Resumo de To My Son, At The Dawn Of The Third Millennium

The Greenhouse Effect and its Consequences
The term "greenhouse effect" presents an analogy between the earth
and greenhouses, the enclosed buildings often seen along roadsides, whose glass
or clear-plastic walls let the sun's rays filter in, trap the heat, and produce
a favourable, if artificaially created, micro-climate for the plants
inside. Unlike a greenhouse, our planet does not have a transparent
shield to hold the heat in, but there is a similar process at work. The
earth absorbs about half of the energy it receives from the sun, and it is this
energy that keeps the planet heated. For the energy to be
effective, it cannot be allowed to escape; thus, some sort of covering is
necessary. Nature, ever innovative, provides just such a covering, a
protective layer of water and gas. This shield helps ensure the the
earth's temperature remains at a level that is conducive to life (about 15
degrees Celsius on average). Without this shield, humans would all have
to live like Eskimos, in average temperatures of -18 degrees Celsius.
Prior to industrialization, the earth's temperature was perfectly
balanced. But then gasses resulting from humans' industrial activities
began accumulating along the natural protective layer. The result:
more heat became trapped under the thicker "greenhouse" shield.
And as industrial activity increased, so did the temperature.
Industrialization
With industrialization, pollutant gasses have fused with so-called
"natural" gasses. There are six kinds of these gasses,
including carbon dioxide, produced by the burning of petrol and carbon, and
methane, resulting from modern agricultural activities. Paradoxically,
industrialized countries produce 64% of greenhouse gas emissions, though they
make up only 20% of the world's population. Scientific research clearly
shows that the levels of these gasses is significantly increasing -- carbon
dioxide by more than 30%, and methane by more than 145%. Furthermore,
huge quantities of methane are locked within polar ice-caps. As they
melt, these ice-caps will release the methane, considerably furthering global
warming. In the next century, temperatures could increase at a rate 50
times faster than in the last 10,000 years. We are truly walking an
environmental tightrope.
Devastating consequences
Man's disruption of nature's balance has unleashed devastating consequences
such as floods, changes in rain levels, frequent droughts, hurricanes, storms,
tornadoes, and earthquakes. The number of such natural disasters has
increased four-fold in the last 50 years. In 1999 there was a significant
increase in the number of earthquakes compared with previous years.
Coincidence? Certainly not. According to U.S. Geological Survey,
the venerable American organization responsible for monitoring seismic
phenomenna, the number of earthquakes has doubled compared to previous
years.
Coastal Areas
Because of glacial melting, which will cause sea-levels to rise, many coastal
regions will simply disappear. Some tropical isalnds in the Pacific and
the Caribbean have an altitude of no more than
3 meters, and they will be largely submerged. The Maldives will
be among the first to suffer this fate, as will the coralline
archipelagos. Since a large portion of the world's population lives near
the coast, there will be a large-scale population shift inland, many coastal
metropolises having been submerged.
The Consequences of Pollution
Some people are still skeptical about the effects of pollution on global
warming. Every year, people throw out 12 billion tonnes of industrial
waste -- an average of 2 tonnes per person. The waste produced by the United States
alone would fill a line of ten-tonne trucks stretching around the planet 20
times. Some people claim that more than half of these billions of tonnes
of garbage is absorbed and processed by the oceans, the forests, and the
earth. But what about rest? The other half? The earth is
not a giant with an enormous stomach built to digest billions of tonnes of
rotting waste. And what about the radioactive waste, some of which can
remain hazardous for 75,000 years? For the most part, we send it
away. Rich countries pack boats full of radioactive waste and send them
off to third-world countries. Before it became illegal, rich countries
would use the ocean as a giant garbage-can for nuclear waste. They dumped
tens of thousands of barrels of radioactive waste into the Atlantic Ocean, the
Pacific Ocean, and the Barents Sea.
Those barrels will not last forever. What, then, will happen when the
radioactive waste eventually leaks out?
The Response from those in Power
The response from those in power is always the same. They stammer, they
equivocate, they sermonize, but they never practice what they preach! All
of the summits are the same. Everyone wants to decide but nothing is ever
decided. Take the Kyoto
Protocol. It could have become a defining historical agreement, if only
it had gotten off the ground. The international community, as though
regretting having attempted such an audacious plan, proved incapable of putting
it into practice. And so
it goes! (Sources: Sinoué, Gilbert. À mon fils, à l?aube du troisième
millénaire. [Paris]:
Gallimard, 2000, 149 pp.)

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