You've heard the dire predictions. Floods inundating New York City. Fires blackening the Rocky Mountain West. Polar bears drowning. Plague and pestilence sweeping the globe. Hurricanes, heat waves, drought, mass extinctions.

The potential effects of global warming are apocalyptic. Climate-change alarmists can sound surprising similar to religious zealots proclaiming the onset of Armageddon and the end of the world. The populace at large has often ignored these prophets of doom, especially when Judgment Day comes and goes without the projected disaster. So it goes with global warming. The problem has been too big, too abstract, too distant and too surreal for individuals to grapple with. Until now.

Fact versus fiction
Scientific evidence shows that the ten warmest years in the past century have all occurred since 1990. In Wyoming the effects of the change are obvious: glaciers are melting; pine bark beetles are killing large swathes of forests; drought is ravaging the state; the mountain snowpack is accumulating later and disappearing earlier; and summer heat waves are more intense and last longer.

The economic consequences of these changes are just beginning to be felt but ultimately scientists predict reduced crop production, restricted water supplies, and the loss of forests, all of which will dramatically affect the way Wyoming people do business.

Yet in spite of these tangible changes to our environment, as recently as spring 2006 a Gallup poll found that Americans were not particularly concerned about global warming. Now things have changed. You can't pick up a newspaper or magazine these days without spotting an article on climate change. A January 2007 poll in Canada found that the environment has surged from a distant blip on people's radar screens to their number one concern. Twenty-six percent of them say the environment is their top concern, and nine out of ten of them claim they are willing to make sacrifices to help address the problem. Americans may not be to this point, but even President Bush has broken down and in his 2007 State of the Union called global warming "a serious challenge."

The United States is responsible for 30 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Reducing these emissions requires a concerted effort that includes everything from energy conservation and increased efficiency to increasing renewable energy supplies. The sea change in public opinion on the global warming issue that has occurred over the past year seems to be finally having an effect as leaders around the world are moving forward with laws and regulations designed to promote wise-energy use and reduce carbon emissions. But the news is not all good. Traditional coal-fired power plants continue to be proposed and built, and the American West's public lands and wildlife are being ravaged by the rush to secure fossil fuels.

What we need to know
The Earth's average temperature rose approximately one degree in the 20th century to 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of this increase took place since the 1970's. Seas have also risen over the last century—about six to eight inches globally—and the rate of rise increased in the last decade. Such global warming events are not unprecedented, according to Central Wyoming College professor and geochemist, Suki Smaglik.

"What's happening now is within the realm of things that have happened in the past. The Earth has been hotter and it has been colder. What's different is that this time all evidence indicates the change is human caused," Suki says. "There have been five or six mass extinctions in the past and many small ones. All of these extinctions were associated with climate change. The animals that could not adapt to the change died; those that could, did not. What remains to be seen is if humanity can adapt to a warmer planet."

The latest computer models project a probable warming of around five degrees Fahrenheit should the concentration of carbon dioxide reach twice the 280-parts-per-million figure that has been the norm for at least 400,000 years. Levels of carbon dioxide—which are already nearing 400 parts-per-million—could easily surpass this threshold by the year 2050 without radical intervention.

Five degrees doesn't sound like much, but its implications are far reaching. A report commissioned by the British government and released in October 2006 warned that these kinds of temperature increases would have a "cataclysmic effect" on the global economy and, if left unchecked, could consume up to 20 percent of the world's gross domestic product.

What we can do
As the Wyoming Outdoor Council moves into its 40th year, we are joining the effort to stave off global warming. We've recently adopted a global warming policy to help guide our program work. Our renewables program has a direct impact on reducing carbon emissions by supporting the development of clean energy such as wind and solar. In addition, as an organization we are beginning to explore ways to reduce our own carbon emissions including enrolling in the Blue Sky energy program, which supports renewable energy; reducing the office use of electricity generated from fossil fuels with solar panels; and encouraging waste reduction and recycling.

We understand that curbing carbon emissions is a global effort and taking steps such as drying your clothes on a clothesline or replacing your light bulbs with compact fluorescents can seem quixotic in face of the scale of change needed to make a difference. Currently scientists estimate that in the next 50 years the world will need twice as much energy as it is using now with no increase in carbon emissions in order to sustain our current lifestyles. Obviously one person's efforts are negligible in face of such requirements. But we have to start somewhere.

Carl McDaniel, a professor of biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, sums up our challenge as follows: "We won't make it on blind optimism. We need true hopefulness. True hopefulness in dire straits means first recognizing the odds are heavily against us, believing those odds, and then doing everything possible to beat them."