The Silent Elephant

In his book The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, eminent anthropologist  Brian Fagan describes the period from about 800 to 1200 AD, in which a small increase in average global temperatures resulted in a warmer, greener and wetter Europe and generations-long droughts in the Americas and parts of Asia.  The more hospitable growing seasons in Europe helped spark the early Viking settlements in Greenland and Vinland (northeast North America).  Erratic and lengthy droughts were instrumental in the collapse of the Maya civilization, the disappearance of Anasazi communities, and the abandonment of the great Ankgor Wat complex.

The book illustrates two basic propositions.  First, climate change is a natural phenomena resulting from the complex and often subtle interactions between sun, ocean and atmosphere.  Second, we are in a period of climate change which is at least partially the result of human contributions to greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.  In today’s climate change world, we speak of sea level rises, the migration northward of tropical diseases, and Katrina-class “meteorological events.”  What the medieval warming illustrates, however, is what Dr. Fagan calls the “silent elephant,” which will have a greater impact on modern life than any single giant hurricane or slow rise in sea levels. 

What is this “silent elephant?”  It is severe and long-term drought, resulting from long-term shifts in global climate patterns, ranging from persistent El Niños in the Pacific to shifts in the monsoon patterns in Asia to disappearing snowpacks and glaciers in virtually every mountain system on the planet.   With all of the hoopla surrounding climate change and the worry about impacts on energy and economy, precious little attention is given to the future of water availability in an increasingly arid western United States.  The challenges to assure enough water to allow continued growth, if not prevent decline and massive out-migration, in places such as Las Vegas, the Los Angeles-San Diego corridor, Salt Lake City and other western urban areas, are daunting.  We are entering a time of transition in water management and are likely to see significant changes in state water rights laws, an increasing role by the Federal government in managing and allocating water from “navigable” lakes and rivers, and severe constraints on how we use and reuse water.  Local and state governments will pay increasing attention to land use regulation as a means to conserve scarce water resources.  Water will become scarce and prices for water will rise significantly to reflect supply constraints.  Property development will slow dramatically, and in some cases values of existing properties will drop.  Areas which experienced dramatic growth in population and economy during the last few decades will lose both population and tax base, a pattern reminiscent of Rust Belt communities in the Northeast during the latter part of the 20th Century.  And all of this will be relatively benign when compared to the massive disruptions in the developing world as glacier-fed river systems dwindle, rainfall diminishes, and hundreds of millions of people find themselves on the verge of starvation as crops fail.  Wars will be fought and nations will fall.

There is no dearth of imagination and creativity in the Western United States.  If we can fashion comprehensive policies to address the looming long-term shortage, we can be a model for the rest of the world to deal with Dr. Fagan’s silent elephant.

(This post was contributed by Jim Holtkamp, Manager of Holland & Hart's Global Climate Change Practice Group.)