Reflection on Gwynne Dyer's talk

I saw Gwynne Dyer speak on Climate Change yesterday. Gwynne is a Canadian journalist and military historian, based out of London England. When I found out that he, who is certainly not an environmentalist, chose to talk on this topic, I was surprised indeed. In the first 10 minutes he talked about conversations he had with British think tank people and he said: “I was frightened” twice. He was referring to the UK working on the development of the next generation of nuclear weapons, which should “last” them until 2050. So why would the Brits need those? The British experts answered: Global Heating.

Ironically, the countries that are the cause of the environmental crisis won’t be affected too much: western industrial countries in the northern latitude (yes, Canada, UK, and Northern Europe will be fine). Countries closer to the equator will be screwed. So it’s all about defending the borders. That’s why the UK will need nuclear weapons: to be able to defend the island from Spaniards – for example - (Spain will be a desert) or Bangladesh, which will have disappeared in the ocean.

Talking about countries disappearing due to rising sea levels: according to Gwynne that’s not the big problem. After all, we might be able to live fairly comfortably in Northern Yukon in the future. The biggest problem will be food. Some scientist in India came to the conclusion that when (note, I say when not if!) the global temperature will be 2 degrees higher than today’s temperature, India will only be able to produce 75% of today’s food. The current predictions of scientists are that the temperature at the end of the century will be between 2 and 5.8 degrees warmer than now.

Considering that the world’s population has tripled in the last 60 years (Isn’t that crazy!!!), assuming that this trend continues (very likely with countries like India and China catching up on to higher living standards similar to the west), AND assuming business as usual, we would have to face mass starvation within this century.

Gwynne also mentioned terrorism briefly. How, it’s not really a threat. Since 9/11 nobody in the US has died from a terrorist attack and a total of 300 people have died worldwide (Madrid, London). More people have died from dog bites in this time period – and we haven’t declared war on dogs, haha (that’s a typical Gwynne joke!)

He also came to the realization that the war in Iraq is not so much about the oil consumption in the US, but more about keeping China in check. If the US wants oil from the Middle East, they just have to write them a cheque. They need to export oil, so they can import food from somewhere else.

China and India are going to be the new world powers in the future. The US doesn’t necessarily want to lose its powerful position to China. So it’s forming alliances with India (!). Politics is not my forte, so if you want to find out more about this check out Gwynne Dyer’s articles.

Gwynne Dyer is certainly a great speaker; has lots of inside knowledge from government administrations, think tanks and is able to communicate his knowledge in an accessible way, so normal people like me understand.

What did I learn from the evening?

Well, when war specialists start talking about the environment, it means it’s a serious issue. There is no question that global warming is happening and that we are amidst the environmental crisis. There are certain things that we can’t change anymore, however what we do NOW, DOES matter. The human race is pretty flexible and we have been able to manage, even when shit hits the fan.

And I am going to pursue my Canadian citizenship. Maybe I should invest in property in Northern Canada ;-)