The Phone Is Ringing Now. Who Will Answer It?

On the campaign trail, the presidential candidates have been debating who is best qualified to answer the White House emergency hotline in the middle of the night in a crisis. The debate presumes that the next crisis will be another armed attack on the U.S.

But the phone is ringing now. The next crisis is already here. Only it is not another armed attack by violent extremists. It is a much bigger threat. It is a threat not just to the U.S., but to all of humanity – far bigger than al Qaeda, Iran, and North Korea combined. Dangerous climate change, if unchecked now, will make today’s security challenges seem small compared the mounting crises that humanity will likely face by mid-century and beyond.

Climate change is threatening human security today. The Guardian reports all but one of the thirteen disaster emergencies handled by the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs in 2007 were weather-related: extreme floods, droughts, and storms. Relief officials see a rising trend in weather-related disasters, and they believe climate change is driving it. The UN Development Programme estimates that developing countries may soon need as much as $86 billion annually in extra aid – in addition to development aid - to address the harmful effects of climate change.

Recent earth observations – such as the recent collapse of a large chunk of the Wilkins ice sheet in Antarctica - indicate that the ice in the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, and portions of Antarctica may be melting much faster than previously thought. This may cause the climate to warm and sea levels to rise even faster than the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated as recently as last year.

In the decades ahead, tens of millions living near sea level may be forced from their homes by rising seas and increasingly intense storms. New Orleans is still struggling to recover from the effects of such a storm more than two years ago.

More than one fifth of the world’s population depends for food and water security upon water from melting mountain snow packs and glaciers. The snow packs are now melting earlier each year, and the glaciers are disappearing rapidly. In the Western U.S., a recent study published in Science warns of “water shortages, lack of storage capability to meet seasonally changing river flow, transfers of water from agriculture to urban uses, and other critical impacts” in the near future due to climate change.

“If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 [parts per million] to at most 350 ppm,” according to climate scientists James Hansen, et al. To avoid “irreversible catastrophic effects,” the U.S. and other countries must dramatically and quickly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

The Earth is calling. When will the President pick up? President Bush clearly missed the call last week in his speech from the White House Rose Garden. He called for freezing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 – hardly an action plan.

We have seen how the president and Congress can mobilize the nation in response to a crisis. After September 11, 2001, they mobilized millions of people, redirected the missions of federal agencies, moved armies around the world, and spent hundreds of billions of dollars in pursuit of national security.

Where are they now on climate change – a far more profound threat? What will the next Congress and President do? When will they answer the phone? The Earth is calling.