31.7.2006 – KIN 214 – weisser Rhythmischer Magier – Welle 17 Roter Mond
2005-04-25 - KIN 12 - Gelber Kristaller Mensch - Welle 1 Roter Drache
2005-04-18 - KIN 5 - Rote Oberton Schlange - Welle 1 Roter Drache
Steigende Temperaturen
Die Reporterin Elizabeth Kolbert reist durch die Welt, um die Folgen des Klimawandels zu beobachten
Nikolaus Bernau
Der schmelzende Eisberg ist das Symbol unseres Zeitalters. Nicht einmal der amerikanische Präsident Bush Junior behauptet heute noch, dass es keinen Klimawandel gäbe, nur über die Ursachen möchte er noch streiten. Er sollte den schmalen Band mit "Depeschen von der Klimafront" der Journalistin Elizabeth Kolbert lesen.
Es sind Berichte aus einem Krieg, den die Menschheit gegen sich selbst führt, und die Reporterin der Zeitschrift New Yorker hat alle Fronten bereist: Es geht um arktischen Permafrostboden in Alaska, der in breiten Spalten auftaut, was Häuser, Straßen, Erdölleitungen gefährdet und Methan freisetzt, das zusätzlich den Klimawandel anheizt. Es geht um Schmetterlinge und Goldkröten in Costa Rica, die aussterben, weil sie nicht so schnell fliegen und krauchen können, wie sich ihre Umgebung erwärmt. Es geht um Klimakurven und um Bohrkerne aus dem keineswegs ewigen Eis Grönlands, um Proteste von Inuit auf einer Klimakonferenz gegen die industrialisierte Massengesellschaft, die ihren Lebensraum zerstört. Es geht um gutbürgerliche Niederländer, die nicht verstehen können, dass von dem mühsam dem Meer und den Flüssen abgerungenes Land wieder etwas zurück gegeben werden muss, um Überflutungen auf ein erträgliches Maß zu reduzieren.
Es geht um die vielen Zivilisationen, die einst an viel kleineren Temperaturschwankungen zu Grunde gingen, als wir sie derzeit selbst produzieren: die Maya in Yucatan, Indios im Hochland von Peru, ganze Städte im Industal und im heutigen Irak. Man könnte die Liste verlängern, um Nordafrika, das einmal als Agrarlandschaft blühte, um die Fischerei, die weltweit vor dem Kollaps steht - das alles kommt bei Kolbert nicht vor. Aber sie will kein Lexikon des Desasters schreiben, sondern Depeschen aus dem Krieg.
Der Klimawandel gleicht von der Geschwindigkeit her dem Bruch eines Deiches: Zuerst tröpfelt es nur, dann geht die Lücke rasend schnell auf. Kolbert zeigt uns das an vielen Details und erspart es dem Leser nicht, sich in Klimamodelle und Tabellen zu versenken. Sie fordert vor allem Einsicht von der eigenen, der amerikanischen Regierung - über die man sich angesichts der dichten Beweisketten nur noch wütend wundert.
Und darin liegt auch die Schwierigkeit dieses Buches für deutsche Leser. Dies ist eine Anklageschrift gegen die Bush-Regierung, die man mit großer Zustimmung liest - aber auch die Europäer gehören auf die Anklagebank, auch wir verschwenden Energie, auch wir leben auf fremde Kosten. "Es scheint unvorstellbar, dass eine technologisch fortgeschrittene Zivilisation sehenden Auges ihre Selbstvernichtung betreibt", schreibt Elizabeth Kolbert - "doch genau dies geschieht im Moment." Damit endet das Buch. Die Temperatur steigt weiter. Im Badezimmer wartet die elektrische Zahnbürste.
Berliner Zeitung, 31.07.2006
http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/feuilleton/573375.html
A Planetary Problem
Issue of 2005-04-25
Posted 2005-04-18
Elizabeth Kolbert travelled from Alaska to Greenland, and visited top scientists,
to get to the heart of the debate over global warming. Her three-part series on
climate change appeared in The New Yorker in 2005; her new book, “Field Notes
From a Catastrophe,” which grew out of the articles, will be published by
Bloomsbury in March. Last April, she discussed her work with Amy Davidson.
AMY DAVIDSON: What is global warming? Is it real, or theoretical?
ELIZABETH KOLBERT: I guess you could say that that depends on what the meaning
of the word “is” is. The principles of global warming are as well established as
any in physics. Nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, a British physicist named
John Tyndall discovered that certain gases in the atmosphere—we now refer to
these as “greenhouse gases”—trap heat on earth by absorbing infrared radiation.
There are several naturally occurring greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide
and water vapor, and together they produce the so-called “natural greenhouse
effect.” Without the natural greenhouse effect, the planet would essentially be
frozen. Any basic earth-science textbook talks about the natural greenhouse
effect; it’s a phenomenon that is not in any way debated. All that the theory of
global warming says is that if you increase the concentration of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere, you will also increase the earth’s average temperature.
It’s indisputable that we have increased greenhouse-gas concentrations in the
air as a result of human activity, and it’s also indisputable that over the last
few decades average global temperatures have gone up. As best as can be
determined, the world is now warmer than it has been at any point in the last
two millennia, and, if current trends continue, by the end of the century it
will likely be hotter than at any point in the last two million years.
How would warming the world change the world—that is, the world for human beings?
There are countless ways in which we humans are dependent on the climate: it
determines what crops we can grow, what pests and diseases we have to worry
about, how we get water, and on and on. Warming the world is likely to change
the climate patterns that we rely on; some areas, for example, are apt to become
drier while others will become wetter. Sea levels will probably rise, possibly
quite dramatically, and that will affect coastal areas where hundreds of
millions of people now live. No one knows exactly how higher average
temperatures will translate into, say, changes in precipitation, but,
considering that there are more than six billion people on the planet, it
wouldn’t take a very large alteration to create very significant problems.
Climate does vary naturally. How is what we’re talking about here different?
It’s true that the climate varies naturally, and some of the recent rise in
global temperatures may well be part of a natural cycle. The point that’s
important to keep in mind is that the greenhouse gases we are adding to the
atmosphere are overwhelming the natural forces that cause climate variability.
In effect, we humans are becoming the drivers of the climate system, and we are
doing so without knowing where we are going.
Your reporting for the article took you to Alaska. What did you find?
Alaska is being very dramatically affected by climate change; the state is
warming up just about as fast as any place on earth. This is producing a lot of
problems in Native communities; several Native villages may have to be moved
owing to erosion that is being caused, or at least hastened, by climate change.
It’s also affecting daily life in places like Fairbanks, parts of which are
built on permafrost. As the permafrost degrades, people’s houses are starting to
split apart. The roads need to be repaired more often; sometimes they just cave
in. Ironically, it’s also affecting the oil industry. The kind of heavy
equipment used in oil exploration is allowed out on the tundra only when the
ground is frozen to a depth of twelve inches. Since 1970 the number of days that
meet that condition has been reduced by half. Early on, computer models
developed by scientists working on climate change predicted that global warming
would have a disproportionate effect in the Arctic.
You also spent some time sleeping in a tent out on the ice in Greenland. What
brought you there?
Outside of Antarctica’s, Greenland’s ice sheet is the largest in the world. It
contains enough water to raise global sea levels by twenty-three feet. There is
a very real possibility that global warming will set in motion the destruction
of the Greenland ice sheet. No one really knows how warm the world would have to
get before that happens, but the signs are not encouraging. Scientists are
already seeing changes to the ice sheet that suggest that it could occur at
temperatures not much higher than today’s. And although the process could take
centuries, or even millennia, to fully play out, once the ice sheet started to
melt it would become self-reinforcing and therefore impossible to stop.
I was very struck by your description of the work being done by Donald Perovich,
a government scientist, who measures something called albedo. What is its
significance?
Albedo is a measure of reflectivity. The ice in the Arctic, and also in the
Antarctic, reflects a tremendous amount of sunlight back into space. This is a
very significant factor in shaping the earth’s climate. In the Arctic, the ice,
and particularly the sea ice, is melting, and this is changing the earth’s
reflectivity. More heat is being absorbed, which is causing more sea ice to melt,
and so on. This is a good example of positive feedback. It’s taking a relatively
small change to the system and amplifying it into a much larger one. There are
several positive feedbacks in the climate system that are known, and quite
possibly others that haven’t yet been identified, and all are cause for concern.
How good is the science? We often hear it said, at least in this country, that
there are conflicting views.
There is a very broad consensus in the scientific community that global warming
is under way. To the extent that there are conflicting views, they are usually
over how exactly the process will play out. This is understandable. The climate
affects just about every natural system on earth, and these systems in turn
affect the climate. So making predictions is very complicated. Meanwhile, we
have only one planet, so it’s impossible to run a controlled experiment. To
focus on the degree of disagreement, rather than on the degree of consensus, is,
I think, fundamentally misguided. If ten people told you your house was on fire,
you would call the fire department. You wouldn’t really care whether some of
them thought that the place would be incinerated in an hour and some of them
thought it would take a whole day.
One disturbing thing about your article is just how alarmed many seemingly
sober-minded scientists are. What sort of a gap is there between expert and lay
opinion on climate change?
That’s a good question. I think there is a surprisingly large—you might even say
frighteningly large—gap between the scientific community and the lay community’s
opinions on global warming. As you point out, I spoke to many very sober-minded,
coolly analytical scientists who, in essence, warned of the end of the world as
we know it. I think there are a few reasons why their message hasn’t really got
out. One is that scientists tend, as a group, to interact more with each other
than with the general public. Another is that there has been a very
well-financed disinformation campaign designed to convince people that there is
still scientific disagreement about the problem, when, as I mentioned before,
there really is quite broad agreement. And third, the climate operates on its
own timetable. It will take several decades for the warming that is already
inevitable to be felt. People tend to focus on the here and now. The problem is
that, once global warming is something that most people can feel in the course
of their daily lives, it will be too late to prevent much larger, potentially
catastrophic changes.
If human beings have caused climate change, can we also reverse it?
We cannot reverse climate change. This is because carbon dioxide is a long-lived
gas. What we do have the power to do is to mitigate climate change by reducing
emissions. The longer we wait to do this, the riskier the situation will become.
Human beings have responded to challenges for millennia. For most of that time,
we have had far fewer technological tools at our disposal than we have now. Why
shouldn’t we be optimistic about our ability to face climate change and adapt?
I certainly hope that we can face climate change. My oldest son is ten years old
and, for his sake, I would very much like to think that we will be able to cope
with this challenge. It’s hard for me to be optimistic, though. Scientists have
been warning about the dangers of global warming for more than twenty-five years
now, and in that time we have increased our energy usage—and, with it, our
production of greenhouse gases—quite dramatically.
In terms of adaptation, it’s a nice idea, and certainly it will be necessary;
the amount of warming that is already inevitable is quite significant and may
cause severe disruptions. At a certain point, though, the changes will become so
great that adaptation will become extremely difficult; a five-foot rise in sea
levels, for example, would put parts of the state of Florida underwater. If you
imagine that sort of scenario being played out all around the globe, it gets
pretty frightening. And, as one climatologist pointed out to me, while we are
more technologically sophisticated than earlier societies, we are also more
sophisticated when it comes to destruction.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/050425on_onlineonly01