Global Warming Crashes Into the Cold War
Global Warming Crashes Into the Cold War
The recent IPCC report details the effects of climate change as the world faces a fossil fuel tyrant.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability was released on February 23rd. The language it uses is stark. There is no need for the usual, verbose scientific phrasing. The data is clear. The findings are clear. The effects of climate change and prospects for the future are dire unless we rapidly end global use of fossil fuels and protect ecosystems around the world.
The authors of assert:
"The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human well-being and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future."
It doesn’t get any clearer than that.
Many of the effects of climate change we are already experiencing are irreversible, unavoidable, and are exceeding our ability to adapt. Forests are shifting faster than native tree species can migrate. Rising sea levels are compromising coastal habitats and low-lying agriculture. Megadroughts in arid parts of the world are limiting the amount of food we can produce.
The impacts of climate change are happening sooner and are becoming more severe at a faster pace than we expected. Stronger storms. Deeper floodwaters. Longer droughts. More intense fires. Species going extinct at an alarming rate. Even on our current trajectory of carbon emissions, which is considerably better than what we were doing a decade ago, we are headed for catastrophe in many parts of the world.
The report makes it clear that even if global temperatures rise temporarily above 1.5°C—that is to say, if we do much better than we are now but still fail to rapidly eliminate global carbon emissions—more severe consequences will be irreversible.
To get a sense of what sorts of impacts the world could experience, just think back over news stories of the past few years and amplify all of the climate-related disasters we’re already witnessing. Unless we reduce carbon emissions and give ecosystems time to adapt, we will see ecosystems collapse. Water will become increasingly scarce. Conflicts over limited natural resources will intensify. If left unchecked, climate change and the development of undisturbed natural areas will further impair our ability to provide enough food and water for everyone. The world will suffer famine, disease and conflict at magnitudes never seen before. As is often tragically the case with environmental degradation, the poorest and most marginalized people will suffer the most.
The probable, horrifying result of all of this is that people will be forced to leave large parts of the world. They may be driven away by the direct impacts of climate change, impacts like heat waves, storms, sea level rise, or drought, with no choice but to try and make a life elsewhere. People will also be displaced by conflict over valuable commodities that become increasingly rare. Indeed, the Cradle of Civilization, Mesopotamia, in what is today’s Iraq, is perhaps one of the parts of the world most vulnerable to climate change due to oppressive heat and dwindling resources. Millions of people in low-lying areas of Bangladesh and Vietnam could be displaced by rising sea levels when their lands become untenable for agriculture. Cities of the southwestern United States, prosperous places built in a fragile desert, could become infeasible to maintain due to a lack of fresh water. Climate changes in all these places will be so fundamental that it presents an existential threat to how people live and interact with the world. World renown climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe says it best, “We have designed our entire civilization for a planet that no longer exists.”
As the World Warms, The Cold War Refreezes
As members of the author team were finalizing the specific words to use in the report, Russian forces were invading Ukraine and committing war crimes at the order of President Vladimir Putin. The rest of us watched—and are still watching—horrors unfold, broadcast over Twitter and social media in real-time.
Like many, if not most Americans, I wish we could do more. Watching Russian tanks roll across a once peaceful countryside while cluster bombs fall on apartment complexes and Russian artillery strikes nuclear power plants makes us all sitting here behind computers feel impotent against the terrorism happening before our eyes.
The response from NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations has been swift. The economic sanctions are strong. They are clearly already affecting Russia. The oligarchs and the authoritarian government are slithering back into their Soviet-style snake holes, recoiling from a world they can’t face with the truth.
Still, I wish we could do more. But beyond diplomatic, economic, and cultural consequences, direct military action with Russia would almost certainly lead to a global conflict, if not a nuclear World War.
We have to remind ourselves that the Soviet Union collapsed from economic pressure. War wasn’t an option then for the same reasons it’s not an option now. That was the chill in the Cold War. It was a war fought through strategic use of resources, by sharing information, and with forward thinking.
The chill has returned, but this time in a warmer world reeling from the effects of climate change. If we use the same ingenuity and we did in the past, we can absolutely crush Putin’s Russia while simultaneously saving the planet. We can stop using fossil fuels. Russia is dependent on its exports of coal, oil, and natural gas, accounting for more than 60% of its exports. The country will not survive without the revenue those commodities generate. Shutting down the trade will dismantle the Russian military before it can be built.
Fossil fuels also gave Russia it’s only strong bargaining chip. After Putin invaded Ukraine, countries began turning away from Russian fossil fuels however they could. Germany announced it is abandoning the Nordstream 2 pipeline, a major source of fuel to Europe. Other countries have taken similar steps, but it’s clear we’ve all become entangled and addicted to oil and gas. Any country that does business with Russia is complicit in giving Putin some of his power, but most are struggling to cut ties completely. Even now, about 10% of the fuel the United States imports comes from Russia. The Biden administration has acted with striking precision and resolve based on shockingly accurate intelligence. But through it all the administration is still worried about the price of gas at the pump has avoided doing anything that will dramatically affect the influx of Russian fuel.
Unreal. Ukrainian teenage girls are shouldering AK-47’s and throwing Molotov cocktails at tanks in Kyiv while Americans, led by a chorus of disingenuous Republicans, are complaining about paying more to fill up their gas-guzzling pickup trucks. It’s embarrassing, to say the least. We need to show the American resolve that we take so much pride in. It’s encouraging that an overwhelming, bipartisan majority of Americans want to stop buying all oil and gas from Russia.
Renewable Energy is the New Weapon of the Cold War
As many climate scientists have pointed out, we have all the tools we need end our dependence on fossil fuels. We know what needs to be done and how to do it. We need a World War II-style ramp up to produce renewable energy and battery storage. We need to build wind turbines, put solar panels on rooftops, put batteries in homes, replace furnaces with heat pumps, and electrify transportation. We can do all those things today. There is nothing stopping us. In some ways, we are already on our way. The only barriers are political. The only people standing in the way the fossil fuel corporations and politicians funded by the fossil fuel corporations.
Let no one tell us such an effort to reshape the world for the better cannot be done. We’ve done it before. Almost everyone in my part of the world knows about the historic World War II Willow Run Bomber Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan, not far from my home. The site is connected to the inspirational person behind Rosie the Riveter. And, in a recent Op-Ed, I was happy to see Bill McKibben bringing this bit of history before a much wider audience. The Willow Run plant was built in six months and produced a B-24 Liberator bomber every hour. We can do amazing things when we have the political will.
Big Oil is already using the war in Ukraine to justify expanding fossil fuel use. Such a misstep would only deepen our addiction. Throughout the modern era, countless wars have been fought over fuel sources. Using nonrenewable resources gives more power to the rich and powerful few that control those resources. Expanding or prolonging our fossil fuel use would shackle ourselves to the whims of madmen. The path to true energy freedom is through renewables, when every home can generate its own power. It’s a future in which a handful of companies can’t impose their will on the grid, empowered by tax subsidies, to feed their own greed.
In the short term, we will have limited options. Ending reliance on Russian oil to take Putin out at the knees must be the primary goal. Beyond that, we need to realize a world where all countries generate affordable, renewable energy within their own borders, safe from the mafia-like grip of petro-state tyrants and the sinister greed of Big Oil.
We already had plenty of reasons to stop using fossil fuels. A sustainable, livable planet depends on it, but now we have entered a climate war. It almost certainly is not the first climate war, nor will it be the last, but Putin’s desperation has come directly from a world moving away from fossil fuels to save itself. He’s built Russia future on resources that can’t last forever, and now knows his fantasy will lose to a world unshackled from the oil and gas that gave him such undue influence. Invading a peaceful country was his reaction. He must be stopped, otherwise there’s no telling what he’ll do next.
We can win this war. We can take away the source of Putin’s power and we can save the planet at the same time. We can stock our arsenal with the peaceful weapon of renewable energy. We just need the political leadership to stop burning fossil fuels and build them.
