Island Earth - 211

We have a bear on the island.

When I flew in the Arctic every so often we would spot a polar bear. The smaller females would quickly herd their young under a jagged slab of ice and then squeeze themselves in behind the cubs.

The old males, enormous beasts with yellowing fur, made no effort to hide and would only pay us an indifferent glance.

The Arctic Ocean camps I flew from were built like a fort with the outside perimeter of walls giving the camps a sense of security. One veteran “Company Man”, the camp boss who had lost a man to a polar bear in Canada, hired an Eskimo Scout. The Eskimo, impervious to the cold, remained vigilant against the ice bear. I appreciated having an Eskimo guard as we kept the helicopter outside the camp.

Have you read the Odyssey? This is one of the most famous epic poem stories from ancient Greece. It is the story of the King of Ithaca trying to make his way home from the Trojan War. One of the major threats to his successful return came when he and his crew landed on the island of Sicily. This was the home of the giant Cyclops, Polyphemus. Polyphemus tricked Odysseus and his crew into his cave. Behind the Greeks Cyclops rolled a massive boulder blocking the cave opening. Trapped in the cave with the Cyclops, Odysseus had to watch as three of his team were killed and eaten one by one. Eventually, he and his team devised a plan to escape.

Greek epic poems always had a lesson to take away. This one warns us not to get caught in a situation where there is no way out. This story must have been popular as the Greeks made hundreds of vases with the cyclops story painted on them.

The story made a big impression on me. It was the basis for how I flew. When weighing the factors like fuel, capabilities of the helicopter, winds, terrain, and weather, if I could formulate an escape plan, then I would fly aggressively. If not, it was time to turn around.

While flying in Alaska, I read a horrible story of scientists working on an island north of Norway. A polar bear swam over to the island and grabbed and ate a scientist in front of the others. Without a way off the island, they could only watch their teammate being devoured and wonder when the bear would come for them. Luckily, a helicopter flew in and no one else was eaten.

The Earth is an Island and there are plenty of bears. One, COVID, is being slayed by medical science. Another is the Russian Bear as it lays waste to Ukraine. While these powerful bears run amok, it is understandable that we might take our eyes off the most dangerous bear of all, man-made climate change.

In the most terrifying science report ever written the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC)*, tells us in detail what kind of future we are creating. All of humanity is on one island called Earth. The Carbon Bear lives here and feeds off the greenhouse gasses we create. As he grows his ability to wreak havoc on us and God’s other creatures grows too.

Here is a short summary of the 3,600 page IPCC report: “The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on the adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.”

There are professional deniers paid to find and discredit this 3,600 page science document. These skilled “cherry pickers” are employed by the Big Oil companies to create just enough doubt to immobilize us.  This tactic is similar to what Tobacco Companies did for decades in an effort to sell more cigarettes by telling us cigarettes did not cause lung cancer and was a harmless habit.  Does anyone really believe that today? Eventually, the data overwhelmingly proved the tobacco propaganda a lie, but not before thousands died.

The last decade, with its increasingly extreme and deadly weather events, and rising global temperatures has proven climate scientists correct, however this will not stop the oil funded anti-science movement because lying is not illegal.

When deniers play tough by telling us the warnings from the science community are a hoax, it angers me. Weakly reasoned and cherry-picked arguments unsupported by facts are annoying to read. Weakly reasoned articles flood the news daily. What bothers me more is anyone over 50 will not have to deal with the Carbon Bear when it finally grows too big to control. What kind of courage does it take to utter unsupportable opinions when someone else is left to clean up the mess?

At my age it would be easy to trick myself into telling my peers and the young, “Don’t worry, put off the transition, we have time to wait.” To me this is like sidestepping a fight with the biggest, baddest bully. A bully who keeps getting stronger by the day. By sidestepping the bully and avoiding the fight, we leave it to our kid sister to have it out with the bully somewhere in the future. Is there anything noble in this?

Here in the North Country winter is shrinking, Superior is warming, and some trees are dying off with a host of other unpleasant but survivable inconveniences afflicting us. The worst effects lay in the future when I/we won’t be here.  

If we sidestep the fight, our kids will be in a predicament like the scientists who found themselves trapped on an island watching their teammate being eaten. Or, like Odysseus who helplessly watched as the Cyclops devoured his crew members one by one. Our kids will witness Africa being devoured by heat and drought. The wet bulb temperatures of the hot and moist equatorial countries will drive people from their homes to more northern cooler areas such as the Great Lakes as the Carbon Bear turns up the heat. Sea levels will rise as Greenland and Antarctica melt, swallowing low lying islands and coastal cities. Each year more migrants will have to flee the Carbon Bear and we can expect many of these climate refugees will become our neighbors.

With so many bears on the loose, the problems seem insurmountable. They are not. While the headlines focus on COVID and the Russian Bear, scientists are working on ways to slay the Carbon Bear. The science community reminds us climate change is reversible but only if we take the necessary measures without delay.

The transition must be large. The energy system needs to be modernized and it will take 20 years. While you should take pride doing common sense measures like installing LEDs and insulating your home, this will not solve the problem. Individual efforts are important and worthy but, by themselves, will not get us out of this predicament.

The Big Fix will require electing science literate legislators. They must be willing to create dramatic effective climate policy.

This is not doomsaying. Although scientists say the window of opportunity is small, the scientists tell us it is still open. If we work smart and quickly, we can keep the Carbon Bear from destroying us and our island.

*Wikipedia: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations responsible for advancing knowledge on human-induced climate change. It was established in 1988.

To read the sixth assessment search: “IPCC AR6”. Then select Working Group II whose report came out 28FEB2022. It is titled “Climate Change 2022 Impacts, Adaptations, and Vulnerabilities”.