With rivers flooding and record snowpack recorded in the mountains, this is a tough year to convincepeople that human-caused global warming will eventually melt Montana's glaciers and parch the landscape, says noted climate scientist Steve Running to Billings Gazette, June 2nd.
But Running, a University of Montana forestry professor who shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work documenting climate change, reminded a Billings audience Wednesday that annual precipitation varies greatly throughout the West.
Despite this year's record precipitation, long-term trends point to big problems in coming decades, hesaid, mentioning that wildfires raged throughout Eastern Montana during January just a few years ago.
Running's research has found a steady decline in Montana river flows since the 1950s, and that points to an increasingly arid landscape throughout the West.
Even if the same amount of precipitation falls, higher temperatures will melt mountain snowpack in early spring, and increased evaporation will dry up water supplies for farmers, ranchers, cities and industry, he said (Billings Gazette, MT).
The panel discussion on climate change, hosted by the Montana State University Billings Urban Institute, presented international and economic perspectives on the controversial topic of climate change.
The discussion was moderated by Wegger Christian Strommen, the Norwegian ambassador to the United States, who told the crowd that his country is feeling the impacts of climate change more than most. "We live closest to the part of the plant that changes the quickest with climate change," he said. "The ice is going away," the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported.
The Public News Service also repoted from the event: Norway's envoy to the United States has a story to tell - about ice. Ambassador Wegger Strommen says climate change already is affecting natural resources and commerce in his part of the world, and he's sharing that story this week in Montana."We live the closest to the part of the planet that is changing the most rapidly. The ice is going away in the Arctic. So, we see with our own eyes it's going to be water up there."
Knut Alfsen, research director at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, warned that global temperatures will continue to climb unlessindustrialized countries take significant steps to cut carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming (Billings Gazette, MT).
Alfsen said global warming is especially noticeable in the Arctic, where sea ice is disappearing. As the Arctic's permafrost melts, it leads to the release of methane, another greenhouse gas. In turn, that accelerates temperature increases, he said. And the carbon dioxide that's being released today will continue to trap heat in the atmosphere for thousands of years.
"What we are emitting now will be felt by our children and grandchildren," Alfsen said. China has become theworld's leading carbon emitter after surpassing the United States. But the Chinese are investing heavily in green technologies and their carbon emissions could start to fall by 2030, Alfsen said. But economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was an economic adviser for both Bush administrations and is a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said taxing carbonemissions not only would address climate change but also would improve America's energy security (Billings Gazette, MT).
Lately, Congress has distanced itself from climate change legislation, and presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty has even apologized for once supporting cap and trade. However, taxing carbon emissions represents a market-based approach to addressing climate change, Holtz-Eakin said.
A rational tax on carbon would not only spur private innovation for green technologies, it could also be crafted to provide tax breaks for poor Americans who are hit hardest by rising energy prices, Holtz-Eakin said.
In response to a question, Alfen said he's pessimistic that humans will have the political will to address climate change.
Strommen was more optimistic that humans will somehow address climate change. He said the same sense of doom emerged when AIDS first appeared in the 1980s. But tremendous strides have taken place since then, and AIDS is no longer seen as a plaguethreatening mankind.
“We’re an oil and gas producer,” Strommen told The Gazette editorial board. “We cannot do without our carbon base, but we have come to the conclusion it cannot be the future. We are in the same boat (as the United States), but we are trying to row to a place where we have a sustainable future" was reported in Billings Gazette online.
Listen to Ambassador Strommen and his reviews on climate change in this radio interview by the Public News Service here.