Red Dawn of the North

Posted on January 28, 2007 @ 3:40 PM

But was Lady Luck really smiling on us, or were we actually
being shown a sign of things to come, a symptom of a sickness
that runs terrifyingly deep through the whole planet, not just
these northern extremities?

In the 20th century the world warmed on average by
0.6ºC (1.08ºF), with the 1990s being the warmest decade
on record. In the entire history of humanity our planet’s
temperature has varied by less than
1ºC (1.8ºF). But the UN-sponsored
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) predicts that by the end
of this century the temperature will have
risen worldwide by an average of between 1.4ºC (2.52ºF) and
5.8ºC (10.44ºF).

Never in the entire 3½ billion years since our planet was
born have average temperatures risen so dramatically and so
quickly. The Arctic and various desert regions of Africa and
Asia will see faster and higher temperature rises than anywhere
else, one effect of which will be to melt the polar ice caps and
send sea levels rising. This process has already begun – the
Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 40% in recent decades, and there
are fears that by the year 2060 there may be no summer ice at
all anywhere in the Arctic.

During the 20th century ocean levels rose worldwide by
10-20cm (4-8in.) and are predicted to rise by up to a further
88cm (35in.) this century. Average temperatures in Greenland
are expected to rise by 8ºC (14.4ºF) in just 350 years, which will
cause the great island’s entire ice-sheet to melt before the next
millennium, sending worldwide sea levels rising.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere, one of
the main causes of global warming, have always fluctuated,
but since the start of the industrial revolution atmospheric
CO2 levels have risen by 30% and are now significantly
higher, and still rising, than at any time in the past 500,000
years . Finally, these rises in temperature will destroy 97% of
the world’s existing coral reefs and so put an end to most of
the world’s current tropical wave gardens.
Please believe me when I say that this is no longer a
story. This is real. This is happening today.

BOREALIS

Standing at the water’s edge, if ever there was a pause for
thought, this was it. Finally we had ridden waves at the
mouth of a frozen glacial valley that seemed to mark the
very end of the Earth, and high up above us, as the dying
year’s daylight came to an end, a ghostly beam of light
scuttled across the northern horizon, morphed itself into a
green spirit cloud, and the skies started to dance with reds
and greens.

Progress and science have dissected the aurora borealis,
a Latin phrase which translates as “the red dawn of the
north,” into something as banal as solar particles colliding
with the gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. But in times of
innocence and beauty we had other theories for them.

The Danish believed they were a flock of swans flying so
far north that they were caught in the ice and that each
time they flapped their wings they created flashes of light
and colour. Native Americans believed they were the
reflections of huge fires far to the north, Vikings that they
were reflections of dead maidens, and the Inuit believed
that they were dead friends trying to contact their living
relatives. All believed the lights could be dangerous, even
descending from the heavens to behead people, but, most
importantly, to all they were a symbol of everything we do
not understand, and all that we consider beautiful.

Take a look at the world around you and drink in all its
beauty and diversity, for unless we do something radical,
and fast, we may truly be the last generation to see the
planet as we have known it.

Thanks to Ocean Surf Publications (www.oceansurfpublications.co.uk), C -Skins Wetsuits (www.c-skins.com), and Low Pressure (www.lowpressure.co.uk) for banishing us to the ends of the Earth. For more information on the mess we have made of our planet see: www.iucn.org / www.zeroextinction.org / www.worldwatch.org / www.panda.org

English surfer and photo-journalist Stuart Butler, likes to explore little-known coastlines searching for new surf spots. His travels have taken him from the coastal deserts of Pakistan to the jungles of Colombia. He is also a guidebook writer and is currently flitting between India and Yemen working on new Lonely Planet titles. His work can be seen on his website: www.oceansurfpublications.co.uk

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