Global Warming and Evolution: A Relationship Explained

Meanwhile, a full page newspaper story that day documented the fact that pack ice in the southern hemisphere's Antarctica is likely to break up and disappear.

Later that morning my e-mail inbox received an urgent appeal from the National Resources Defense Council and Robert F. Kennedy asking for money to support efforts to protect polar bears through the Endangered Species Act. That piece of landmark legislation is itself endangered thanks to a group of business interests and politicians seeking to dilute its influence on grounds that protecting endangered species of plants and wildlife costs business, industry and property owners too much money.

All these events and political responses are related, but the key relationship around which these issues revolve is the direct connection between an ideological acceptance of manmade global warming and the theory of evolution.

Global warming (manmade or not...) is the product of a combination of environmental factors coming together to raise the mean average temperature of our planet. Scientists have proposed a theory that the recent profound rise in global temperature may be the result of human influence. To be specific, manmade carbon output may be causing the planet to heat up much faster than naturally-driven climate warming and cooling trends in the past.

We're talking about temperature on a very big scale here, not just whether it is colder or warmer one winter. When the whole planet heats up, there will be weather events of all kinds, both cold and hot. It is the net results of that warming that is a concern to some scientists. Conditions for life and the integrity of climactic zones such as temperate forests, rainforests, deserts, tundra, taiga and arctic zones are all impacted by the mean average temperature sustained in those regions of the earth. When those zones get "messed up" through rise in average temperature, all kinds of changes occur in the flora and fauna of those regions.

Animals and plants are obviously used to climate change. Over billions of years, our continents have even shifted their positions (according to the theory of plate tectonics) and with that movement have come profound changes in world and regional climates. The theory of plate tectonics even tells us that Antarctica was once part of a warmly temperate land mass.

So climate change is a big part of the earth's natural history, and life on earth has been forced to adapt to these changes. That process is described in the theory of evolution.

Animals not only adapt to climate change. There are some who fairly flaunt their supposed "comfort zone" by emigrating to areas where life would not seem to be so comfortable for them. One example of a precocious species is the opossum, a marsupial that likely evolved in South America and has emigrated to North America where their naked ears sometimes get frostbitten in the colder climate. Yet it doesn't stop them from raiding your garbage...

Not all animals are so enterprising. It is of major concern to some scientists that the net effects of global warming could could mass extinctions. Most animals survive through habitual behaviors in response to environment and food supply. When conditions are so disrupted that food supply, mating and migration behavior are affected, entire life cycles can get thrown into limbo. Polar bears for example, often hunt seals out on pack ice at sea. If the pack ice is gone, a bear that once got 80% of its annual food supply through these methods is put under great pressure to survive. They simply cannot always invent a new and successful way to hunt.

Of course, whether we want to admit it or not, the human race is also highly dependent on a reasonably predictable climate matrix for survival. Many of our most important food sources (corn, wheat, soy) depend on generally conducive climactic conditions (temperature, moisture) to allow success in annual crop growth.

There are warning signs that global warming can and will cause agricultural failure. For example, wineries across the globe (Spain, New York, California) are now experiencing the sudden effects from the global rise in temperature. To adjust, some winemakers have moved "up the mountain" to reach temperatures zones conducive to growing grapes. In places where winemakers cannot achieve the vertical gain in elevation necessary to maintain proper growing conditions, winemakers may be forced to move north in latitude to grow their grapes. But there isn't always room to move. In northeastern Pennsylvania and western New York, the climactic conditions and sandy soil along Lake Erie make great conditions for growing wine. There may simply be no alternate location offering these same conditions in the northern United States.

These admittedly simple illustrations do show that "big picture" climate can and does affect local climactic conditions. In turn, local climate change affects ecosystems. Environmental pressures hold the potential to affect or intensify the evolutionary process. Through onset of dramatic global warming and its impact on global and local ecosystems, living things will be forced to either adapt to new conditions or die.

Some populations will respond successfully and/or move to locations where they can survive. That is the macrocosmic summary of evolution on this earth. But many more living things may die out, and with those extinctions will come profound effects on local ecosystems. The interconnectedness of life responds to cause and effect.

Of course the earth has seen this all before. There have many rounds of cataclysmic die-offs in earth's history. Earth has seen ice ages and continental flooding without influence from the human race. People who are cynics toward the notion of manmade global warming point to these geophysical cycles as proof that we're now experiencing nothing new when it comes to global warming. A recent Gallup poll of earth scientists showed that 90% think that mean global temperatures have risen since pre-1800s levels. When asked if human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures, 82% said yes. Yet a Gallup poll found only 58% of the general public believes this.

Why is the concept of global climate change so hard for some people to grasp? Is it the degree of education or are there other factors at work in 42% of the general public who do not believe in manmade global warming?

The primary challenge may be the general public's inability to comprehend the relatively rapid pace of change in global mean temperature. The evidence is quite compelling, but many people still think of the world as a system too big to be affected by manmade pollutants.

But here we go: A recent full page Chicago Tribune profile on the pace of global warming notes that in Antarctica temperatures are rising at a rate of 0.17 degrees Celcius per decade, almost double the average warming rate around the globe the last century. The article states, "Should the warming continue, the millions of miles of ice covering Antarctica could begin to melt, causing sea levels around the world to rise..."

If climate change gets rolling there may be massive droughts in other parts of the world, while profound floods inundate others. These shifts in local climate brought on by global warming and the weather events that ensue could create food shortages and major economic upheaval. That is just one of the reasons why governments around the world have begun to respond to global warming as a political issue.

These governments argue that we can try to reduce the effects of our own impact on the global climate. They contend that if it is human contribution of carbons to the atmosphere that is causing the climate to warm through greenhouse effect, then that is something we should try to manage and control. The costs of transplanting or relocating wineries, for example, is likely far greater in the long run than the costs of regulating emissions.

While some doubters argue that manmade global warming is bunk or based on "junk science," others argue that trying to fix the problem is too economically prohibitive. These factions consider global warming proponents to be knee-jerk liberals eager and foolish in trying to fix something that they believe can't really be affected by human activities. We will sooner or later determine which is the greater hubris: To think that human beings could never soil the planet, or to think we can.

This leads us to the philosophical issue of human influence on earth. For example, there may be considerable overlap between people who do not believe in global warming and those who do not accept the theory of evolution. Here is the nature of the connection. A 2005 CBS poll on belief in evolution showed that 51% of Americans do not accept the scientific theory. 55% said they believe God created humans in their present form. This belief structure shows that more than half of Americans refuse to make a connection between the processes of evolution and how the planet's combined forces of geology, biology, climate and resultant ecosystems interact. Based on these statistics, it is no wonder a large faction of people do not accept global warming when they do not accept the basic science behind its predictive relationship to theories of evolution and global warming.

Philosophically, if you do not accept the theory of evolution as an explanation for how life and ecosystems interact, then you will also refuse to believe in the potential for radical change caused by global warming.

It all comes down to a basic belief in the potential for change on earth. There is an additional layer of resistance to attend to as well. Theories about manmade global warming that imply human influence on global climate and ecosystems suppose that human beings are capable of acting on a level with God. People who confer only God with the power to change our planet are likely offended by the very idea of manmade global warming.

Never mind that the Christian ideology of original sin contends that it was the human race that brought on the state of a fallen world. Religious conservatives do not always connect the dots when it comes to arguments over science and faith. Ideology quite frequently trumps logic on social and political issues. In Christian parlay, this is called "having convictions."

It is no coincidence, for example, that former President George W. Bush resisted action on global warming. Bush, the conservative think tanks that informed his Presidency and evangelical leaders helped make accusations that the theory of manmade global warming is based on "junk science." The Bush administration even altered reports by climate scientists to better reflect the administration's philosophy on global warming, redacting key findings and simply re-writing parts they did not like.

This blatant resistance to credible scientific opinion is a hallmark of a stubborn ideology. Like 51% of Americans George W. Bush also expressed disbelief in evolution and publicly supported teaching of creationism and intelligent design under guise of "tolerance" when both these belief systems contend that a "great designer"--God himself-- is the only force capable of creation and change in this world. It's no wonder that science in America suffered under the tenure of George W. Bush.

Based on this world view, social and political conservatives can never accept the idea that climate change could be "man-made." They argue also that the economic effects of battling global warming are "too expensive" to act upon. These economic protestations provide a convenient third argument against global warming. If you can't win the fight against the theory of evolution and global warming in ideological grounds, hit them with the money argument instead.

But what are the costs of doing nothing about global warming if it really is occurring? Likely far greater than regulating emissions and taking steps to clean up human habits and agricultural habits (cows, for instance?) that contribute mightily to methane and carbon emissions.

Melting glaciers, shrinking polar ice caps, rising seas and profound weather events brought on by global warming may ultimately convince even the greatest skeptics that manmade climate change is real. In the meantime it is ours to consider whether these changes might be part of human evolution itself. In this case religion and science may be asking the exact same question: Are we smart enough to survive our own mistakes?

Sources: Chicago Tribune, Thursday, January 22, 2009.