Article: Tony Weaver from FAIRLADY

As I write this, the rain is hammering against my study window. The river not far from my house has broken its banks and the mountains are on fire after a succession of lightning strikes. They are on fire because we have just lived through one of the driest summers in living memory and there was not enough residual wetness in the fynbos to ward off a runaway fire. The storm raging outside my window is probably fairly normal for a late autumn Cape cold front moving through, but somehow it feels wrong.

Maybe I'm just wrong, another one of those that President George W Bush calls the 'environmental doomsayers' (I'm not sure he ever used those exact words, but if he didn't, then he probably will), but I would rather be wrong on this issue than do nothing about it. It's not just the Western Cape that has just lived through one of the driest summers in living memory, it is the whole of southern Africa. And that, the experts say, is just a small taste of things to come.

I recently bought a one-tenth partnership in a 300ha piece of land in the southern Cape. It is a magnificent piece of wilderness, incorporating within its boundaries one of the last tidal estuaries in South Africa that's not been developed. That's one of the reasons my partners and I bought the land – to make sure it would never be developed. And to turn it into a bird sanctuary. Most of the land sits between five and 15 metres above the spring tide high-water mark. The rest, although a kilometre inland from the sea, is only just above sea level, separated from the main beach by a ridge of barrier dunes.

We have main-road access, with another dirt road leading in through the back of the property that winds through the Overberg hills from Baardskeerdersbos. I called in a friend who is an expert in these matters to sketch out a future scenario plan. Would my grandchildren be able to use the property in 50 years' time?

'Yes,' he replied, 'but they will have to commute to the house by boat from the dirt road, and eventually, the rising tide will erode the island that your house is on and it will collapse, but that will take 100 years. At the moment, you are on a tidal estuary; in 50 years' time or even much less, you will be on the high-tide mark of the ocean.' Cool. I just bought a beachfront plot for a fraction of what it should have cost.

Frivolity aside, global warming and climate change are the biggest issues facing our planet today. Forget Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Forget world terrorism. Forget George W Bush (well, actually, don't; he's part of the problem), forget crime and unemployment, HIV/Aids and the remote possibility of asteroid strikes… They all pale in comparison.

It would be easy, and comfortable, to lean towards the George W Bush theory on global warming: Simply put, as he puts most things, global warming is a conspiracy theory developed by lefty-greenies who want to curb American industrial development. In Bush's worldview, the way towards progress and freedom lies in the development of the world's remaining oil resources – wherever they may be.

Any curbs on those rights are curbs on the freedoms of the global economy to develop in a spirit of freedom and free enter-prise, and hence an attack on American freedoms. It is in that spirit that Bush has refused to sign the single most important bid to curb global warming, the Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit the level of pollution through greenhouse gases that nations pump into the air. Human emissions of greenhouse gases are the most important contributor to global warming, and hence to climate change. And he has all but persuaded the world's second-most-important contributor of those gases, Russia, into also refusing to sign the Kyoto agreement.

The figures are stark: The United States has within its borders four percent of the world's population, but produces 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. Rampant consumerism, a culture that wants everything bigger and better, including petrol-guzzling off-road vehicles, a commuter society, a culture that wants everything packaged to the hilt, the list goes on and on… (Not that South Africa is any better – we are the worst polluters on the African continent, producing almost as much greenhouse gas as the rest of the continent combined.) So one would hope that it came as something of a wake-up call to the American people, Bush included, when a recent report concluded that global warming was a bigger threat to world peace than world terrorism.

'Aha,' I can almost hear you saying, 'a Greenpeace report?' No, in fact, a report commissioned by and published by the Pentagon, the United States military headquarters. It is a chilling piece of reportage, coming as it does from the very heart of conservative America, the last place on earth one would expect to find an endorsement of the warnings that have been issued by green activists for years.

The report, written by Pentagon researchers Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, is titled 'An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security.' The authors preface their report with the headline 'Imagining the unthinkable'. And it is worth quoting their preface in full: 'The purpose of this report is to imagine the unthinkable – to push the boundaries of current research on climate change so we may better understand the potential implications on United States national security.

'We have interviewed leading climate change scientists, conducted additional research, and reviewed several iterations of the scenario with these experts. The scientists support this project, but caution that the scenario is extreme in two fundamental ways. First, they suggest that the occurrences we outline would most likely happen in a few regions, rather than globally. Secondly, they say the magnitude of the event may be considerably smaller.

'We have created a climate change scenario that although not the most likely, is plausible, and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately.'

What follows is one of the most devastating documents of our time. Perhaps the most succinct summary of the report is given by Greenpeace New Zealand: 'A world thrown into turmoil by drought, floods, typhoons. Whole countries rendered uninhabitable. The capital of the Netherlands (The Hague) submerged. The US and Australian borders patrolled by armies firing into waves of starving boat people desperate to find a new home. Demands for access to water and farmland backed with nuclear weapons. Sound like the ravings of doom-saying environmental extremists? It's actually from a report commissioned by the Pentagon on how to ready America for the coming climate Armageddon.'

There are perhaps only two groups of people more conservative than the Pentagon when it comes to rash predictions: the Swiss and the insurance industry. So when the world's second-biggest reinsurance company, the Swiss company Swiss Re, also enters the global-warming fray, it is even more reason to sit up and take notice. According to Reuters, in a 4 March 2004 statement, Swiss Re said 'in a report revealing how climate change is rising on the corporate agenda, the economic costs of such disasters threatened to double to US$150 billion a year in 10 years, hitting insurers with $30 billion to $40 billion in claims, or the equivalent of one World Trade Center attack annually.'

The Swiss Re report said that 'there is a danger that human intervention will accelerate and intensify natural climate changes to such a point that it will become impossible to adapt our socio-economic systems in time. The human race can lead itself into this climatic catastrophe – or it can avert it.' Reuters – perhaps the most sober of all world news services – noted that 'the report comes as a growing number of policy experts warn that the environment is emerging as the security threat of the 21st century, eclipsing terrorism. Scientists expect global warming to trigger increasingly frequent and violent storms, heat waves, flooding, tornadoes and cyclones while other areas slip into cold or drought.'

Pamela Heck, Swiss Re's climate expert, told Reuters, 'Scientists tell us that certain extreme events are going to increase in intensity and frequency in the future. Climate change is very much in the mind of the insurance industry.' And if it is in the mind of the insurance industry, and in the minds of the Pentagon, then it should be in the minds of us all.

The Pentagon report is chilling in its scenario projections. The report says that within their 'dire climate scenario', in the next three years severe storms will batter the dykes surrounding the Netherlands, and other key cities will become 'unliveable.' Parts of California will be under water, and by 2010, most of the floating ice in the northern polar seas will have melted.

Megadroughts will hit China and northern Europe, Western Europe will battle to stem the flood of migrants from Scandinavia and Northern Europe as people flee the cold, and from Africa as people flee the heat and the drought. Most of Bangladesh will become uninhabitable because of rising sea levels and floods, turning pretty much entire populations into refugees. The naval forces of China and the US will engage in armed warfare as Saudi Arabia implodes; and there will be a breakdown into civil unrest in South Africa, India and Indonesia.

And then, on top of the Pentagon and Swiss Re reports, earlier this year, British Prime Minster Tony Blair's chief scientist, Sir David King, wrote that America's policy on global warming was more serious than the threat of inter-national terrorism in terms of the potential loss of human life. 'The US government is failing to take up the challenge of global warming,' he wrote. Thus far, I have deliberately cited conservative sources of information. Because when they begin to cry wolf, you know that the wolf already has two paws and a snout inside the door. For years, the neo-conservatives have been ignoring the warning signals. Now their own communities are shouting at them to sit up and take notice. It is time that we all joined that chorus and begin to shout to save our planet for our kids.

Because when it comes to global warming, as with everything else, Africa always comes up short. Our continent is the world's smallest contributor of greenhouse gases after Antarctica and Australia, but we suffer just the same from the excesses of our northern neighbours.

A recent National Botanical Institute report by Dr Guy Midgley, Dr Mike Rutherford (both NBI) and Prof William Bond of the University of Cape Town warned that more than 23 000 indigenous plant species in South Africa were under threat because of climate change.

South Africa has the world's richest botanical treasure trove within its boundaries, including the Cape Floral Kingdom, the world's smallest but most diverse floral kingdom. Our country is also home to the Succulent Karoo Biome, the world's richest treasure trove of succulents.

With current rates of global warming, within 50 to 100 years, the succulent Karoo will have virtually disappeared, subsumed into a desert wasteland. The Fynbos Biome, with more than 8 000 plant species, will suffer mass extinctions, with only the high mountain range species surviving relatively intact.

The 'Mediterranean' climate of the southwest of the Western Cape, which supports soft fruit and wine production, is likely to move out to sea, wiping out these major exports.

The savannah grasslands of areas like the Kruger National Park will suffer major impacts: Mass extinctions of the major mammals are likely to take place.

Add to this the Pentagon report projections that southern Africa will descend into pockets of anarchy and rioting as people fight over scarce resources like food and water, and the future looks grim.

Global warming is not a computer projection – it is the future and the future is already here. We may not be able to stop it, but we can do our damnedest to mitigate its effects. And every individual effort counts, as trivial as they may seem.

WHAT DOES EARTHLIFE AFRICA HAVE TO SAY?
Richard Worthington, Project Co-ordinator of Earthlife Africa's Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Partnership, answered some questions:

What is the Government doing, or not doing, or falling short on? Valuable work is being done – at all three tiers of Government – but it's nowhere near enough. The official response is not commensurate with our status as one of the world's worst climate polluters, particularly when measured on a per capita basis.

The National Climate Change Response Strategy (a policy document currently doing the rounds at relevant departments for finalisation after languishing in limbo for two years), was prepared by a DEAT official who is paid by and on secondment from Eskom – the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in SA.

It appears our response is heavily influenced by the US approach to climate change. For a mere US$5 million in development assistance over a period of at least five years, the US has discernable influence on our positions.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE REST OF AFRICA?
Given that Sub-Saharan Africa is the most vulnerable to the impacts of human-induced climate change, SA's pursuit of purely national interests, both in our domestic response (or rather lack of substantial response) and our role in international negotiations for multilateral agreements to meet the challenges, is not in keeping with the spirit of African renaissance. With the ancient ice cap of Kilimanjaro almost gone, worsening drought and shifting seasons already disrupting agriculture, particularly non-industrialised agriculture on which the majority of Africa depends, Africa faces the prospect of deepening poverty and dependence.

SHOULD THE HUMAN RACE REALLY BE PREPARING FOR DOOMSDAY?
No, we should be working to avert it. The question is whether the majority of people and cultures will survive well into the next century? Radical action is needed urgently to avert mass species' extinctions, loss of the majority of our most fertile land, the immersion of cities, displacement of millions of people and a host of other impacts that are forecast in the high-probability scenarios. A rich elite will have the resources to weather any storm, at least in pockets in industrialised countries, but if weapons of mass destruction are employed in the likely conflicts over resources, even their existence may be less than pleasant.

The good news is that much that should be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have other benefits too: reduction of ambient air pollution (as opposed to atmospheric), which will also reduce the public healthcare bill; reduction of water pollution; avoidance of acid rain and resulting land and crop damage; reduction of dependence on imported oil; and saving water will reduce the drive for building more big dams.

WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENT DOING?
Former Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) Mohammed Valli Moosa is an outspoken champion of the need to reduce emissions that cause global warming. There is no way of telling how his successor, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, will continue his work.

Under Moosa's stewardship, the Department launched a series of studies into global warming and climate change to evaluate South Africa's vulnerability and ability to adapt to that change. And, in tandem with one of the worst polluters and most prolific users of energy and water, the mining industry, he launched a joint initiative to probe ways of reducing energy consumption and help mitigate the major influences on climate change. Tough penalties were introduced for companies guilty of persistent atmospheric pollution, although so far there has been little evidence of action taken against the culprits.

Importantly, he and his department have been champions of the search for alternatives to coal- and nuclear-fired energy-generating plants. Speaking at the launch of an Eskom wind energy pilot farm at Klipheuwel, outside Cape Town, in February last year, Moosa said, 'Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases could be achieved by reducing the demand for energy, altering the way that energy is used or changing the method of generating energy.

Eskom, as one of the largest generators of electricity from coal, should be applauded for deviating from their usual way of generating energy to explore a new and sustainable pattern of energy production. Through this project, Eskom is demonstrating to the people and the world that South Africa is concerned about climate change and wants to do something about it.'

Earlier, in August 2002, Moosa initiated three major climate change projects, the most important probably being the Cities For Climate Protection initiative. The project's aim is to get South Africa's major cities to bring their environmental management policies in line with international best practice for reducing the emission of global-warming gases. The second initiative involves setting up pilot projects throughout South Africa that contrast the dangers of climate change with the positive effects of sustainable development initiatives.

Finally, the department has launched an educational project to educate school kids about the dangers of climate change.

WHAT CAN WE DO TO COUNTER GLOBAL WARMING?
It may seem futile, but every small action taken to reduce consumption of energy contributes to a reduction in greenhouse gases and hence to a reduction in global warming.

We can all do our bit: