Dire times for global warming? Not yet.

If Dr. M. Aslam Khan Khalil’s students are representative of the general public’s attitude toward global warming, then getting support to pay for programs to cut carbon dioxide emissions will be a challenge.

In polls of students, he asks them how much of their income they would be willing to give up. The answer: not much.

After planning his lectures while bicycling long distances by himself, Dr. Khalil is forceful but neutral in the   classroom. 

“I want my students in Physics 375U to think about the earth’s climate,” he said. “In discussing global change and human life, I force participation. I expect my students to make presentations and to defend their thesis, to see flaws in arguments.”

Khalil moved to the United States when he was 13 years old, after growing up in his hometown of Lahore, Pakistan as well as India. He works out of a small, dusty office perhaps unbefitting a scholar with multiple master and doctoral degrees, including a Ph.D. in environmental science and another in physics. Respected internationally, Khalil isn’t shy about explaining his position on global warming.

“It’s already happening, it will get worse,” Khalil said. “We cannot stop it. How worse and when, no one can predict. But in the coming decades the oceans, which are already rising, will rise more and, in all probability, impact coastlines.”

However, Khalil doesn’t despair. He said he sees a lot of opportunity to take action against potential problems. To get action, he conceded it would probably take “something dramatic” to happen.

“It wasn’t until we discovered the ozone hole that we got a ban on carbons,” he said as one example of a scientific discovery that led to policy change.

“The question is: At what point will there be a real problem for human life? Warming could create better crop yields. It could reduce the energy used for heating, which would reduce global warming,” Khalil said. “We do not know when the balance will shift from benefit to catastrophe. Anything is possible, but catastrophe is very unlikely in the coming decades. However, we have no mechanisms to tell us when that will be.”

There are many theories among the scientific community detailing the timeline of exactly when global warming will start to have more severe consequences, however Khalil said those theories are just best guesses at this point and lack true scientific merit.

While it’s good to be “green” and stop driving a car, these measures have no real effect on global warming, he added.

“The way we are living today, if we had no more emissions, we would still be having global warming,” he said. “We have to see a lot more done by the international community, with an agreement backed up by accountability. Even that does not guarantee violation.”

Ultimately, once governments unite on policies “people will get used to it like pollution regulations,” Khalil said.

“There has to be an international agreement to reduce emissions and put those policies in action. Dollars have to be allocated. We need prevention, verification and adaptation as well as a plan for how to deal with the worst consequences.”

In the meantime, he added, doing something is better than nothing. He said policies have to be government mandated. Khalil suggested that movies and writing by visible global warming advocates such as Al Gore “drives fears,” but it is momentary.

“It’s like watching a horror movie that scares you, you look at it, you walk out and you forget about it. The same with climate change,” he said. “People do not believe in dire predictions. Some scientists believe that they are forced to push dire consequences in order to make their point. It’s a complex social, psychological phenomenon that will just have to play itself out.”

There are no guarantees, he warned, “even if we follow the rules, that climate change won’t have unforeseen consequences.

“We have to take this step. It has the most potential to work,” he urged. “Only nature can decide. It’s like Humpty Dumpty. Once he falls, everything topples.”