He worked with a lot of climate scientists, many of whose names we would recognise. This man has offered to share the concerns they have repeatedly expressed in private conversations. It should go without saying that, since I am not at liberty to divulge his identity, that I trust this man and what he tells me.
Scientists are staying up nights worrying about global warming Anyone who watched Earth 2100 last night will recognise some of what follows—these are essentially the sources used or referred to in the making of that program.
"I talked with two widely-known senior current publishing climate scientists at different times in different places within the last year. Both are from different national scientific parent organizations funded by the United States government. I have known both for many years. After I shared my concerns with them about the slow actions currently being taken on climate change, both responded with their own personal, private fears.
Both stated that they personally felt that unless we humans take much stronger action than we are now doing to curb atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions that they fear that fast-moving climate change effects (that we are seeing now) could result in social and economic disintegration in the United States resulting in martial law within our lifetimes. Both were concerned about the desertification of the American Southwest and the current probable continued moving of storm tracks out of the United States toward the poles. They both mentioned semi-permanent high pressure areas moving into the drying areas. Both were concerned about rapidly rising sea levels that could eventually result in US coastal city evacuations such as New York and Washington DC. Another concern of both was hundreds of millions of climate refugees flooding the US from recently uninhabitable areas from fire, rising sea levels and desertification south and east of us. Both stated that they personally thought that there was just barely time left to act. Both also mentioned the changing chemistry in the oceans (known more publicly as "ocean acidification" as carbon dioxide enters the oceans and turns into carbonic acid). This can result in weakening the base of the oceanic food chain, plankton and corals. Yet another concern was a possible billion or more people "mass dying " in Africa from climate-change induced drought resulting in world-wide epidemics hitting the United States. All these events or some of them together combined with a hurricane (hurricanes) like Katrina could overwhelm the United States infrastructure resulting in never-before seen conditions in the United States.
During discussions, recent refereed published scientific studies stating urgency were referred to: Solomon et al. PNAS, 2009. ,Allen et. al., Nature 2009. Meinshausen et al., Nature, 2009. Hansen J, et al.,Proc. Natl. Acad.,2007. Ramanathan, Feng,Proc Natl Acad Sci., 2008. Schellnhuber, Proc Natl Acad Sci., 2009. "Time to act", Nature,2009. Monastersky et al., Nature, 2009. Parry et al. Nature, 2009. Washington et al.,Geophys. Res. Lett., 2009. Schneider, Nature, 2009. Patz et al., Nature, 2009. Romm, Nature, 2008. Sokolov, Prinn, et al., Journal of Climate, 2009.
One scientist mentioned that there was in their opinion a measurable chance that because of melting permafrost concerns, we could go far above the highest IPCC warming projections. They said that you take out insurance on much lower risks then that.
I also met with two hydrologists from a national government agency at different times and different places over the years. Both personally stated to me their personal fears of possible mass future population evacuations out of the American Southwest due to low-water conditions caused by climate change unless sharp action was taken to immediately reduce human carbon dioxide emissions. Both also thought that time just barely remained to take action.
None of the above mentioned scientists is either Stephen Schneider or James Hansen. None of the above, including, James Hansen to the best of my knowledge has or would ever mention publicly their personal fears of global warming-induced martial law in the United States. These are the private fears of some of the most-experienced publishing senior climate change scientists in the United States. Again, all the above privately expressed their opinions that there is just barely time left to act."
FEMA is preparing for the worst
It's not just scientists talking among themselves about worst-case scenarios. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been speaking about it for a long time. Here are excerpts from "How can emergency managers address our warming climate? Relying on the basics – an essay " By Bob Freitag, Director of the Institute for Hazards Mitigation Planning and Research.
"What is the risk? To determine risk we'll need a definition that will work for climate change and there are definitions. Let's use the one at the root of our emergency management profession. One that was developed during WWI and that I used in the 1970s while working with the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration (FDAA), in a program we called the "Hazard Identification Capability Assessment/Multi-Year Development Plan or HICAMYDP (which we pronounced "Hic-a-ma-dip"). Here risk is a function of the hazard (the science of change), vulnerability (impact, consequence) and capabilities (available tools and approaches).
Beginning with the hazard, we need to address global warming for what it is, a unique hazard and not within the context of other hazards and certainly as a secondary hazard to flooding, coastal hazards, landslides. In Alaska, the State Department of Homeland Security references "Permafrost Hazards". This euphemism is counter productive and not only masks the problem but clouds the search for risk reduction measures. It points your risk analysis in the wrong direction.
Looking at global warming within the context of flooding, for instance, will mask such secondary hazards as drought. In the Northwest the Cascade Mountains are not very high and global warming is melting the few remaining glaciers, reducing snow fall and snow accumulation. These impacts are increasing winter discharges and reducing summer flows. With our well drained soils, the lack of summer moisture may be our most significant consequence of climate change.
We can reduce risk by addressing the hazard of climate change and as emergency managers we need to support the reduction of greenhouse gases, and in the case of the Northwest support approaches that keep water in the watershed longer such as forests, wet gardens, wetlands….
However, as emergency managers, we are not scientists or engineers and our experience lies more in reducing vulnerabilities than in altering the characteristics of the hazard. We have extensive experience in reducing the consequences of hazards. We have bought flood prone homes, reduced the number of unreinforced masonry structures and isolated hazardous wastes. We emergency managers can similarly help our communities live with this new change.
The Four Phases of Emergency Management -Mitigate and where you cannot mitigate prepare, respond and recover. There are four phases of emergency management and there are risk reduction opportunities in each.
On December 26th 2004, the most damaging recorded Tsunami decimated the coast lines of many Indian Ocean countries. Thousands of structures were destroyed. We are emergency managers and as emergency managers we saw this disaster through our unique lenses and recognized opportunities to mitigate and rebuild on higher ground not only to address future tsunamis but also to address a secondary hazard of global warming – sea level rise.
Exercises We have the capabilities to reduce risk, maybe not by addressing the change agency, but by focusing on identifying and reducing the adverse impacts. Since we became a profession, we have relied on exercises to develop and test approaches, and to raise difficult questions. To begin your risk reduction process; consider inviting your local university to develop a climate change scenario for your community. Invite community stakeholders and run a table top exercise. The objective of the exercise might be for stakeholders to identify adverse impacts and mitigation measures. Depending on our exercise objectives, we usually phase exercises around the event, such as the day before the event (testing preparedness), the day of the event (testing response objectives, and after the event (recovery).
However with global warming the event has begun so you might phase the exercise in 15 year increments and have your university scientists phase their scenario accordingly. You might post the after-action report on a Community sponsored web site. And solicit comments.
In closing, Climate change does not need to be a political football. The evidence is all-around us and we have the capabilities, expertise and experience to reduce this risk.
And, funding may be available. A good argument could be made to use FEMA pre-disaster Mitigation Funds, or even DHS Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grants to fund Climate change driven exercises. And if you don't see a connection between national security and climate change read National Security at the Threat of Climate Change (SecurityAndClimate.cna.org)"
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