Climate Change - The Day After Tomorrow?

By Adam Ford

Cinemagoers across the world were recently on the edge of their seats as summer blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow saw the entire Northern Hemisphere overcome by a snap descent into a new ice age. But could something like that really happen?

In the film, the onset of global warming caused polar ice caps to melt, altering the salt content of the seas and oceans. This has the effect of turning off the Gulf Stream - a conveyor belt of warm water that has kept temperatures in Northern Europe and America artificially high for centuries. Temperatures plummet over a period of days and entire continents are buried under ice, killing millions. Director Roland Emmerich used the short time frame to for the benefit of his audience, but there are signs that global temperatures are increasing, and many scientists fear this will result in a new ice age forming over a period of ten to twenty years. On seeing The Day After Tomorrow, Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper warned that "Although the depiction of the science is exaggerated and at times misleading the scale of the threat and the underlying politics are all too true".

Global temperatures rose by an average of 0.6 degrees centigrade over the twentieth century, and predictions for the century are for a further increase of between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees. Whilst this initially seems welcome, but it has been calculated that a rise of two degrees could cause water shortages affecting three billion people, a dramatic increase in malaria exposure, and ever more frequent coastal flooding. Perhaps the most worrying aspect of all is that no one knows for sure just what temperature rise would shut off the Gulf Stream.

In the past few years, weather events that would once have been written-off as freak occurrences have become more and more frequent. For example, 2003 saw droughts in Southern Africa and forest fires in Siberia, and Thomas Loster, Head of Climate Risk Research at Munich Re warned that:
"We used to talk in terms of floods and heatwaves being one in 100 year events, but in the south of France…we have had a one in 100 year heatwave, and last month one in 100 year floods…This is climate change happening now."

Despite all these assessments, climate change still has its naysayers in the scientific community who dismiss it as a mere theory. In his review of The Day After Tomorrow Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute called the fact that temperatures are significantly warmer than in the 19th century "a benign truth". However, a little research revealed that ExxonMobil - one of the world's largest oil companies - funds the Cato Institute. Similarly, Robert Balling of Tech Central claimed that any action to limit the greenhouse gas emissions would have a climate impact "undetectable for many decades to come", and that "undesirable economic impacts…would be easily detected immediately". Revealingly, Tech Central's own website announces they are: "supported by sponsoring companies that share our faith in technology" and so "are grateful to…ExxonMobil, General Motors…"

Unfortunately for most of the world's population, it seems that the two main candidates in November's US Presidential Election have similar views to Michaels and Balling. In 2001, President Bush announced plans to increase US greenhouse gas emissions by 25-30% by 2010, and pulled-out of the Kyoto protocol, which required a cut of 10%. "This is the common sense way to measure progress", he argued, "Our nation must have economic growth". Democrat opponent John Kerry vaguely promises a "strategy" on climate change, but makes no specific pledges, perhaps because his campaign had already received millions from the oil industry, with further funding almost certainly dependent on his towing the corporate line.

This century will almost certainly see environmental devastation on a scale never before seen and beyond the wildest nightmares the world has yet seen. But just like in the film, the shortsightedness of profit-hungry businessmen and politicians looks like being the main cause of our downfall. It may not be too late to salvage something, and disaster may not come the day after tomorrow, but our time is running out…