What Global Warming means to Northern Michigan

April 19, 2006

More extreme heat days, shorter winters, less ice cover, dissipating inland lakes and those of the Great Lakes, frequent flooding, depressed crop yields, more lake-effect snow, water shortages, increased respiratory diseases, air quality deterioration… this is what global warming can do.
Global warming, also known as climate change, is becoming an ever-present story on the national and 24-hour news programs. And no one is to blame more for climate change than you and me. Driving, lighting, heating, and cooling ourselves is polluting the Earth and raising its temperature.
“Within three decades a summer in Michigan may feel like a summer in Kentucky, and by the end of the century may feel like a summer in Arkansas,” says George Kling, professor of Ecology at the University of Michigan, “For anyone who has felt the heat and humidity of the south, it’s a great way of helping people understand what we’re facing.” 
Kling published, along with Donald Wuebbles, a 2005 executive summary for The Union of Concerned Scientists called: Confronting Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region. In his summary, Kling says by the end of the century temperatures in Michigan will increase 6 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer; with 5 to 10 times more extreme heat days, which are days 97 degrees or higher.

GETTING HOTTER
“Today we have more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than we have at any time in the last 650,000 years of Earth’s history,” Kling says, “The rate is so fast that within the next 100 years humans will have caused as much warming as occurred since the last ice age – 10,000 years ago.”
The Environmental Protection Agency states that there are six main greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change – carbon dioxide being the biggest United States emitter. In 2004, carbon dioxide contributed to 85 percent of United States emissions. Although carbon dioxide has the highest amount of emission, other greenhouse gases are more potent. 
“Carbon dioxide contributes most to the human-induced enhancement of the greenhouse effect, but the other gases trap heat more effectively pound for pound and have a higher global warming potential,” says Jessica L. Emond, EPA deputy press secretary. She says in 2004, three sectors of the U.S. economy: Electricity, Transportation, and Industrial, emitted roughly 80 percent of the greenhouse gases.
Local Traverse City gardener Marianne Lepczyk has noticed changes in her hobby. Having a master’s in geography from Michigan State University, Lepczyk is concerned about climate change in Northern Michigan.
“I have noticed a lengthening of the growing season and the first frost date has moved back, which can be a good thing in a way,” Lepczyk says, “Even the seed catalogues put us in a different zone – we are now in a warmer zone than before.
“One of the things that concerns me is that we are past the point of remedy,” she says, “Or else we are very close to that point”

IGNORING KYOTO
The Kyoto Treaty, which would require caps on greenhouse emissions for many countries, has not been not ratified by the U.S. Emond says President Bush will not sign the protocol because it is bad for U.S. economy and favors developing countries.
“Mandatory approaches to cap emissions of greenhouse gases, like those required by the Kyoto Protocol, do not require developing countries such as India and China to reduce their emissions,” she says, “Implementing Kyoto could shift U.S. jobs and emissions abroad, hurting the U.S. economy. Many people equate ratification of the Kyoto Protocol with the only way to take action against climate change, and this is not true.”
From a national standpoint, Emond says President Bush has pledged to cut U.S. greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent by 2012; and the EPA works with many companies and organizations to meet Bush’s goal. 
“The U.S. is making progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Emond says, “In part by encouraging common-sense energy efficiency conservation measures.”
(Note: some disagree: “Time” magazine rates the President’s progress on controlling greenhouse gas and his broken campaign pledge to control carbon output in the U.S. as “dismal.” -- ed.)
Aside from buying a hybrid car, and converting to solar energy, people can reduce their greenhouse ‘footprint’ by becoming more environmentally conscious and using common sense. Kling says using energy efficient household appliances, replacing regular light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs, recycling, avoiding waste, driving less, and simply turning off the lights when leaving a room can make a difference.
“By not saving any energy has reflected on the world,” Kling says, “We are going to have to deal with what we’ve done to the Earth.”

Leah Singer is Promotions Director at WKLT-FM.


Where Greenhouse Gases Come From:

Electricity: 33 percent of total U.S. emissions

Transportation: 27.6 percent of total U.S. emissions

Industrial: 19.5 percent of total U.S. emissions

Agriculture: 6.9 percent

Commercial: 6.5 percent

Residential: 5.5 percent