Bob Morris Takes On COP 11 (edition 1)

Bob’s COP 11 Dispatch No. 1
Montreal, Dec. 1, 2005-12-02

From the northbound Adirondaker I looked across the broad, charging current of the Hudson to the low hardwood covered banks of the Palisades. The thick forest continued up the steep rock littered slopes at the base of the high cliffs before giving way to the sheer curtain of rock. The forest reappeared on the level cliff top like a hardwood sauce on a giant granite shortcake. Perhaps because of the unusually warm fall we have had, I caught occasional glimpses of the last bright yellows of fall here and there among the otherwise dun winter hue of dead leaves and bare trees this first day of December.

I was on my way to the laboriously named but lightly abbreviated Eleventh Council of Parties to the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (COP 11), so it was natural to muse on the impacts of climate disruption on those hardwoods. Because of the precipitous increase of carbon in the atmosphere due to burning prodigious quantities of gas, coal and oil over the past 160 years the delicate balance that has kept the biosphere stable has been upset. The climate has been pushed by that disruption into an increasing rapid rate of change, including short term extreme weather events and long term alteration of ocean currents, drought and flood cycles, duration and character of seasons. Changes that would otherwise occur over tens and even hundreds of thousands of years are being compressed into centuries and even decades.

Hardwoods don’t adapt all that quickly. As the band of cool, temperate weather with distinct seasons that supports them moves further north, the hardwoods are stuck in place by their long life cycles and slow growth patterns. The beetles and other insects that feed on the bark and trunks of the hardwoods have shorter life cycles and adapt quickly and well to warming temperatures and longer summers. They multiply, overwhelming the relatively static hardwood population. Southern species of pine also have shorter life cycles and adapt well to warmtnh, so they march up eastern North America far more rapidly than the hardwoods, overtaking and displacing them.

How long before we no longer enjoy the colorful and evocative annual cycles of the hardwood forests along the Hudson River and surrounding states? Already there is a noticeable decline in the maples that give autumn its bright reds. Every gallon of gas and shovelful of coal we burn gives another little push to accelerate these changes. On the other hand we can slow and even limit those changes with every gallon of gas and shovelful of coal that we prevent from burning by increasing the energy efficiency of our buildings, stretching the mileage of our cars, developing solar and wind power capacity, using trains or trolleys or bikes or walking instead of driving.

That is the message I am taking to Montreal and hoping to help spread among the decision makers at COP 11. The biggest obstacle to getting these decision makers to make firm plans that will protect our climate and save the hardwoods is the U. S. government. Our government’s plan is to just ask the carbon based industries and other s to develop new technologies and voluntarily “do the right thing” as long as it doesn’t hurt corporate profits. No one actually believes this will happen, but it serves the corporate agenda well by delaying any changes that will reduce the use of gas, coal and oil.

I don’t know how to get my message to the COP 11 decision makers, since I have never been to a conference of this sort. I will do my best to be heard, and you can help. If you will try to get decision makers at home, in schools, in businesses and in government to recognize the need to move to a new energy economy based on clean power and climate protection, then that will increase the chances that those of us in Montreal will be heard. The hardwoods can’t speak for themselves.