The Dust Bowl, the worst environmental disaster in US history, sent the soil from millions of acres of the Great Plains into the atmosphere ruining a major ecosystem and many people’s lives. The disaster occurred in the early 1930’s just after the stock market crash of 1929. But crash didn’t affect the farmers until wheat prices dropped below what would keep a farmer’s family alive and the farmer’s tractor payments going. Thinking that if they produced more wheat they could make ends meet, the farmers tore up more soil to plant more wheat, which didn’t work because the wheat prices just kept falling. However, removing more of the Great Plains precious soil dramatically turned the Dust Bowl into a decade of hell.

Instead of heeding the warnings of earlier dust storms and information from old timers that droughts were common, the farmers did exactly what would turn a problem into a major catastrophe.

The Dust Bowl was an early warning that humanity could, intentionally or not, cause great harm to our life support system. This lesson in bad environmental behavior is instructive given the many warnings humanity has had about Climate Change.

This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released Global Warming of 1.5 °C, a special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. In the summary of the new report this statement caught my attention, as it says that despite all the greenhouse gases (GHGs) we have crammed into our atmosphere thus far, if we don’t release any more GHGs, we wouldn’t hit 1.5°C.

A.2. Warming from anthropogenic emissions from the pre-industrial period to the present will persist for centuries to millennia and will continue to cause further long-term changes in the climate system, such as sea level rise, with associated impacts (high confidence), but these emissions alone are unlikely to cause global warming of 1.5°C (medium confidence) {1.2, 3.3, Figure 1.5, Figure SPM.1} (September 8, 2018 GLOBAL WARMING OF 1.5 °C Summary for Policymakers, IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

Acting right now on Climate Change on a scale that matters could not be clearer.
Thankfully, media all over the world explained the impacts of 1.5 °C rise in temperatures and the overall importance of this IPCC report. (See this article for a quick look: The UN’s 1.5°C special climate report at a glance (October 8, 2018) The Conversation] So, it cannot be said that our policymakers were not warned. The report said stop with the fossil fuels now.  

This special IPPC report is at the end of a long list of warnings over the years, which many world leaders have ignored. And, while I understand the inclination to try and stimulate major action on Climate Change, our desire for renewed urgency for addressing Climate Change should not characterize each new study as another freaking starting point. We have been kicking the can down the road on Climate Change for so long that the road is almost at an end, leading to a cliff, from which we cannot turn around.

World leaders 'have moral obligation to act' after UN climate report Even half degree of extra warming will affect hundreds of millions of people, decimate corals and intensify heat extremes, report shows World leaders have been told they have moral obligation to ramp up their action on the climate crisis in the wake of a new UN report that shows even half a degree of extra warming will affect hundreds of millions of people, decimate corals and intensify heat extremes. But the muted response by Britain, Australia and other governments highlights the immense political challenges facing adoption of pathways to the relatively safe limit of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures outlined on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). With the report set to be presented at a major climate summit in Poland in December, known as COP24, there is little time for squabbles. The report noted that emissions need to be cut by 45% by 2030 in order to keep warming within 1.5C. That means decisions have to be taken in the next two years to decommission coal power plants and replace them with renewables, because major investments usually have a lifecycle of at least a decade. (October 8, 2018) The Guardian [more on Climate Change in our area]

We must stop and maybe even reverse GHGs. But it’s more than that. We must find a stable stopping point; that is we must “park” the planet’s climate at a stable temperature”(1) –and leave it there. It makes no sense to keep trying to reach the goalposts (1.5°C or 2°C) if those temperatures are unsustainable.

I suspect nobody, not even the experts, really knows if 1.5°C is a “relatively safe” temperature rise. The more we find out about Climate Change, the more our experts keep finding that they’ve underestimated the peril of quickly warming up a planet already inundated with centuries of environmental abuse from humanity like the Dust Bowl.


Time passes.