.
**I think that it's going to be necessary to provide technology transfer to the Chinese; I think it's going to be necessary to provide incentives for them to follow their different options. I think we're going to have to pay a price and it will not be cheap.**
It also won't be cheap to stop deforestation in Brazil where poverty-stricken farmers are cutting down the rainforests in order to eke out a living.
**The richer developed world such as the United States and Europe have to work with Brazil to rectify that situation we have to believe that we may have to pay for reforestation.**
The point is everyone will have to pay since scientists say global warming is already beginning. The world's political leaders face a unique challenge now the preservation of the one resource shared by all nations on Earth.
**It is time that we realize that we all share a common future. The setting is urgent and the threats are real.**
For Nightline this is Mark Potter in southwestern Canada.
Koppel: When we come back, we'll be joined by two scientists who are specialists in the effect of atmospheric changes on the weather, Michael Oppenheimer of the private Environmental Defense Fund and Allen Hecht of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This is ABC News Nightline brought to you by Bahia.
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10.34
Koppel: Michael Oppenheimer is a specialist in atmospheric physics at the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-profit public interest group. He joins us from our Boston bureau. Alan Hecht who is in our Washington bureau is director of the national climate program at the national ocean oceanographic and atmospheric administration. His office is responsible for planning and reviewing federal policy on issues such as the greenhouse effect. Dr. Oppenheimer, I'd love to be able to say to you that I think the American public can get energized over some perceived threat forty years down the road but I don't believe it. Do you?
**Well I think that they can. This summer has provided us with a vivid example of the kinds of changes that are in store for us if we don't move to limit the greenhouse gases- record heat, record droughts, record smog levels, forest fires putting our forests up in flames; it doesn't matter whether this summer was due to the greenhouse effect and in fact we'll never know whether it was or wasn't. The bottom line is that the long term warming will occur as long as greenhouse gases are emitted.**
Koppel: Well forgive me but I think it does matter; if it was not caused if it is simply coincidence that these that four of the hottest years we've ever had or four of the hottest summers have occurred in this decade that's one thing. If it is the consequence of the greenhouse effect and you can draw some kind of a correlation there, then presumably we can present evidence to the American public and say, look, it may happen in 40 years it may happen in 60 years; but folks there's disaster that far down the road and there are some really bad things that are gonna happen maybe 10 years from now or five years from now, would that be true?
**Well there's a long term trend which has been which has been predicted for nearly a hundred years. In the late 1800s scientists predicted that the emissions of carbon dioxide due to industry would eventually warm the world. Over the last 10 or 20 years, computer models have enabled us to say roughly how much the world will warm, given a certain amount of emissions; and over the last three or four years, several analyses have been produced which are consistent with the predictions of the computer models. The last I hasn't been dotted, the last T hasn't been crossed; but the fact that the world appears to have been measured to be warmer than it was a hundred years ago gives us confidence in the computer models, which tell us that as long as we emit these gases, the world is just going to continue to warm and at record rates.
Koppel: Dr. Hecht, is that a controversial statement or can you accept it in its broad principle?
**I think there's general agreement in the scientific community that the greenhouse effect this phenomena is real it's something that society will have to deal with as long as society contributes these gases to the atmosphere; but there is a great deal of controversy and a great deal of uncertainty about the timing of the magnitude and the direct consequences of the greenhouse effect, and I think a question that you raise is really one of the most important.
There is a lot going on in the world that reflects the climatology whether it be the drought in the Midwest this past summer or floods or fires or extreme events; and I think there is a stronger feeling in the scientific community that much of the results of what we're seeing are probably best explained explained by the natural variability in the system at this time than the greenhouse effect and that's important. Because it means that the scientific community, which has a burden and responsibility to deal with this, has to come up with the methodology, has to come up with the means, has to come up with the strategy to really convince those who have to make policy that these changes are in fact due to man.**
Koppel: Dr. Oppenheimer, don't often remember at some point or another. I mean there are not many opportunities when someone with your background in expertise or dr. hick has a chance to talk to several million Americans at the same time say hey, Dr. Hecht, you know dummies wake up, what we are all doing here is causing a problem; now you can either say it in in such a way that people sort of doze off while you're saying it or you can say it in such a way as to convey a sense of alarm, are you alarmed?
14.45
**I'm concerned; I don't think it's an emergency I think we have plenty of time to act; but if we don't start actions today to limit the emissions of these gases, we're going to be building in an irreversible change; and we're going to be leaving for the next generation a world which is moving downhill towards uninhabitability. Personally, I think the changes that we're seeing this summer are not only characteristic of the sorts of things we'll see more and more often in the future, but have been made more likely by the greenhouse gases we've already put into the atmosphere. So yes we're moving slowly into into a greenhouse world and this is a sample of things to come but that's not really the important point. The important point is this, that the changes are irreversible; and that there's a lag between the emissions of the gases and the full manifestation of their consequences. So we can't move into this world casually look about and decide we don't like it and go back there will be no going back.
Koppel: How much of a lag; in other words, when I raised that that question at the beginning of the broadcast and said events that took place a hundred years ago in Great Britain Northern Europe the Industrial Revolution the burning of coal, is it possible that that is having an effect today. In some regions of the world?
**Sure, there's a lag of what some scientists think is about 40 years between the emissions of the gas, is it a manifestation of their full consequence. Let's remember, we're doing an experiment here. The theory was really put together a hundred years ago; the experiment is now being done.
We scientists have measured that the world does appear to be warmer than a hundred years ago, and that's consistent with what the models predict, in spite of any uncertainties. We've done an experiment and we've confirmed tended to confirm the theory. That's important it means yes it does appear the world is already warmer due to these greenhouse gases.**
Koppel: Let me ask you to stop for a moment we're gonna have to take a break when we come back we'll be joined by an international lawyer concerned with the problem of bridging the gap between scientific concerns and political realities doctor Ramakrishna.
16.45
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19.40
Koppel: If you've been reading your newspapers or watching the news on television, you know that there are now roughly some 25 million homeless in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a country on the Indian subcontinent; it is a nation about the size of Wisconsin, but with a population of 100 million people nearly half the population of the United States. 75% of that country is now under water in one of the worst natural disasters of this century, Dr. Killa Ponty Ramakrishna is a professor of international law in New Delhi and a senior associate at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts. He is trying to make the world aware of the international responsibility for dealing with and if possible preventing such calamities. The first of two international conferences he is organizing is due to take place in Woods Hole next week. Dr. Ramakrishna joins us now from Boston.
We began by talking about Bangladesh because one of the things I hope we can do over these next few minutes is indicate that there is a tie in, a connection between what happens for example in Bangladesh and what we have been doing or what some of our other industrial country allies and friends have been doing over the last 30 40 perhaps even 100 years. Are we going to find over the next few years that other countries are going to be doing to us what we've been doing to them, Dr. Ramakrishna?
What I'm trying to get to is the industrial age in this country our use of fossil fuels may have caused some of the environmental disasters in other parts of the world. What I was asking you is are there now other parts of the world that are engaged in the same thing so that we may feel the effect of it perhaps twenty years down the road?
21.40
**Most certainly; they they have begun a process of industrialization which is very much like the process that the displaced nations have adopted not long ago; and they have adopted it because they feel that is the only way to achieve the economic development levels that the industrial nations have reached now; and so they are pretty much going to go along those lines. And as you said if that were to continue in 20 or 30 years you would see the problem a lot more aggravated than it is already now**
Koppel: Well what if the United States the Soviet Union Japan for example all of these countries which now are perhaps ready to move a step beyond the fossil fuel-burning stage were to say, let's say the countries like the People's Republic of China, look you can't do it, you can't burn that coal, how are they likely to respond?
**Oh that would be preposterous, that would never be accepted, it would never be accepted, because you know you go through your levels of development; and then turn around and tell the developing countries that you cannot develop to the same levels as we have. What I would suggest is that they should in turn talk about providing for the same kind of economic development; but in a different path, a path that does not rely upon the burning of fossil fuels. rely upon the same kind of development techniques that the developed nations have adopted**
Koppel: Dr. Hecht, what do you think the chances are of politically here in this country what you have been saying and what dr. Oppenheimer have been saying of being accepted sufficiently that we're prepared to for example transfer some of our high technology to the People's Republic of China so that they won't have to burn coal?
23.32
**I think how the international community is going to deal with this problem is yet to be worked out and I think in looking at what is being done in terms of national debt in Africa and Brazil and other areas, there are innovative ways of dealing with it both through taxes and interest rates and technology; but the international community as a whole is only now beginning to begin to assess the implications of greenhouse gases and come up with ideas about what to do about it.
I would just like to go back to one point that you made earlier just not to leave the impression that the flooding in Bangladesh today is a direct consequence of this greenhouse warming; because I think it would be very difficult to to show that to be the case, and in fact I think as I said earlier, many of the anomalous climatic conditions that one observes around the world down in the past can probably better be explained through natural events; and it's only a question of at what time in the future events like continued droughts can be really attributed to greenhouse warming. But I think it's important not to leave the impression that this is a phenomenon that's related to the greenhouse effect.
Koppel: All right giving us that kind of an opening, dr. Hecht, I suspect is going to make it possible for politicians in this country to put off what may be painful choices so I'd like to talk about those painful choices when we return and continue our discussion in a moment.
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27.15
Back now is dr. Michael Oppenheimer dr. Oppenheimer, telling Americans that they're not going to be able to use their cars or at least not to the degree that they have in the past is not going to be a popular message; now if there is ambiguity about how dangerous this situation is, you're certainly not going to be able to convince Americans not to use their cars.
**There's no ambiguity the world is getting warmer unless we limit carbon dioxide emissions and it's not a matter of throwing out cars there are short-term measures like moving to more mileage efficient cars which by the way would get rid of smog and acid rain in the process; and then long-term measures like the federal government investing heavily in research and development on solar energy. It's not a matter of pain pain pain it's a matter of smart start a slow process efficiency measures now dollars now to produce renewable energy sources later.
Koppel: all right dr. Hecht I didn't want to leave the impression that the Los Angeles Thruway is somehow responsible directly for the the flooding in Bangladesh; but are we at least and we've only got a few seconds for you to respond; are we at least going to accept the fact that there is an interrelationship here between what one country does and the impact on another?
**I think there is and I think we have good examples of areas of being deforested that given heavy rain the rain has a greater impact on it. I think what we're seeing in general across the world is that society is very much linked together and may be becoming more vulnerable to even natural climate variability. Question in front of the society in front of American public is a question of risk what is the risk involved?**
**Oppenheimer: I think I'd just like to say I think the risks are very high and Alan is sloughing over a lot of differences there. The fact is this is the kind of thing we're gonna get more of and I'd like to know where are the presidential candidates on this; we haven't heard much we're hearing about the Pledge of Allegiance; but the question isn't the loyalty of presidential candidates. The question is are they gonna have the ability to deal with this problem.
Koppel: On that rhetorical question gentlemen I have to thank you I'm sorry we're out of time but I'm deeply appreciative dr. Oppenheimer dr. Hecht dr. Ramakrishna; thank you very much that's our report for tonight. I'm Ted Koppel in Washington for all of us here at ABC News this has been Nightline for a printed transcript please send three dollars to Nightline transcripts 267 Broadway New York New York one triple 0 two 7 Nightline is a presentation of ABC News. FINIS
[KE: Everything climate scientists predicted about global warming/ climate change since the 1970s is coming true, only faster][How the hell did we end up in this mess when we knew 40 years ago how to prevent it?]
