Those holding beachfront property that they plan to pass on to their heirs may want to reconsider their plans. Several studies released by climatologists and glaciologists over the past week suggest that sea levels are going to rise by much more than the 4 feet already forecast by the latest report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the United Nations body responsible for collating information about our planet’s changing climate.
If the new reports are correct, mankind could be facing a 4- to 10-foot rise in the oceans by 2100, just 86 years from now.
The first two papers, published in the journals Science and Geophysical Research Letters, report that the West Antarctic ice sheet is headed, in the words of the study’s authors, toward “unstoppable” collapse after hitting what the journal authors say is a “point of no return” from which the massive segment of the continental ice sheet cannot recover. This is dire news because the vast glaciers that comprise the shelf are mostly located on land, meaning their melt will directly impact sea levels by depositing their released water into the oceans. By itself, the West Antarctic ice shelf holds enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by approximately 10 to 13 feet.
But it doesn’t stop there. Another new study released a couple of days later examines the fate of Greenland’s glaciers on the opposite end of the Earth. This study, published by Nature Geoscience,found that glaciers — like those found on the mainland and now in Antarctica, too — are extremely fragile things. A combination of warmer weather, ice melt and warmer oceans are destabilizing the massive blocks of ice. This is allowing them to split more into the sea and send more water into the surrounding ocean. Greenland’s ice alone contains enough water to increase sea levels by 20 feet.
Altogether, if both great ice sheets collapse and melt into nothing in the centuries ahead, mankind is looking at a combined 30- to 33-foot rise in sea levels from this loss of ice alone sometime in the distant future. One may scoff at such far off doomsaying. After all, what claim does the future have on our present happiness? How do we really know this is going to happen? And even if we do, why should unborn generations ahead have any claim on our economic well-being today — especially given the amount of poverty that still exists around the world and here at home?
Well, a little perspective may be needed. While none of us alive today are going to see this catastrophe first-hand, our children and grandchildren will be seeing the beginnings of it. If climate change were a movie, our generation would get only the trailers for coming attractions, but our immediate descendants would see the first few minutes play out up close and personal. By the end of this century, the combined ice melt from these glaciers — especially those in Antarctica — will contribute to at least a 4-foot rise in sea levels. Combined with the rise already forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, then — through the magical power of math — that gets us an increase of at least 8 feet by 2100.
Eight feet in 86 years is a frightening prospect, and if you believe in a higher power, you should be praying to her or him that the scientists are wrong. To see why, try mapping current coastlines and population centers against where future coastlines are expected to be. New Orleans, threatened by a mere 1-foot increase in sea levels, would be completely washed away. Miami would see nearly 40 percent of its people displaced. Fourteen percent of the land area of Charleston, S.C., would be under water. In New York City, there would be nearly 800,000 people under water and Superstorm Sandy-like storm surges could occur every couple of years. Even the heart of the American oil industry, Houston, will see its beloved outlying Galveston surrendered to the sea.
All this, mind you, is just in the United States. Consider low-lying Bangladesh and its teeming millions — where will they go when average storms turn most of their country into an impassable swamp? Likewise in Egypt, where most of the Nile Delta and Egypt’s huge population will be flooded — where will they go and who will pay for them to move? Will the people living wherever they go welcome them or be able to pay for all the services the influx of climate refugees will inevitably require?
These, it should not be noted, are not idle questions, and the mere fact that we could be seeing a real impact of climate change in just 86 years is chilling. Eighty-six years is the amount of time between the outbreak of the First World War — the centennial of which we are marking this year — and the end of the last century. Some people from that time were still alive in 2000, and with medical science ever advancing, many alive today — those in their 20s and younger certainly, but less certain for us older folks in our 30s and 40s — will live to see these changes and witness the losses of places like New Orleans.
Change is coming and those looking ahead know it. So, it should not surprise us that the political and economic battle over paying for climate change’s inevitable costs has started, too. While the fossil fuel industry has stuck to the polluters’ playbook of deny, obfuscate, lie, and lobby to deflect public concern, political responsibility and financial liability away from the documented harm their products will inevitably — and, indeed, already are — causing us, environmentalists and those concerned about the implications of climate change should take heart. A new and much more powerful ally than a mere politician or the infant renewable energy industry has now entered the fray — and it’s bigger, meaner and more powerful than anyone else.
That entrant into the arena is the insurance industry, a titanic force in the global economy that commonly takes in nearly $2 trillion a year in non-life insurance premiums and other business payments alone, which doubles to over $4 trillion once life insurance payments and the re-insurance industry are taken into account. In comparison, companies in the United States involved in the fossil fuel industry made a paltry $271 billion in profits in 2012. While not exactly comparable, it’s nonetheless clear that when push comes to shove, insurers have just as much muscle, if not more, than the much-feared fossil fuel lobby.
And pushing, it seems, is exactly what they are about to do. On the heels of these depressing scientific assessments of future sea level rises comes news that Farmers Insurance Group, a major U.S. insurer, has filed lawsuits against several Chicago-area governments for not preparing for the damage caused by extreme weather brought on by climate change. Quite straightforwardly, Farmers argues that by ignoring scientific evidence that climate change is creating more and more deadly types of extreme weather, local governments — and by implication, all governments — are creating a situation in which companies like Farmers face increased loss and financial damage from an avoidable risk created and sustained by government inaction.
This is an unprecedented action taken by the industry and will be watched closely by all involved. Why Farmers should want to do this is easy to understand, given the huge costs associated with extreme weather events that companies like Farmers are ultimately on the hook for. Indeed, such costs have long been known and discussed by the industry, yet none within it had taken any meaningful action to address it. None, that is, until Farmers recently filed its suits. Of course, the outcomes of the suits are not yet known, but by serving notice to governments and communities that insurers recognize the danger posed by climate change and that costs will be attached to ignoring these dangers, Farmers is an opening salvo between two industries — “Big Fossil Fuel” and insurers — that will shape the political and economic discourse on the subject going forward.
Farmers says in their ads that “what you don’t know can hurt you,” but in their suits they’re explicitly saying something even more important: knowing something will hurt you and not doing anything about it is the height of irresponsibility.
As our climate continues to change due to global warming caused by man, we would do well to take that advice to heart and work with our new allies in the global insurance industry to reduce the damage caused by what science, in overwhelming numbers, tells us is coming. We owe it to our children, grandchildren and — for those few of us still alive in 86 years — ourselves.