Commentary: Numbers Add Up To A Strained Future

For 48 years I've lived in a mixed marriage. My husband is a math/physics person, and I am an English/humanities person, but we cross over on an as-needed basis. He enjoys the concrete nature of numbers and is frustrated by the changing dynamics of language, while math just plain confounds me. Generally, we respect the other's territories and the twains manage to co-exist.

"Do the math" has certainly been a term that, as an environmentalist, I have adopted in explaining some issues, probably because when math teams up with science, arguments can be formidable. It takes the humanities, however, to convey why things matter, and what they mean emotionally, politically and economically, the human values behind the numeric values.

The greatest threat to life as we've known it throughout human existence is expressed easily in the number 350. From what climate scientists understand about temperature and its effect on the plants we depend on for food, wood, fuel and oxygen, they can determine the weather conditions when plants will thrive or wither. When the atmosphere around us reached 350 parts per million of carbon molecules, we had seriously passed the 275 parts per million atmosphere that brought civilizations into being. We passed 400 parts per million this April. Projections are we are adding 2 parts per million of carbon to the atmosphere every year. Doing carbon math points to unsustainable food production and its horrific consequences.

Rolling Stone's article in July 2012, "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math," by Bill McKibben lines out numbers we must begin to grasp. The worst, 2,795 gigatons, "describes the amount of carbon already contained in proven coal, oil, and gas reserves ... [which] we're currently planning to burn." That is five times the amount projected that could cook global agriculture to a crisp.

Can numbers change anything? Our Congress alternates between gridlock and more gridlock, and members have shown little interest and pitiful intellect in climate matters. It has become clear citizens must visually show them a lot of numbers that will hopefully be as impressive as their campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industries.

Organizers of the People's Climate March on Sept 21 in New York City dreamed that perhaps 100,000 people might show up. However, crowd spotters have estimated that between 200,000 and 400,000 people were there, filling the street route for four miles. In addition, climate rallies occurred in 2,600-plus locations across the globe to demand world leaders gathering at the United Nations Climate Summit after the march stop their foot-dragging and act on firm global policy.

The lead group in the New York march was made up of people already affected by climate change. They live, or once lived, in low-lying island nations and along coastlines, or have been victims of huge storms like Sandy and Katrina in the U.S. and Yolanda in the Philippines, which cost lives and billions of dollars in losses, serious math indeed. Scientific American's online slide show of 10 places where great changes are occurring is also full of climate math, including an estimate that by 2050, floods, droughts and famine will turn 250 million people into climate change refugees pushing for homes somewhere else. If California's two-year drought continues, we may start seeing the west moving north and east very soon.

Climate math matters politically because it impacts power brokers and profiteers. Unfortunately, some of the major media outlets in the U.S.A., either out of a pervasive head-in-the-sand syndrome or from a conflict of interest with corporate ownership, chose not to report on this march's show of human numbers. Whatever the reason, I can report that two busloads from Arkansas carrying 112 passengers went to that march.

There is power in numbers, emotional as well as physical power. One friend who was there described the mood of resolve she felt at one point. "There was a two-minute moment of silence for the people who are suffering because of climate change. It was scheduled for 11:58 before noon, and it was pretty remarkable. There was so much commotion of people up to that point, and then a hush started with fists upraised. When it was over, a roar went up that totally filled the canyon of buildings. It was one of those 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore' moments. If that energy and voice can be harnessed, we may get somewhere."

That somewhere we get to is not going to be pretty unless we deal with the math in front of us right now.

FRAN ALEXANDER IS A FAYETTEVILLE RESIDENT WITH A LONGSTANDING INTEREST IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND AN OPINION ON ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE.

Commentary on 10/05/2014

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