Climate is urgent issue

? Like a monster movie, climate change casts an ominous, larger-than-life shadow. The American Museum of Natural History’s special exhibition (www.amnh. org/exhibitions/climatechange) depicts it well. After witnessing such dramatic images of searing heat, melting ice, unusually powerful storms, rising seas and other devastating occurrences, it would be impossible for anyone to ignore or minimize the seriousness of the situation.

At the same time, “Climate Change: The Threat to Life and a New Energy Future” leaves you with a sense of optimism. It suggests practical solutions, and offers options for meeting global energy demands and reducing emissions. The task of making the right policy choices in this area will join the growing list of challenges for the incoming Obama administration. Fortunately, President-elect Barack Obama has kept a watchful eye on the environment and climate change, and has assembled a skilled, savvy team of advisers.

Still, it is worth emphasizing that climate change has a unique sense of urgency attached to it. Unresolved, it could pose the worst danger of all to humankind. Consider that the terrifying impacts mentioned above make up just the first wave of disruption. After the heat sears, the ice melts, the storms unleash their fury and the seas rise, people — from those in individual communities to entire national populations — will have to contend with massive migration, more widespread diseases, shortages of all kinds, civil violence and wars.

For more advice on what we might do, I turned to environmentalist Peter Pritchard, a turtle and tortoise specialist, who was named a “Hero of the Planet” by Time magazine. As head of the Chelonian Research Institute, he travels extensively and has an especially astute finger on the pulse of the Earth.

Pritchard recommended that the Obama administration take a leadership role by:

l Continuing to study climate change, which is not fully understood. It is so colossal and complicated — and so much a mixture of both natural (forest fires and volcanic eruptions) and artificially produced (the burning of fossil fuels) phenomena — that we need persistent efforts by the best brains to get a better handle on it.

l Preparing Americans for the realities to come. After centuries of pumping carbon into the atmosphere, we should brace ourselves for the possibility that climate change is already too entrenched for organized human action to reverse it. We should not delude ourselves. At best, we may be looking at a partial fix, not a complete one.

l Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. We clearly were able to make adjustments in our personal use during recent months when the price of gasoline skyrocketed. In actuality, we could routinely get around in much smaller and lighter vehicles. In addition, we could replace fossil fuels with a wide spectrum of alternatives. These range from other sources of energy, such as wind, wave, nuclear (with appropriate safeguards), solar and truly clean coal (if that is possible), to walking, bicycling and designing towns differently.

l Rethinking the way that we develop our coastlines. Americans, along with people everywhere, have often had commercial and recreational motivations for building their seaside communities. For example, we have treated barrier islands as if they were secure, rather than a defense for the more stable land behind them. Despite the inevitable resistance, we should greatly reduce — if not entirely stop — building in areas that are essentially impossible to protect from rising seas and intensifying storms.

l Re-evaluating our national security culture. We have been dismally behind the curve for a number of years now, continuing to believe that warfare can resolve difficult questions or disputes. By now, we should have learned that conducting long-distance wars is too expensive in terms of lives and resources. Why not look to Europe for inspiration? It opted to create a union and has managed to avoid war within that structure thus far. That achievement represents quite an improvement over what had happened during the preceding centuries, when conflict was rife. Nations that are closely linked economically, politically and culturally have much more of an incentive to settle differences amicably and deal with dangers such as climate change in a collective manner.

Pritchard’s ideas are worth considering because, unlike a monster movie, climate change is real. We must move quickly and decisively, lest it overwhelm and consume us.