Open Writing

It’s a well-established fact that it takes a common enemy to unite bellicose factions. British colonialism and communist Russia were both responsible for keeping tribes, nations, religious and sectarian blocs from engaging in the strife that has characterized the world in the past several years. In the old Yugoslavia, only the domination of the Tito regime prevented the ethnic cleansing and religious persecution that ultimately divided the country into the new nations that were forged from the conflict.

Prior to that terrible upheaval, Serbs and Bosnians, Muslims and Christians had co-existed peacefully, united against the communist oppression. In Africa, British, Dutch and German colonialism prevented the Hutu Tribe from slaughtering the Tutsis, kept the lid on the Somali warlords, and settled the Arab conflicts by dividing and ruling. The opposing Hindu and Muslim factions in India and what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh were held apart by the British Raj.

Several years ago, when the Cold War was at its improbable height, the UK’s Daily Express newspaper serialized a sci-fi novel, the title and author of which escapes me. In the story, the citizens of Washington, DC, awoke one morning to find a large, silvery sphere floating above the city. Understandably, there was widespread panic. The immediate conclusion was that the sphere must be a super-weapon, placed there by the USSR.

Though no threat was forthcoming from the Russians, the American president contacted his Russian counterpart on the “Hot Line;” a telephone link that had been set up so that the leaders could gain immediate access to each other in just that kind of emergency. The conversation began with angry protests on the part of the US president, which were immediately rebutted by his opponent, who stated that Moscow too had its sphere.

Once the counter accusations were out of the way, news soon came in that all the world’s major cities were similarly “threatened.” It rapidly became clear that some third party was the culprit, and quite certainly not an earthly one. Once this was accepted, the various factions and powers were drawn together to decide on a course of action. Meanwhile, the inscrutable spheres remained on station.

Predictably, some of the proposed solutions involved an attempt to destroy the spheres, but since nothing was known about their construction or contents, this idea was quickly abandoned. In the end, no solution was forthcoming, but the realization dawned that sworn enemies and ideological opponents had found common ground, and were communicating with each other for the first time. Then one morning the spheres were gone. I don’t remember how the story ended, but I guess there was the promise of a more harmonious future for the world.

Thinking about that story, and how a global threat brought about unification, led me to wondering about the very real threat of global warming. After dismissing the findings of scientists for several years, authorities all over the world are building a consensus that global warming is indeed underway, including some scientists who had initially refuted the findings. At the same time, there is less of a consensus about the causes, human or otherwise.

Be that as it may, it is becoming clear that the whole world will feel the effects, and that none of the manifestations will be beneficial, at least the way it looks at the present time. Australia is suffering from its worst drought since 1900, along with record high temperatures; the polar ice caps are melting, and hurricanes are becoming stronger and more frequent. River deltas in low-lying countries are experiencing catastrophic flooding with loss of life, property and crops.

So ironically, the common threat to the world’s populations is coming from within rather than from some extraterrestrial force. Could it be that global warming will put an end to the internecine strife that divides so many countries today? There are two schools of thought at the present time; those who surmise that the effects of global warming will exacerbate conflicts, and those who envisage a united effort to reduce pollution that will transcend political and sectarian differences.

Margaret Beckett, Britain’s foreign secretary, who recently presided over a United Nations Security Council meeting on climate change, argued that the potential for climate change to cause wars made it an issue for the Security Council. She stated in the meeting that “An unstable climate will exacerbate some of the core drivers of conflict, such as migratory pressures and competition for resources.” In the same meeting, President Yowery Museveni of Uganda, whose economy depends on hydropower from a reservoir depleted by drought, called climate change “An act of aggression by the rich against the poor.”

As things stand, the loudest voices are the countries that oppose global pollution controls, such as the USA, Britain and China, but those countries have yet to feel the pain where it hurts most – in their exchequers. What will happen when China’s world markets decline, because the economies of the countries they sell to are depleted through job loss brought about by adverse climatic conditions?

How will Britain react when the Gulf Stream that tempers its climate no longer swirls by its shores? And what if America experiences, as has been predicted, a repeat of the Dust Bowl that decimated agriculture in the mid-west from 1934 to 1940. The wheat and corn fields of Middle America feed not only US citizens, but a significant proportion of the world’s population. When the day of reckoning is upon us, perhaps it will be time to end the posturing; time to abandon warfare as a way to solve differences and work together to survive.

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