BANGOR DAILY NEWS • October 3, 2022
I’m on a plane to Greenland to film a documentary about scientists who have an idea to slow glaciers sliding into the sea. The IPCC forecasts a one meter of sea level rise by 2100. Many scientists think a two-meter rise is more likely. That would flood land home to a quarter-billion people. At four meters, at least a billion people would be looking for new homes. We’re already locked into far too much warming, and just cutting emissions is not enough. But there are just five scientists on this plane. Can’t people see that climate change is an existential threat? No, and I suspect our ancestors are to blame. For at least 98 percent of human history hunter-gatherers lived in the short term. There may be a species-specific speed limit on how fast human societies can respond even to big threats that are slow-moving, impersonal and invisible. Are we doomed? Graduate schools are full of people studying climate science, and despair is not a useful option. ~ Gwynne Dyer