Earth’s Vital Statistics

By Jack Heppner

The first thing that happens when you show up at the Emergency Ward at the local hospital with some distressing ailment is that medical staff establish your vital health statistics like blood pressure and body temperature. Such basic information is needed to determine the most appropriate course of treatment for whatever ails you.

Increasingly, over the last decade or more, the earth itself is knocking on the doors of the emergency department. If we stop long enough to take note of earth’s vital statistics there is overwhelming evidence that we are in the midst of major changes happening to the place seven billion people call home.

There was a time, not so long ago, when we assumed that the changes happening to our earth would impact our grandchildren. But it is now becoming apparent that the effects of these changes are already impacting the present generation. Changes are happening much more rapidly than at first thought possible. That is why more of us are asking whether we can do something to mitigate the damages caused by these changes.

So let’s do a quick review of the earth’s vital statistics. (These statistics come from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) :

1. Global sea levels have risen 17 centimeters in the last century with the rate in the last decade being nearly double that of the last century.

2. Since 1880 the global air temperature has been rising, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and the 10 warmest years since 2004.

3. Oceans of the world have been absorbing much of this heat with the top 700 meters showing a warming of 0.302 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969.

4. Northern and Southern ice sheets have dramatically decreased in mass. Greenland lost at least 150 cubic kilometers of ice a year between 2002 and 2006, while Antarctica lost at least 152 cubic kilometers of ice between 2002 and 2005.

5. Arctic sea ice has declined both in extent and thickness for the last several decades.

6. Glaciers are retreating rapidly everywhere in the world, including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa.

7. Extreme weather events such as record high temperatures, intense rainfall and severe storm activity have increased in recent decades.

8. Since the Industrial Revolution began, the acidity of surface ocean water has increased by about 30 percent.

9. The amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and snow is increasingly melting earlier.

Each one of these vital statistics has specific effects on the earth’s environment within which the world’s population seeks to survive and thrive. However, when the effects of all of them are taken together it is clear that we are facing monumental changes right now.

The big question is whether we will have the personal and collective will to adjust our lifestyles in ways that will ameliorate this dire situation. Once we establish that the will is there, we can begin talking about specific ways how that can be done.