Climate Change and Consciousness: The Fast Track with Dr. Paul
Epstein
By Owen Lipstein
When we contacted Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of
the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, for
this interview, he graciously accepted and asked if we could talk the next day.
As homework, he suggested, read our 150-page report on climate change. And a
couple other things. We asked for a little extra time. When speaking with the
Dr. Epsteins of the world, a topic like American Health becomes almost irrelevant
because he is always talking about everything — he sees the connections most of
us miss, and he has a lifetime of research to back them up. So while the topic
of our conversation was chillin, his generous intelligence was heartwarming
InsideOut: How did you get into this?
Paul Epstein: I worked in Africa in the 1970s for a couple of
years and then came back and went to public health school, and started thinking
about systems in the body and ecological and global systems. That's how I got
really interested in studying climate.
IO: One of the big premises of your report, Climate Change
Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions, is that climate is changing
faster than what we have been told, and that the speed at which it is changing
could arguably be accelerating. Can you expand on that?
PE: Sure. Carbon dioxide traps outgoing heat in the
atmosphere, and we measure that level. It's now 380 parts per million, and for
over 700,000 years, maybe even 2,000,000 years, it's been between 180 and 280 parts
per million. So we are way outside that envelope. At 180, we had large icecaps,
at 280 we had medium-sized icecaps, and now we are headed toward small icecaps
as we go higher. The key here is that while that level is 380, if we factor in
all of the green-house gases, not just carbon dioxide, but methane and nitrogen
oxide and CFCs [chlorofluorocarbons] and aerosols, we're actually at a level
close to 460 parts per million of global warming potential or carbon dioxide
equivalent. In other words, our models are driven by that 380 number, but we're
actually much higher than that in terms of the heat-trapping gases. That may
help explain why things are happening so much faster than we thought. The most
striking part of that is that ice in Greenland and West Antarctica is melting
much faster than we projected a few years ago. In fact, some of the outlet
glaciers are going twice as fast as they were going just five years ago. We're
not talking trivial amounts. [They were] going about five miles a year, and now
some of them are going closer to nine or 10.
IO: We are almost used to looking at a statistical model, but
maybe that isn't right. What you are talking about is accelerating changes.
PE: Exactly. You are absolutely right. There are statistical
models and even dynamic models, but both of them are inadequate, because once
things start to change, they can change fast. They can change state. Our models
are unable to project and unable to model accurately these phase-state changes.
IO: Please talk about some of these "worst-case
scenarios" because I think it is important for people to be told by
non-horror movie sources some of the truly scary things that are now in the
realm of possibility.
PE: OK, there are two parts to this story. One is in the
climate system itself, [where] there can be sudden abrupt changes. The other is
in the impacts for forests and coral reefs [where] there can also be abrupt
changes, and that's what we really went at for the first time. In terms of the
climate system itself, the things that are of concern are slippage of Greenland
and West Antarctic ice. There is a conveyor belt in the oceans that involves
the Gulf Stream and as it moves north, it sinks, and that circulation of the
whole ocean keeps climates stable for thousands of years. It's possible, and
some models do project, that [the belt] could lip and go straight across to
France instead of up to England, and that would mean much colder temperatures
in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as affecting winds and precipitation
patterns in Europe and the Northeast.
IO: Would a slippage of this much ice be an event as opposed
to a process?
PE: We know from the records that changes can occur within a
few years. Your question is absolutely right. Systems can change all of a
sudden. This is a big conveyor belt. Whether it would be over months or years,
we don't know, but it is certainly within a number of years and under a decade
where things can start to change and then flip back and then all of a sudden
change. This is not projected anytime immediate, but it is projected for much
later on in the century. However there are changes going on now that suggest
that we're ahead of schedule.
IO: In terms of what you read in The New Yorker or The New
York Times, this seems slightly grimmer than other reports. Would you agree?
PE: Yes, what we did in this report was to actually look at
agricultural systems, forests, marine systems, and particularly coral reefs.
While a lot of the attention has been on the abrupt changes in climate itself,
there is also the potential for changes in forests and coral reefs - in other
words, habitat on land and habitat at sea.
IO: Can you talk about the effects of climate change on such
things as lime disease and malaria, and the health impacts?
PE: There are two parts of the health impact on infectious
disease. One is how the warming affects the range at which they can occur. The
other is how the extreme weather events affect the timing and intensity of
outbreaks. For malaria and dengue fever, for instance, web are seeing the
mosquitoes higher in the mountains of Africa, Latin America, and Asia. That's
precisely where we are seeing glaciers retreat and plant communities
upward-migrate. Temperatures, glaciers, plants, and mosquitoes are all moving
up in the mountains, and that's the most sensitive indicator. We are also
seeing changes occur after flooding, where we get mosquito-borne diseases,
waterborne diseases, and sometimes rodent-borne diseases as they are driven from
their burrows. In this country, the most vector-borne disease, which means that
something carries it, is Lyme disease, which is carried by the deer ticks.
Winter and nighttime temperatures are going up twice as fast as overall warming
since 1970. It is the overwintering during warm winters that allows the ticks,
and bark beetles for trees, to remain viable through the winter and [live
through] four generations.
IO: Our readers live in the Hudson River Valley. How are
their lives going to be changed, and what can they do about it?
PE: I refer you to a Union of Concerned Scientists report [that]
was just released in July. There they look at tourism and skiing conditions
that may be [less favorable] because more winter precipitation is falling as
rain than snow. There are agricultural issues that [are] affecting the hemlock
trees. So this something that can affect habitat for deer, and moose, and
stream quality and so on. The key is changing our [personal] energy consumption.
This can help drive markets and create jobs in areas for solar and wind [power
production], and batteries, and [other] smart technologies.
IO: One of the things your report does is actually attempt
to deal with the insurability and business consequences of climate changes.
PE: There have been huge losses because of hurricanes and
flooding. These affect people's lives, forests, and tourism, and also lead to
major business interruptions that [affect] insurance companies and investors.
There is actually a large shift [happening] on Wall Street. CitiGroup has been
the largest to step up to the plate, putting 50 billion dollars over 10 years
toward renewable energies and clean technologies.
IO: We are going to see whole parts of our county almost
uninsurable if we have another set of hurricanes like the ones we've been
seeing, so the solutions seem to be slow-motion and the scarier scenarios seem
to be right here. Am I an alarmist here?
PE: No, I think you are absolutely on target.
IO: But it requires national will.
PE: I think that national will is going to come. It's going
to be with us as we go into the next presidency but I am also afraid we won't
do this fast enough to really protect ourselves, so I am with you on that.
IO: What about the places that we can’t change, such as
China?
PE: First of all there is this whole discussion [about how]
China is doing more than we are now about climate change. Unbeknownst to us,
they are [giving] their cars [higher fuel-efficiency standarda] than we have;
they are trying to deal with their urban pollution from burning their coal and
oil. At the same time, they are making a lot more coal-fired plants.
IO: Are you personally optimistic?
PE: I am optimistic that consciousness is changing very
fast.
