Climate change event gets warm welcome

Global warming is threatening Earth’s ecosystems and efforts to harness those human activities contributing to it must begin immediately if the planet is to avoid the worst of the effects, say scientists at a three-day workshop on the world’s changing climate held this week in Homer.

Climate change is now seen pole to pole, and while debate continues over what to do about it, there is no doubt that the phenomenon is real.

“That debate is pretty much over,” said Lara Hansen, chief climate scientist with the World Wildlife Fund, who has directed research on the biological effects of global changes since 1990.

Hansen spoke during the opening session of “Climate Camp: Alaska,” sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund and the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, held at the Islands and Ocean Visitors Center in Homer.

The world’s carbon dioxide output is a major contributor to global warming, Hansen said.

According to research data cited in a handout available at the workshop, half the world’s industrial carbon dioxide output already has dissolved into the oceans, decreasing their pH levels and outstripping their capacity to act as a buffer.

In “Buying Time: A User’s Manuel for Building Resistance and Resilience to Climate Change in Natural Systems,” Hansen, its lead author and editor, said that over the past century the average global temperature has risen 0.7 degrees Centigrade.

Other studies cited on the WWF Web site say average temperatures have increased by 0.8 degrees Centigrade since the advent of the Industrial Revolution (roughly 1780-1830), which would indicate the rate of increase is rising.

Much of that increase in global average temperature is attributable to human activities like burning fossil fuels that release greenhouse gasses.

In “Buying Time,” Hansen said the world could see CO2 levels in the next 40 to 100 years that would roughly double pre-Industrial Revolution levels. Average temperatures could rise by as much as 5.8 degrees Centigrade.

Scientists predict that an average increase of just 2 degrees Centigrade would result in “dangerous and irreversible effects” worldwide, the Web site said, including a decline in agricultural output and increasing hunger, widespread water shortages, millions more put at risk of malaria and other diseases, a 60 percent loss of sea ice and coastal flooding that could cost nations hundreds of billions of dollars, to name a few.

The WWF has proposed reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit the extent of the temperature change to 2 degrees centigrade above pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Hansen noted that pollution controls in the U.S. have not kept pace with other areas of the globe.

For instance, she said that U.S. efforts to decrease the use of fuel in automobiles begun in the 1970s have not met their original targets. Fuel efficiency standards here have fallen well behind those of other industrialized nations, she said.

The problems of are not insurmountable, Hansen said, but the time is short in which to initiate major worldwide conservation efforts to halt the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and avoid potentially catastrophic effects.

While nations must come together to effect large-scale change, even individuals can contribute to an overall solution by changing daily habits — drive less, for instance, or begin using energy-efficient products, she said.

The three-day workshop is scheduled to run Monday through Wednesday (Oct. 30-Nov. 1) and has brought together environmental scientists, Bering Sea community leaders, and others who seek to sustain and protect fish, wildlife and other resources.

In addition to Hansen, speakers include former Homer News writer Charles Wohlforth, author of “The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change;” University of Alaska Fairbanks Professor Glenn Juday; Pacific Marine Environmental Lab Oceanographer Carol Ladd; and fisheries biologist Greg Ruggerone, a specialist on the survival of salmon in response to climate change.

Others scheduled to speak this week include Henry Oyoumick, Unalakleet Watershed Coordinator; Vernon Byrd, supervisory wildlife biologist with the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge; and Sue Mauger, stream ecologist with Cook Inlet Keeper, among others.

Also sponsoring the event were the National Science Foundation and the Center for Alaska Coastal Studies.

Hal Spence can be reached at harold.spence@peninsulaclarion.com.