C. Moss

A Scientist Friend of mine told me a joke about two scientists, one pro fossil fuels and one anti fossil fuels, having an argument. After it was clear that neither side was going to change their mind the frustrated  pro fossil fuel scientist gave his last word statement “If God had wanted us to have unlimited power and not to use fossil fuel He would have put a giant fusion reactor in the sky!”   Hmmm….

Let’s talk about the Sun for a bit. It’s been beaming away for billions of years and should go on beaming away for about six billion more years.  It is doubtful that fossil fuels will last even another hundred years. The Sun is the reason we are not a frozen piece of rock floating in space. With such a constant factor in the development of the Earth it is not unusual that all life on Earth has grown and adapted to the cycles of the Sun. 

In the relative calm and stable environment of the last ten thousand years all plants and animals have aligned their life cycles to the current conditions on Earth – all but humans of course. While nature can change and adapt slowly to changes in climate over the course of hundreds or thousands of years, the human-caused climate changes over the past two hundred years have started a cascade of “tipping points” that may end life on Earth as we know it. 

The “Water Cycle” we all learned about in school is changing.  Warmer air means more moisture absorbed and more rainfall falling. More warmth means more evaporation taken up into the atmosphere and more drying and drought on land.  More drying means more forest fires. More warm air means we have passed the tipping point for melting of the icecaps.  That, by itself, may take two hundred years, but the consequences of all of that fresh meltwater entering the oceans will change the salt content of the oceans and not all organisms will be able to survive in the diluted waters of the future oceans.

Sea level rise could be up to fourteen meters, wiping out most of the major coastal areas around the world. The Sooke River bridge is seven meters above the current sea level. Even in the short term, say seventy-five years, sea level could rise up to one meter in height. Here in Sooke that means a king tide would submerge Whiffen Spit and flood highway 14 in Otter Point in low lying areas such as Gordon’s Beach and the manufactured home parks at the end of Kemp Lake Road.

We may have to abandon Whiffen Spit to its fate; however we should start thinking now about a work around highway to connect Sooke to Shirley that does not depend on Highway 14. 

It all comes down to water.