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| Vol. 17, No. 9 | Oct. 30, 1997 |
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| Vol. 17, No. 9 | Oct. 30, 1997 |
The 2,500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report in 1995 confirming evidence of "discernible human influence on global climate" and predicting that the rate of global warming to come will be "greater than any seen in the last 10,000 years."
EPA Region III administrator Michael McCabe opened his UD talk Oct. 23 with those facts. McCabe spoke at an energy and environmental policy colloquium sponsored by the College of Arts and Science and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy.
His speech at UD came a day after the Clinton administration announced its plan to fight global warming by reducing greenhouse gases over the next 20 years.
McCabe hailed the IPCC report as a milestone because "for the first time, this diverse group of scientists-who could barely agree on what to order for lunch-agreed that human beings are changing our climate." He congratulated the University for having three faculty members on the IPCC: John Byrne, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy; Laurence Kalkstein, geography; and Robert Knocht, marine studies.
Evidence of climate change is everywhere, McCabe said. The Earth's temperature has risen by 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last century with the nine warmest years of this century occurring after 1980. He said there is international consensus that surface temperatures all over the world could rise from 1.5 degrees to 3.5 degrees over the next century increasing weather disruptions like the East Coast blizzard of 1996, the Midwest deep freeze of 1997 and a general warming of up to 10 degrees in the northern and western U.S.
There's abundant scientific evidence that these temperature and climate changes are due to human activity, McCabe said. Carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane are all greenhouse gases. Core borings taken in the Antarctic show that concentrations of carbon dioxide have skyrocketed since the Industrial Revolution, showing a 30 percent increase in C02 emissions, he said.
In some areas around the globe, ice is retreating as never before. Northern hemisphere snow cover, Arctic sea ice and alpine glaciers have been melting while precipitation in the lower 48 states has increased by 5 percent during the last century, McCabe said. He asked his audience why the body of a prehistoric traveler was suddenly discovered on a hiking trail in the Alps not long ago. Why hadn't he been found sooner? "Because the ice covering him had not melted in 5,000 years," McCabe said, "but it has now."
A warmer Earth changes rainfall, soil moisture, sea level, the distribution of pests, plants, animals, viruses and bacteria, he said. Rising temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees can double and triple heat-related deaths in northern cities and insects and bacteria that once only affected people in the tropics are already starting to move north, McCabe said.
Insurance companies have begun to express concern about global warming and the president of the Reinsurance Association of America has warned of bankruptcy within the insurance industry if incidents of unusual weather devastation continue.
Climate change is not a problem in the future, McCabe said, nor is it just a few feet of sea-level rise in Bangladesh or drier growing conditions on the Russian steppes, it's a problem that affects the entire planet here and now.
He said that the Clinton administration is expecting any international protocol approved in Kyoto in December to include legally binding emissions budgets for developed countries, a strong commitment to action and flexibility in the methods countries use to achieve their goals. If it does, McCabe said, the American people will have to get involved in the policy debate that will take place in Congress by urging their representatives to sign the protocol and take the steps necessary to meet its terms.
-Barbara Garrison
