Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 16, 1992 TAG: 9202160275
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LARRY B. STAMMER LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
POLITICAL UNREST WOULD BURN UP OUR GREENHOUSE
Suppose all the predictions about climate change are right.What if global warming really causes sea levels to rise, flooding low-lying nations such as Bangladesh? What if the world's breadbaskets, including America, are devastated as crop-growing regions shift to more northern latitudes?
For more than two decades, scientists have been intrigued and mystified by how and when the Earth's climate will react to the unrelenting buildup of so-called greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide caused by the burning of forests and fuels such as gasoline, oil and coal.
Now, a small but growing number of academics, government officials and environmentalists are beginning to think seriously about the political implications of a world environment gone awry. Many of them believe that the world's governments must start planning to avert the possibility of widespread calamity.
"If you want to have political stability, you have to have environmental stability," said Thomas Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution, a leading authority on the policy aspects of climate change.
No one knows which countries would be winners or losers in a greenhouse world. Existing computer models offer fuzzy pictures of possible climate conditions. The models lack the precision to zoom in on nations or smaller regions to assess how climate changes will affect them.
Still, there is broad consensus among scientists that as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, trapping the sun's heat much as a greenhouse does on a sunny winter day, temperatures in the northern latitudes will climb faster than in the tropics. There will be changes in rainfall patterns, soil moisture, evaporation and sea levels worldwide.
Even slight changes in rainfall, experts say, could dramatically affect food production and the availability of water - circumstances that could lead to social and political upheaval, and in some cases violent conflict.
"We're looking at potential risks to the food supply, to regional stability, which could have ramifications beyond those regions," said Sandra Postel of the non-profit Worldwatch Institute in Washington.
Just when this will occur is open to question. "Ten years from now it may be that the current California drought is related to climate change. We just don't know it yet," said Peter Glick of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Pacific Institute for Development, Environment and Security.
Atmospheric chemist Sherwood Rowland, who joined in the discovery that chlorofluorocarbons were destroying the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer, added, "One does not expect [the climate] to shift over in a period of five years, but the question of whether there might be a rapid change that would dry things out in some regions is there."
If nations act soon, much could happen to minimize the dangers. Human choices over how much energy and other basic resources are consumed, the kind of energy that is used and population growth could alter the future significantly .
Technologies may be perfected to dramatically reduce greenhouse emissions. New treaties and cooperative efforts to address environmental threats also could alleviate tensions. Growing trade ties between nations could make cooperation - not conflict - more likely in the face of a common threat.
But, if violence breaks out, analysts believe it would begin in Third World countries. Conditions of abject poverty, rapid population growth, ethnic disputes and longstanding national and religious rivalries already make these nations ripe for conflict. They would be least able to cope with the added strain of environmental convulsions.
Rich industrial nations probably would fare much better. Most experts think war between rich and poor nations is unlikely, if for no other reason than the two sides are unevenly matched. Short of that, however, advanced nations could be affected by the disputes of others, either diplomatically or economically.
A small number of global warming experts, however, say the worst-case scenarios could involve the United States. The Senate Armed Services Committee postulated last year, for example, that "significant environmental changes could contribute to the likelihood of unrest, violence, chaos and conflict, and that this may ultimately require the use of U.S. military power."
Regional disputes over scarce water supplies - which would be made still scarcer by shifts in rainfall patterns and population demands - are highest on the list of likely conflicts if climate change is accelerated.
More than three-fourths of the total land area of nearly 50 countries falls within international river basins. Water already is a contentious issue in the Middle East, where Turkey, Syria and Iraq rely on the Euphrates River. Ethiopia and Egypt draw water from the Blue Nile. Israel pumps much of its ground water from the disputed Golan Heights and West Bank.
As the world copes with the impact of climate change on agriculture and water supplies, agricultural superpowers such as the United States may no longer be able to provide emergency relief, a study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found.
One disturbing assessment by the EPA concluded that the United States could meet its own grain needs but that it was doubtful it could feed much of the rest of the world. The United States provides almost half the grain traded on the world market.
Some scientists predict climate change could push crop growing regions north by as much as 930 miles. A northward shift does not necessarily mean that Canada, Russia or Ukraine could make up the difference. Although crops may be helped by longer days in northern latitudes and higher atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, the soil may not be as good. In Canada, many of the soils are too thin and poor for growing crops.
Not only would reduced crop yields have terrible consequences for hungry people in developing countries, but they could have substantial implications for the United States as well.
"We'd export less and that would hurt the balance of trade and, on balance, our economic strength," said Joel Smith, deputy director of the EPA's Climate Change Division.
The United States also would pay a political price. For the past 30 years, the nation has leveraged its dominant agricultural position in foreign policy. Some have called it the "food weapon."
There are hopeful signs of global cooperation. World leaders have signed a treaty outlawing the use of man-made chemicals that destroy the Earth's protective ozone layer by the year 2000. These chemicals, principally CFCs, also contribute to global warming. Last week, President Bush announced a speedup in the phase-out of the chemicals by American manufacturers, saying the United States would phase out production by the end of 1995.
Another opportunity will present itself in June, when 160 heads of state meet in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for an unprecedented "Earth Summit." Known officially as the United Nations Conference on Development and the Environment, its primary objective is to sign a treaty reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and create ways to promote development that is environmentally sound.
A climate change treaty presents far greater obstacles. Eliminating CFCs used in refrigeration, air conditioning and other specialized uses is far easier than convincing nations to end practices fundamental to their economies - the cutting of forests to earn foreign exchange and the burning of fossil fuels to power their transportation and industry.
But scientists warn that failure to act quickly will guarantee even greater warming than would occur if harmful practices are ended soon. By the time the threat becomes apparent, it may be too late to stop the warming.
"We invested so much in responding to [a possible] nuclear attack from the U.S.S.R., even though the risk may not have been that high," EPA Administrator William Reilly said in an interview. "The risk of climate change [is] so much larger, and yet there has been no equivalent thinking to ensure ourselves against it."