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<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western"> This is the text of my
most recent column. It is scheduled to run on Friday, Nov. 11.<br>
____<br>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">When at the Morgan Hill Library, I
normally scan the new books section looking for something
interesting. The last time I did this, I discovered <i>The
World in 2050</i>, a look at the future by Laurence C. Smith,
Professor of Geography at UCLA. It is an easy read, but I
frequently had to put it aside to think about what I had just
read. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Smith set out to write a book about
the way climate change affects the extreme northern portions of
our planet. But his many conversations, especially with
indigenous people of the North, convinced him that he needed to
broaden his scope. The result is a sobering anticipation of what
this world will be like in 2050. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">According to Professor Smith, four
primary forces are changing the world for all of us: population
growth, resource depletion, climate change and globalization. It
makes sense to look at them in that order. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">The population of Earth has just
reached 7 billion. some are thinking long and hard about how we
are going feed all of them. We see drought and famine in the
Horn of Africa now and most of us appear to be bystanders to
that unfolding tragedy. Many had died. More have take to the
road to escape this tragedy. But the facts are that we are
adding the population of the United States every 4 years. By
2050, there will be 9 billion people, not 7. We will have added
another China and the task of feeding them will be much harder.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Population growth will not be
distributed evenly. While most countries will see their
populations increase, a few, notably Japan, Russia, Korea,
Germany and Italy are projected to experience a population
decline. In the case of Japan, perhaps 20%. Almost all of the
growth will be urban. In 2008, for the first time, more people
lived in an urban rather than a rural setting. Fewer will be
providing their own food, but will buy food imported from
somewhere near or far. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">All of those people will need new
urban facilities to be built. New buildings, new transportation
infrastructure, new things, perhaps even new parks. What
resources will be required and at what cost? We already copper
prices so high that people risk death to cut the copper from
live electrical facilities. At current usage rates the earth has
only a 35 year supply of copper in proven reserves. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Clearly, oil and coal will not be
around forever and yet we are continuously exhorted to use it up
as quickly as we can. You can not listen even to PBS without
hearing an advertisement urging us to drill for more oil,
exploit the tar sands of Alberta, hold our breaths waiting for
clean coal to become a reality, and all in the hope of
generating more jobs. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">In California, as well as most urban
centers around the world, we will see an increasingly expensive
bid to control our water. It is the one thing that we can not
live without, </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">The climate change genie is out of
its bottle and there is no apparent desire to stuff it back in.
We know that temperatures are warming. We see the results with
great regularity as the world is buffeted with a series of
deadly storms, each driven to increased intensity by our
changing climate. So far in 2011, the US has had 14 weather
events costing us over $1 Billion each with the April 25/30
super outbreak of tornadoes costing over $9 Billion. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">We are beginning to see the
development of a new climate paradigm in the Mediterranean.
Greece has experienced 10 years without normal winter rains.
Focused on the current financial crisis there, we lose sight of
the ecological crisis underway.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Big changes in climate will create
climate refugees. We already see this beginning in Africa, where
Somalian refugees are flooding into Kenya. Can any country
absorb these refugees into its own growing population? The UN
expects that there will be over 100 million who need to move,
some to escape drought as in Somalia, others to escape sea level
rise in Vietnam's Mekong Delta or Bangladesh; </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">It is still our decision whether we
can avert the worst of these problems. It appears that the US is
quite willing to do nothing. </p>
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