Only 15% of Republicans see a pressing need to deal with climate change. (NBC News Poll, 12/31/2018). To the 85% of Republicans who think climate change is not impacted by humans, you need to understand glacier change.
Glaciers matter because the amount of ice on land determines the level of water in the seas. We know water levels on Earth have varied dramatically in the past with information obtained by advancements in our ability to analyze rocks and fossils.
Numerous times sea levels dropped, then rose, then dropped again, perhaps in response to the retreat and advance of polar ice and glaciers. (1)
If all the land-based glaciers melted, the US Geological Society estimates ocean levels would rise by 265 feet, flooding every coastal city on the planet. (2)
Imagine the suffering unleashed on a world where sea life undergoes mass death, or agricultural output is suddenly halved. What of the millions of square miles of the most productive farmland that will be flooded, the seaports drowned, the livelihoods lost? Imagine the suffering of a billion displaced and homeless humans. (3)
Glaciers on land are melting around the globe. Numerous scientific studies have documented this melting. Will the melt continue?
Perhaps eight separate times in the past three million years, ice spread from the poles to cover vast swaths of the high latitudes, reaching as far south as the upper Midwest. These cycles are related to the variations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun, including our planet's tilt, its elliptical orbit, and a slight wobble in its rotation axis, impose periods of climate change with intervals of roughly twenty, forty-one, and one-hundred-thousand years. (4) (Milankovitch cycle)
What is different this time, then the last eight times?
Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide—the most dangerous and prevalent greenhouse gas—are at the highest levels ever recorded. Greenhouse gas levels are so high primarily because humans have released them into the air by burning fossil fuels. The gases absorb solar energy and keep heat close to Earth's surface, rather than letting it escape into space. That trapping of heat is known as the greenhouse effect. (5)
Greenhouse gasses are causing the Earth to heat up much faster than the natural cycle. How soon could this ice melting cause havoc with humans on Earth? The National Academy of Science published a report (May-2019) that sea levels are rising much faster than previously estimated. It was due to the accelerated melting of ice sheets in both Greenland and Antarctica. The study warns oceans could rise almost seven feet by the end of the century.
This rise in water would drown major cities like London and Hamburg and displace up to 187 million people worldwide. (6)
In the United States, a six-foot rise in sea level would put lower Manhattan underwater. Miami, New Orleans and other low-lying cities in the Florida Panhandle and Gulf of Mexico regions would disappear. (6)
In 2100, my grandchildren's children will be about fifty-five years old. The current generations ability (or inability) to slow down dramatically, CO2 emissions into the atmosphere will have a significant impact on the quality of their lives and all other humans and animals on Earth.
Sources:
(1) Robert Hazen, The Story of Earth, (Penguin Books, 2012), p 241.
(2) www.usgs.gov
(3) Robert Hazen, p 281.
(4) Robert Hazen, p 274.
(5) Carbon dioxide levels are at a record high. Here's what you need to know, National Geographic, May 13, 2019
(6) Scott Snowden, Greenland's Massive Ice Melt Wasn't Suppose to Happen Until 2070, Forbes.com, Aug. 16, 2019