Forum looks at global warming
It’s a public lecture set for Wednesday night at six…which means that if you attend you’ll miss your favourite TV newscast. But that’s ok with us because the subject of the discussion is an important one for Belize. It’s called climate change–better known as global warming–and it’s already affecting everything from agriculture to tourism. This afternoon we spoke to one of the presenters, Chief Meteorologist Carlos Fuller, and asked if the phenomenon was myth or reality.
Ramon Frutos, Chief Meteorologist
?The consensus among the scientist is yes. Global warming is now a reality. We are on the way there. There is really no turning back now because of the amount of carbon dioxide we have now put in the atmosphere and there is a long lifetime. We are now in it and it is right now irreversible.?
Stewart Krohn
?Considering it?s irreversibly and considering it?s a reality how is it affecting Belize today and might global warming affect Belize in the future??
Ramon Frutos
?One of the areas that we have looked at certainly is its effect on the Coral Reef. We?ve had two severe episodes of coral reef bleaching in the past. Seas continue to be warmer than usual so we believe this is going to be a recurrent episode.?
?Another aspect I believe it has affected is the Pine Ridge where we saw that pine beetle attack. We know it was caused by climate in addition to poor forest practices. But the climate certainly contributed to that. So we are now seeing the adverse effects of climate change in Belize.?
Stewart Krohn
?How about sea level rise? We like to say that Belize City for example is at or below or slightly above sea level. Is there a danger that one day in the future that Belize City might be flooded out??
Ramon Frutos
?If we don?t do anything it could be a problem. However, I believe that we on our own do take mitigating actions. For example we just erected a higher sea wall along the Barracks. Persons notice that when they?re yards flood regularly, they would go and buy ten loads of sand and build up and so I believe we will be taking mitigated actions throughout the next century. However, we are probably not costing it properly to say look, this is actually related to sea level rise. And we should be looking at it from that point of view in stead of reacting to it.?
Stewart Krohn
?Even though climate change is a global problem, is there anything that Belizeans can do specifically that would help slow down global warming or even one day reverse it??
Ramon Frutos
?Our contribution to global warming is really minuscule. Small countries really produce so little carbon dioxide that it doesn?t really play any role. However, we can contribute to the global effort through changing our use of energy practices and in fact that maybe something that we would want to look at. Should we be going into to renewable energy such as bagasse or wind and so reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.?
Stewart Krohn
?Carlos, I don?t want to temp faith here. But we seem to be near the end of the hurricane season and we have been lucky so far. Does the phenomenon of global warming have anything to do with the increasingly active hurricane seasons that we?ve been having??
Ramon Frutos
?There is some speculation that climate change will cause sea surface temperatures to rise and we know hurricanes require warm water for them to form and develop. So it is possible that we will be seeing stronger hurricanes, hurricanes with longer duration or maybe even the extension of the hurricane season. This year in particular in Brazil, an area where we have never seen a hurricane, we saw two in February. So it can contribute to the formation and the frequency of hurricanes.?
The public symposium begins at six Wednesday night at the UWI auditorium on Princess Margaret Drive. Other presenters include Dr. Kenrick Leslie, Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre and Dr. Neville Trotz, Leslie Walling and Tony Deyal of the Mainstreaming Adaptation to Climate Change Project.
