Climate Change and consequences, example Costa Rica
People are already accustomed to the daily horror news about the climate change. The IPCC Report 2007 is informing about dramatic prognosis with a temperature increase of 6, 4 degrees Celsius and an elevation of the ocean level of 59 cm if worst comes to worst. Even still in this century the ocean level could rise to up to 140 cm, believes the German climate researcher and ocean expert Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Research on the Consequences of Climate (PIK). Devastating storm tides and flooding might be the consequence. NASA Investigator Hansen and others believe that we are facing terrible events. Nobody really knows what will happen, doesn’t want or is not allowed to say it, or explains that we have always experienced unavoidable physical consequences due to global warming.
Namely the last one, approximately 20.000 years ago at the peak of the last ice age. Back then the ocean level was120 meters below the current level; the climate was global and the temperature was 4 to 7 degrees colder than nowadays.
It seems that humankind will not be able to avoid the increase of the earth’s atmosphere. The person who believes that humankind is seriously trying to stop the greenhouse effect is an idiot. If we wanted to avoid an increase of the concentration of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere we would have to reduce the emission by a total of 60 percent. "This is simply impossible“, said the Director of the UNO Environment Programmed (UNEP), Achim Steiner, not long ago. It was too late to stop the global warming entirely. And if we have a look at the UNO Kyoto-Protocol on the reduction of global greenhouse gases we will see that India and China, which together pose a third of the human population, did not subscribe to this contract and the USA simply ignored it.
The augurs of the climate change are visible to any mortal when looking at the current climate phenomena. Whether the mysterious death of bees in the USA that ascends to a two-digit number in the billions can be attributed to the climate change is not clear. Bees also pollinate more than 90 different vegetable and fruit varieties. Apples, nuts, avocadoes, soy beans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers will probably become scarce without bees. In Germany the crocus blossoms in February and Greenland cultivates potatoes and Broccoli.
In Costa Rica it is raining less due to the El Niño phenomenon which is caused by the warming of the Pacific Ocean. And the growing temperature of the Pacific Ocean also causes an increase of the algae population which this year produced an extraordinarily high concentration of poison. More than 500 dead pelicans were found at the Pacific Ocean. And also were found at the coast of California hundreds of dead birds, sea lions and dolphins. The animals showed traces of poisoning with demonic acid which attacks the nervous system and the brain. Human beings are able to absorb the poison when eating poisoned fish or mussels.
According to news agencies the rain falls in Costa Rica, Guanacaste decreased by 28% in 2007 with regard to 2006, at the Caribbean it was a 16% drop. Because of this, severe electricity supply problems arose. In the news of Costa Rica Guanacaste, it was announced that the electricity was to be cut off at national level for 2 hours daily between April 23 and May 5, because the water level of the water resources of the power plants were not high enough in order to produce sufficient electricity. On May 5, the Electricity Institute of Costa Rica decided to suspend the power cut-offs because luckily it had rained quite a lot during those last days.
In the province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica, we have been able to observe the climate change over these past 15 years. During the first 10 years the rain falls stopped at the end of October, beginning of November. The first rain falls normally started with the first change of moon in May. Nowadays you can experience rain in January or February, but all in all just too little.
Once it’s too late and the global warming cannot be avoided anymore we will concentrate on the consequences. The oil companies once again made a huge profit this year and with regard to the consequences of the climate change they are already planning on how to exploit the article territories that are still no reachable as of yet.
Rainer Potting is Owner of the Internet newspaper
news of Costa Rica, Guanacaste and the Travel Site
Travel Hotel Costa Rica, Guanacaste and lives in Costa Rica for more than 10 years.
Rainer Potting
mariann1[at]racsa.co.cr