The NyTimes article by Andrew C. Revkin on the impact of climate change and the best way to understand it.
“This is a mega-ethical challenge,” said Jerry D. Mahlman, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who has studied global warming for more than three decades. “In space, it’s the size of a planet, and in time, it has scales far broader than what we go-go Homo sapiens are accustomed to dealing with.”
Dr. Mahlman and others say that the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases cannot be quickly reversed with existing technologies. And even if every engine on earth were shut down today, they add, there would be no measurable impact on the warming rate for many years, given the buildup of heat already banked in the seas.
Because of the scale and time lag, a better strategy, Dr. Mahlman and others say, is to treat human-caused warming more as a risk to be reduced than a problem to be solved.
These experts also say efforts to attribute recent weather extremes to the climate trend, though they may generate headlines in the short run, distract from the real reasons to act, which relate more to the long-term relationship of people and the planet.
“Global warming is real, it’s serious, but it’s just one of many global challenges that we’re facing,” said John M. Wallace, a climatologist at the University of Washington. “I portray it as part of a broader problem of environmental stewardship — preserving a livable planet with abundant resources for future generations.”
I think this is the right way to go forward. Risk is something businesses tend to understand easily and at the same time hope is something most people can relate to.
Most importantly, there is a greater need to understand the relationship between people and the planet and not concentrate only on profits. It is important to understand issues other than climate change like resource extraction, water scarcity, pollution of rivers and land, species loss, rainforest and ecosystems loss, etc. A greater emphasis on only global warming may cloud other issues and the bigger picture.
