Meet the Pressing Problem of our Time

Review by Bill Doughty

Science and science fiction writers Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl collaborated on "Our Angry Earth" (A Tor Book, McMillan, 1991) nearly 30 years ago, outlining the problems and proposing solutions to global climate change.

Reading the recently reissued (2018) "Our Angry Earth," which builds on scientific evidence from decades earlier, it's a wonder how the issue hasn't been taken more seriously until now.

Asimov called his and Pohl's book "hopeful" and a "scientific survey of the situation that threatens us all – and it says what we can do to mitigate the situation."

The first half of the book is a depressing litany of problems and challenges, including the greenhouse effect caused by burning fossil fuels and depleting forests:

"One of the most damaging effects of the greenhouse warming is likely to be a significant increase in violent weather, followed by drastic and rapid changes in the climate conditions many living things depend on for their survival. The reason for this is that the atmosphere is basically a heat engine. The more heat energy that the greenhouse gases trap in the atmosphere the more it has at its disposal to transform into kinetic energy – the energy of motion – the energy we see as winds and weather. That is a simplified statement of a complicated matter..."

Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl

Asimov and Pohl warn of (among other things) overfishing, rising seas, extinctions, severe storms, plastics dumping, lack of potable water and destruction of habitat. Coastal cities and nations are most at risk of the impacts.

The authors show the true cost of fossil fuels, not only in their destruction of the environment but also in the burden to the military patrolling Persian Gulf states. "The Persian Gulf War (five years before the book was published) is the war oil made," they write."

Of course the same can be said of the War in the Pacific in WWII, when Imperial Japan invaded neighbors and Southeast Asia for oil and other resources. The attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized an otherwise war-averse and skeptical United States.

Now the military, including the Navy, has been on the leading edge in confronting and battling global climate change. "Our Angry Earth" mentions the U.S. Navy and then-Soviet submarines patrolling in the Arctic. They show how the Persian Gulf War was an example of how the U.S. can lead "world opinion in the mobilization of international opposition."

The Navy has been deploying, refining and investing in solar photovoltaic arrays, wind power and ocean energy.

Chuck Todd and Meet the Press

Today, in a year-ending episode, Chuck Todd of NBC Meet the Press dedicated his program to the issue and credited the military's initiatives:

Guest Michèle Flournoy, President Obama's undersecretary of defense, said, "I think there is a very strong consensus, in the U.S. military and in the national security community, that climate change is real. This is a sort of pragmatic, clear-eyed view. And for the military, they see this as leading to a change in their mission, more humanitarian assistance, disaster-relief missions abroad and at home. They see the melting of the ice cap in the Arctic, that's going to open up an area of strategic competition with both Russia and China."

Both the Navy and Coast Guard conduct studies or facilitate research in the Arctic and Antarctic.


ARCTIC OCEAN – A team of scientists lay a cable on the Arctic ice Sunday, Sept. 30, 2018, about 350 miles northeast of Barrow, Alaska. The cable contains a series of sensors which attach to the bottom of a buoy that sits on top of the ice to measure wind speed and direction, air temperature, barometric pressure and other scientific measurements to study stratified ocean dynamics. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB-20) is underway in the Arctic with about 100 crew members and 30 scientists to deploy sensors, buoys and semi-autonomous submarines to study how environmental factors affect the water below the ice surface for the Office of Naval Research. (NyxoLyno Cangemi/U.S. Coast Guard)

Flournoy added, "But it's also an infrastructure problem for the military. More than half of U.S. military bases and bases overseas are estimated to be severely impacted by climate change, either severe weather and/or flooding. That's our ability to project power overseas. That's our ability to operate our U.S. military. 50% of the facilities are going to be affected."

Todd framed the problem at the end of 2018: 

"This year, a series of climate reports, including one produced by 13 agencies in Mr. Trump's government, issued dire warnings of economic and human catastrophe, if there is not immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But the federal response to the climate crisis has been political paralysis and denial," Todd said. "While the federal government lags behind, cities and states are attempting to lead their own climate efforts."

In a book that is thorough and only slightly dated, Asimov and Pohl give their own clear-eyed assessment of the changes needed, including carbon-taxes and incentives to change to green industries:

"Make no mistake about it, our environmental problems mean that large-scale changes lie ahead. Businesses will be harmed, people will have to change their jobs. The reason for this isn't that do-gooder environmentalists like ourselves insist on it because of some idealistic devotion to 'nature' or the spotted  owl. It's because our profligate ways have done so much harm that large-scale change is inevitable. The only choice we have – the only future we can invent – lies in deciding which kinds of change will be best in the long run, the ones that will come about because we try to clean the world up, or the worse ones that will come about on their own if we don't."

Both Meet the Press and "Our Angry Earth" focus on solutions that can be achieved with a consensus of support from average citizens willing to get informed, aware and engaged in supporting fair, incentivized efforts to deal with the challenges now and in the years ahead.


GREENLAND (Sep. 2, 2017) Lt. Emily Motz, right, National Ice Center (NIC) and Katrina Tiongson, Environment and Climate Change Canada, replace the parachute cone on an Air-Deployable Expendable Ice Buoy (AXIB) at Thule Air Force Base in Greenland during preparation for deployment to the high Arctic near the North Pole. The deployment team, led by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), included personnel from the NIC, Office of the Oceanographer of the Navy, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Danish Royal Navy and University of Washington. The buoys provide real-time weather and oceanographic data to enhance forecasting, and environmental models thereby reducing operational risk for assets in the Arctic. (U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released)