The Great Flood of 1889 and Climate Crisis

David Hopkinson is a retired psychologist who lives in Bellingham.

A small town in Pennsylvania is famous for a tragedy that could have been prevented. A dam had created a huge lake upriver. When the dam failed in 1889, Johnstown was devastated. People had worried for years, but could only guess whether or not the dam was dangerous. Many guessed wrong.

The climate crisis today is different. There’s plenty of good data. Climate scientists predict that within another generation, there will be a global disaster due to climate change.1

One similarity: wealth inequality played a role in the failure to protect Johnstown and it plays a role today. From 2002 to 2008, wealthy people gave $1.5 million in anonymous donations to more than 100 groups of various kinds. All of the groups had a common purpose: to discredit climate science and deny climate change.2

The Johnstown Flood of 1889

In 1889, Johnstown, Pennsylvania was a town of 22,000. Recent immigrants worked in the steel mill and were paid well, but pollution was rampant.

Fifteen miles up the Little Conemaugh River that ran through Johnstown (and 50 feet above it), was a Fishing and Hunting Club catering to wealthy people from Pittsburgh. An earthen dam on the river had been rebuilt, creating a huge lake for the recreation of club members.

Some residents of Johnstown feared that the dam might be unsafe. Others insisted that there was no danger. People did not realize that failure to take action might be lethal, so nothing was done.

The dam was part of the Hunting and Fishing Club, owned by a man who knew little about dams. Relief valves had been removed by a previous owner, which may have been one reason that the dam was judged to be unsafe when inspected by an engineer. The owner chose not to believe him, but died before he would have had to face his mistake.

Nine years later, the dam failed. Previous false alarms due to leaks that turned out to be inconsequential had created complacency. Warnings by telegraph were ignored. Some said later that they had expected the river to rise only a few inches.

To retain fish, a grid had been put across the spillway. As rain filled the lake, the grid became clogged with debris that could not be removed. Water flowed over the top and before long, the dam collapsed.

Twenty million tons of water poured down the valley, a dark wall of water 40 feet high. Some people held on to floating debris, but the mass piled up against a stone bridge at the far side of town and then caught fire. Those who managed to escape could only stand and watch in horror. More than 2,200 people were killed.

Some people had believed, perhaps naively, that members of the club were benevolent and would make certain that the dam was safe. Others believed that men so wealthy must be very smart and therefore would never make a mistake with the dam.

Nobody was held accountable, yet today it seems that the failure of the dam was due to ignorance, ineptitude, and indifference. Liability law of that period made it difficult to prove that any specific individual was at fault. A jury decided, perhaps due to the unusually heavy rain, that the failure of the dam and the resulting flood were an Act of God. Members of the club made contributions to the relief effort and to the rebuilding of Johnstown, but later, many of those who survived blamed the wealthy industrialists for the disaster.3

Wealth inequality was a chasm between the club members and the people of Johnstown. There were vast differences in social status, and no personal connections between those above and those in the valley below. What could the people of Johnstown have done to protect themselves, other than hope for the best? We face a similar question today.

Wealth Inequality and Political Dysfunction

Never has wealth inequality been so extreme in the United States as it is today, except for the “Gilded Age,” around the time that the Great Flood of 1889 destroyed Johnstown.4

Without cooperation from members of the club, people who lived (and died) in Johnstown were unable to accurately assess the dam and make sure that any faults were corrected. Wealth inequality prevented resolution of the dam safety issue in 1889 Johnstown. Today, it impedes the search for solutions to the problem of climate crisis.

Wealth inequality makes a difference because the rich exert influence upon politics and bend commerce to their advantage.5 As wealth inequality becomes extreme, the less-wealthy lose political power, while the wealthy lose sight of how their fate is tied to the rest of society.

Estimated Reserves: Asset or Threat?

A conflict connected to wealth inequality prevents curtailing use of fossil fuels and reducing CO2 emissions. “Estimated reserves” are deposits of fossil fuels that have been located and judged as to size, but have yet to be extracted. Estimated reserves are counted as assets, “money in the ground” used as collateral for loans to fund further exploration and extraction.

To pay back the loans obtained using estimated reserves as collateral, the industry is compelled to continue extracting fossil fuels from estimated reserves. But the estimated reserves consist of far more fossil fuels than should ever be used if we are to limit global warming, as recommended by climate scientists.6

Estimated reserves are an asset for the fossil fuel industry. To be prevented from burning them would spell ruin for the industry. Estimated reserves are a liability for life on Earth, because to burn them would provoke a climate disaster. To stretch the analogy, estimated reserves are like the lake above Johnstown in 1889.

The business model of the fossil fuel industry is not sustainable. As citizens become aware of the threat to their survival, they may finally force the government to impose limits upon emissions of CO2. When that happens, estimated reserves will be on their way to becoming “stranded assets,” and fossil fuels will come to be viewed as risky investments.7

Fear of fossil fuel industry collapse drives the denial of climate crisis and, in the case of oil and gas, drives the hyperbole of fracking.

One climate scientist proposes that oil which is technology-intensive and unconventionally sourced (fracked) is so expensive and environmentally risky that it’s comparable to the human body which, when deprived of nutrients, begins to devour itself. The oil industry and the world economy have won brief deliverance from the end of peak oil, but at a high cost. A return to the downhill slide of the fossil fuel industry within a few years is inevitable.8

Rather than representing salvation, as the industry would have us believe, fracking gives a brief, expensive and destructive delay in the unavoidable decline of the oil and gas industry. Wisdom would dictate that the delay be used to shift to renewable energy, because there has been no reprieve from global warming that is changing climate. In a few years, we will still be at day one in terms of programs needed to stop CO2 emissions, while we will have lost ground in terms of global warming.

If We Do Nothing

Emphasis upon global warming and rising sea levels may lead the public to underestimate the potential danger of the climate crisis. It’s not just that the Earth will grow warmer, nor that sea levels will rise. That’s only the beginning.

Here is what’s projected by climate scientists: as global warming disrupts climate systems, weather created by those systems will become less predictable and more extreme. Weather-related disasters (such as extended drought and wildfires) will increase in frequency. As the climate systems destabilize, they will pass a tipping point, after which it is expected that chaotic weather and frequent natural disasters will become the norm.9

Runaway systems familiar to us eventually come to a steady state: a flood recedes, an avalanche settles into an angle of repose. But destabilized climate systems that have passed the tipping point may continue to create chaotic weather.

Escalating temperatures, chaotic weather, and frequent disasters mean growing hardship. Life will become unpleasant, then miserable, then intolerable, and finally unlivable.10

If CO2 emissions were completely stopped today, global temperature would continue to rise, the way momentum carries a car past the point where the brakes were applied. That’s why there’s urgency to curtail emissions now.11

Destruction of our natural environment means the collapse of civilization as we know it. We can’t have one without the other because they are inextricably linked. The climate crisis is not just an issue of concern to environmentalists. The threat is greater than anything we have ever faced, with the exception of nuclear war.12

Is this a “worst case” scenario? A “carbon budget” is the estimated amount of CO2 that can enter the atmosphere, yet maintain global temperature increase at or below two degrees Celsius. Two degrees C is a “safe” global temperature adjustment, a level of increase that will have problematic consequences but hopefully will be tolerable, according to climate scientists.13

The carbon budget tells us how much we can continue to pollute the atmosphere (not much), while warming the world as little as possible. With emissions persisting at the present rate, a two degrees C increase is predicted to occur in only 13 years. What’s worse, it’s unlikely that we will be able to stay at that level for very long. An increase of four degrees Celsius, which may be intolerable, is expected before 2050.14

Are these predictions inevitable? The problem with the future is that it is difficult to predict. Climate science may change as more data becomes available and climate models become more sophisticated. Change is built-in, because science is a self-correcting system.

However, what’s predicted now, as we continue to emit CO2 — business as usual — is global disaster. Given the magnitude of the danger and imminence of the consequences, we should act so as to reduce CO2 emissions. But little corrective action is underway.

Prior to 1889, people in Johnstown had no power to protect themselves and their community. Many just hoped for the best. When the town was destroyed by the Great Flood in 1889, their fears were justified.

We cannot simply hope for the best and expect a different outcome. Nobody is going to rescue us. We must protect ourselves with the political power that is available to us.

What Must Be Done

We need bottom-up action, the very thing that was absent in Johnstown. We need mass movements that will create pressure to move consumers away from the use of fossil fuels.

A divestment program pressures institutions such as religious organizations, universities, colleges, towns, cities, and states to remove fossil fuels from their investment portfolios. Such a movement has already begun (gofossilfree.org).

As each institution discloses its divestment, the moral issue is made public.15 A divestment movement helped end apartheid; it will do the same for climate crisis. As university students discover that their future is being taken from them, the divestment movement on campus will grow.

A program promoted by Citizens Climate Lobby (citizensclimatelobbyl.org) is a “fee and rebate” for carbon fuels. Money that’s collected at the mine or wellhead from fossil fuel companies will be distributed to consumers, so that they are able to pay for the increased expense of sustainable energy. The fee will start small and escalate slowly, nudging consumers toward the greater use of renewable sources of energy. Such a carbon fee and refund program, established five years ago in B.C., Canada, has been remarkably successful so far.16

Organized, engaged citizens can be a potent political force, which is exactly what’s needed. Much will depend upon organizations which can recruit large numbers of concerned citizens and create ways for them to become involved in addressing climate crisis. What we don’t have is very much time.

For More Information:

• Divestment:

350.org gofossilfree.org

• Citizens Climate Lobby:

citizensclimatelobby.org

Endnotes

1. Richard Somerville, 4th AnnualKeeling Lecture: “The Scientific Case for Urgent Action to Limit Climate Change”, https://scripps.ucsd.edu/events/4th-annual-keeling-lecture-scientific-case-urgent-action-limit-climate-change

2. Suzanne Goldenberg, “Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks”, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/14/funding-climate-change-denial-thinktanks-network

3. David McCullough, The Johnstown Flood, Simon & Schuster, 1987. See also: http://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/history.html

4. Mark Thoma, “Reducing inequality can be growth-enhancing”, http://www.economist.com/economics/by-invitation/questions/how_does_inequality_matter

5. Konstantin Sonin, “The “haves” have a strong incentive to protect their status”, http://www.economist.com/economics/by-invitation/guest-contributions/haves_have_strong_incentive_protect_their_status

6. Bill McKibben, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719

7. Bevis Longstreth, “What can anyone do about Climate Change?”, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bevis-longstreth/what-can-anyone-do-about-_b_3471581.html

8. Richard Heinberg, Snake Oil, How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future, The Post Carbon Institute, 2013.

9. Richard Somerville, 4th Annual Keeling Lecture: “The Scientific Case for Urgent Action to Limit Climate Change” https://scripps.ucsd.edu/events/4th-annual-keeling-lecture-scientific-case-urgent-action-limit-climate-change

10. David McCandless,”How Many Gigatons of Carbon Dioxide?”, http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/dec/07/carbon-dioxide-doha-information-beautiful#zoomed-picture

11 Richard Somerville, 4th Annual Keeling Lecture: “The Scientific Case for Urgent Action to Limit Climate Change”, https://scripps.ucsd.edu/events/4th-annual-keeling-lecture scientific-case-urgent-action-limit-climate-change

12. Ryan L. Cooper, “Why Climate Change is Not an Environmental Issue”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELMXJts5qic

13. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Draft Decision -/CP.15”, Copenhagen Accord, December, 2009 http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf

14. David McCandless, “How Many Gigatons of Carbon Dioxide?”, http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/dec/07/carbon-dioxide-doha-information-beautiful#zoomed-picture

15. Brooke Jarvis “Can a Divestment Campaign Move the Fossil Fuel Industry?”, http://e360.yale.edu/feature/can_a_divestment_campaign_move_the_fossil_fuel_industry/2629

16. John Abraham and Dana Nuccitelli, “Can a carbon tax work without hurting the economy? Ask British Columbia”, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/jul/30/climate-change-british-columbia-carbon