NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:Tell us what you’re doing to combat global warming

During the past week, we saw fire on Catalina, domoic acid poisonings along the coast in north Orange County and red tides in south Orange County. And it isn’t even summer yet. We certainly live in interesting times.

A record number of fires are burning in Florida, Georgia and Minnesota. Tropical storms are forming before hurricane season officially starts. Tornadoes are ripping apart the Midwest. And the Mississippi River is flooding out residents, businesses and farms.

On Monday, rapidly rising storm waters swept two people to their deaths in Denver. As we write this, storms bringing damaging rain, winds, hail and the possibility of tornadoes are raging through Illinois and Missouri. But unfortunately for the fire-ravaged and drought-stricken Southeast, the storm is expected to provide little moisture to that area.

The world is rapidly changing, and from our perspective the change isn’t good. Global climate change is affecting every corner of the world. Record drought is bringing record fires, and our fire season hasn’t even started yet.

Unfortunately, some people look at an average change in temperature of one degree and pooh-pooh the effect. But it isn’t just one degree of temperature change. That’s only the long-term climate average. The problem is that our weather doesn’t change by one degree. It goes up 10 degrees warmer than average on some days and plunges well below average on others. Instead of a mere one-degree rise in temperature, we get rapid changes that are destabilizing our climate. These changes range from heat waves that kill people by the tens of thousands to deep freezes that spell trouble for crops and livestock. Just last week, a tiger in the wild died of heat stroke in Bangladesh. We’re seeing the world become more and more inhospitable to life as we know it.

Look at the weather we’ve had here in Huntington Beach the past few months. This winter we had incredibly cold temperatures, at least for here. We saw very few topsmelt at Bolsa Chica. And the cold killed laurel sumac shrubs all over Orange County’s foothills.

Then we got unseasonably warm weather early in the spring. With this extreme fluctuation in temperature, the fruit trees in our yard went bonkers. They didn’t know if it was spring or fall. One of our peach trees bloomed in January and two of our fruit trees still haven’t leafed out. Our trees that did bloom appropriately found few bees to pollinate the flowers. For us, this weather merry-go-round is merely a topic of conservation, but for agriculture and the natural environment, global climate change could spell disaster.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report in April that predicted an increasing number of weather-related extremes that includes hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires. Some prediction. It’s already happening. But what they’re saying is that we ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s going to get worse. We’re going to have more of these events, and they’re going to be even more extreme.

In February, this same panel of 2,000 scientists warned that even if we put the brakes on carbon emissions now, there is a 50% chance that it is already too late to stop the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from melting. If they do melt, ocean levels could rise six to 13 feet. Hmmm. Our house sits about 6 feet above current sea level. And it’s at a relatively high elevation for our town.

So what is the response to this threat? Are TV newscasters making a hue and cry for reducing the greenhouse gases that are causing the global climate catastrophe? No; it seems that some people are more concerned with whether Paris Hilton is going to jail. Science is too hard to understand. Paris Hilton. Drunk driving. Jail. Easy to understand.

The federal government really doesn’t seem to want us to do anything about reducing greenhouse gases. The government collects taxes on gasoline, so the more we use, the more it makes. Also, the Bush administration is closely aligned with the oil industry. It certainly has no interest in solving the global-warming crisis. It’s easier to confuse the public by saying that scientists don’t agree. It’s easier to stifle government reports and have political appointees change scientific reports for political reasons.

But realistically, what can we do? Hybrid-engine cars are priced about $7,000 higher than comparable vehicles. The savings in cost of gasoline won’t offset the higher price.

If the government were really serious about combating global climate change, there would be rebates and incentives for buying higher gas mileage vehicles. It would probably be cheaper than paying for all the damage caused by fires, flooding and storms.

This is Bike-to-Work week. That would certainly help reduce consumption of gasoline if it were practical. But for most people, it isn’t.

Perhaps we should all look at how we might best do our bit to help reduce consumption of fossil fuels. Small steps include bicycling if you can, combining errands, buying foods grown as locally as possible and reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfills so that fewer trips are needed.

There is no one thing that will fix this problem, but many people are taking action in various ways.

We want to hear from you about the steps you are taking to help combat global climate change. We’ll build a future column on your responses.

When it’s 110 degrees outside, food prices have gone through the roof due to climate-related crop catastrophes and the waves are lapping at our doorsteps, we predict that no one will care about Paris Hilton.