Warming trend could harm state's wildlife, experts say; Environmentalists meet in Upstate to discuss what we can anticipate

January 22, 2006, The Greenville News, Greenville SC
by Paul Alongi

SPARTANBURG -- If global warming is going to be the colossal disaster that environmentalists are predicting, the Upstate's brook trout could be the first to know.

Mountain streams and Lake Jocassee are just barely cool enough for the fish, but a temperature increase of as little as 2 degrees Celsius could virtually wipe out their habitat in the state, said Tom McInnis, state chairman of the conservation group Trout Unlimited.

"It may in fact be one of the earliest impacted in the nation," he said during a conference Saturday sponsored by the South Carolina Wildlife Federation.

As mounting evidence shows the Earth's climate is changing, environmentalists here provided a glimpse of what they say the state can expect over the next 100 years. They warned of more intense hurricanes, rising sea levels and drastic changes to the ecosystem that sustains life.

They pinned the blame on the greenhouse gases people produce by burning fossil fuels in cars and power plants.

Fourth District U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-Travelers Rest, said he was skeptical of global warming in his first term as a congressman. But Inglis, who recently visited a climate research station at the South Pole, has changed his mind.

"Something is happening by way of climate change -- something we should be concerned about and be taking action on," he said.

Few scientists dispute that the Earth's climate is changing, but the reasons for it -- and how much humans have to do with it -- have become tangled in vast layers of science and politics. Either we have been slowly destroying our planet, or fears have been greatly exaggerated as nature takes its course.

As the planet changes, the state can expect warmer temperatures, especially at night and in the winter, said Doug Inkley, senior science adviser for the National Wildlife Federation.

Hurricanes will blow stronger and last longer, he said. Combined with rising sea levels, coastal residents can expect larger storm surge, Inkley said.

The Earth's surface temperature has risen about 1 degree in the past century and at an accelerated rate in the past 20 years, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

"It will affect South Carolina, just as it will affect the rest of the world," Inkley said.

Greenville's mean temperature has fallen by about a degree over the past century. But the shorter-term trend, over the past 20 years, has the city warming by a degree, according to the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Seneca Republican, "buys into the science" behind climate change and is looking for a policy that will support the environment and the economy at the same time, said his legislative assistant, Matthew Rimkunas.

"Companies in South Carolina can do very well on this," he said.