Climate & Climate Politics
- Ignoring that the economic disruption climate change will cause will drive increased poverty… Forget Climate Change: The Biggest Problem Facing the World Is… – Hit & Run : Reason.com argues that poverty is the biggest problem the world faces and cites, go figure, political scientist Bjørn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus which advocates pie-in-the-sky geo-engineering will save us all arguments.
- Global warming: Wall Street Journal article cites bad evidence, draws wrong conclusion.
- War on climate change defies common sense – KansasCity.com Charles Krauthammer rants
- And a critical look at Krauthammer rant:D. R. Tucker: Krauthammer’s Climate Crack-up
- A Climate Change Argument That May Even Work On Conservatives
- Stanford climate scientist addresses misconceptions about climate change
“Politically, 2C might be a useful target to rally the global community around,” said Chris Field, the director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford. “But the concept of a safe threshold is a myth and tends to distract attention from evidence that we are already seeing widespread and consequential impacts of climate change.”
[…]
Who will be affected the most by climate change, the rich or the poor?
“There is a lot of misunderstanding about the nature of the vulnerability to climate change. Many people assume that it’s concentrated somewhere else, especially in poor parts of the world. In reality, vulnerability has different dimensions in different places.
“If you look at global losses from climate-related disasters, it’s clear that economic loss occurs overwhelmingly in the developed world, while mortality occurs overwhelmingly in the developing world. With Hurricane Sandy, the people of New York and New Jersey sustained massive economic losses. If that same hurricane were to hit a developing country, economic loss might be lower, but loss of life might be greater.
“Much of the discussion about vulnerability focuses appropriately on the individuals at risk as a consequence of poverty, weak institutions or poor infrastructure. But this focus, although appropriate, should not divert attention from the fact that individuals and property in wealthy communities are also at risk. The experience with Hurricane Sandy is a harsh reminder of economic and personal vulnerabilities in the developed world.”…
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