Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of the atmosphere and thereby change, for example, the amount of water vapor in the air. Locally, human
activity can have major impacts. In Phoenix, for example, temperatures in the center of the city are up to
10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in the rural areas.
2
How can climate and climate change affect us? One crucial truth is that climate is naturally volatile
and dangerous. Absent a modern, developed civilization, any climate will frequently overwhelm human
beings with climate-related risks—extreme heat, extreme cold, storms, floods—or underwhelm human be-
ings with climate-related benefits (insufficient rainfall, insufficient warmth). Primitive peoples prayed so
fervently to climate gods because they were almost totally at the mercy of the naturally volatile, dangerous
climate system.
In any era, it's easy to think that volatile, dangerous weather is unique to our era and must prove some
dramatic climate change, whether natural or man-made. Every year, the news is full of headlines about
dramatic, often tragic climate-related events—headlines like these:
• “20,000 Killed by Earthquake: Toll Is Growing, Bodies Float Down Ganges to the Sea”
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• “100 Are Injured, Property Damage Exceeds $1,000,000: Tornado Strikes Three States, Bitter
Cold in North Area”
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• “Death's Toll Mounts to 60 in U.S. Storms”
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• “1,500JapaneseDieinHakodateFire;200,000Homeless:LargestCityNorthofTokyoIsinRuins
and Mayor Says It Is 'a Living Hell'”
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• “Where Tidal Wave Ruined Norway Fishing Towns”
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• “Antarctic Heat Wave: Explorers Puzzled but Pleased”
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• “7 Lives Lost as Tropical Storm Whips Louisiana: Hurricane Moves Far Inland Before Blowing
Out Its Wrath in Squalls”
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• “Widely Separated Regions of the Globe Feel Heavy Quake”
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• “Earth Growing Warmer: What Swiss Glaciers Reveal”
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• “Death, Suffering over Wide Area in China Drouth [Drought]”
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• “Toll of Flood at High Figure: Over 100 Bodies Recovered and 500 Persons Missing in Southern
Poland”
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• “Cuban Malaria Increases: Thousands Become Ill in Usual Seasonal Spread of Disease”
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• “Mid-West Hopes for Relief from Heat; 602 Killed”
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• “Famine Faces 5,000,000 in Drouth [Drought] Area”
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• “Rumanians Are Alarmed by Epidemic of Cholera”
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While these headlines read like they're straight out of today's news, they are actually from
1934—before significant CO
2
emissions began. Climate is always volatile, climate is always dangerous.
Or take the issue of sea levels. We are taught to think of sea level rises as an evil inflicted on nature by
human CO
2
emissions. We will explore today's sea level trends, and the role of fossil fuels in them, later
in this chapter, but it is almost universally conceded that any sea level rise today is tiny compared with the
enormous, rapid sea level rises that have occurred over the last ten thousand years.
Thus, climate change, extreme weather, volatility, and danger are all
inherent in climate whether or not
we affect it with CO2 emissions.
Thus, when we think about how fossil fuel use impacts climate livability, we are not asking: Are we
taking a stable, safe climate and making it dangerous? But: Are we making our volatile, dangerous climate
safer or more dangerous?
