"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened," - Winston Churchill
The new president of the World Bank, Jim Young Kim warns that poorest countries will be hit the hardest by "food shortages, rising sea level, cyclones, and drought" in a new report on climate change called 'Turn Down The Heat' On Warming Planet, reports Anna Yukhananov. Jim Young Kim has launched a more aggressive attempt to integrate consideration of climate change into development plans with a scenario exploring the impact of a 4 degree Celsius (7.2 Fahrenheit) rise in earth's temperature by the end of the century considered likely at current rates and policies. Under this scenario, extreme heat waves, droughts, floods, hurricanes, and greater weather variability will be the new normal, leaving many currently densely populated regions uninhabitable.
Such extreme weather is likely to become the "new normal" if the temperature rises by 4 degrees, according to the World Bank report. This is likely to happen if not all countries comply with pledges they have made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even assuming full compliance, the world will warm by more than 3 degrees by 2100.
In this hotter climate, the level of the sea would rise by up to 3 feet, flooding cities in places like Vietnam and Bangladesh. Water scarcity and falling crop yields would exacerbate hunger and poverty.
Extreme heat waves would devastate broad swaths of the earth's land, from the Middle East to the United States, the report says. The warmest July in the Mediterranean could be 9 degrees hotter than it is today -- akin to temperatures seen in the Libyan desert.
The combined effect of all these changes could be even worse, with unpredictable effects that people may not be able to adapt to, said John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, which along with Climate Analytics prepared the report for the World Bank.
Citing overwhelming scientific evidence, Kim writes, "It is my hope that this report shocks us into action."
In 2010, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, and the national science academies of all major industrial nations endorsed the view held by most climate scientists that the global warming of the past 100 years is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, produced by burning fossil fuels and deforestation.
No Alternative But To Act? Think Again Says North Carolina - The Forbidden Future!
Oxfam issued a call for action:
"There really is no alternative to urgent action given the devastating consequences of climate change," global development group Oxfam said in a statement.
Sadly, this quote from Oxfam illustrates how little understanding some international observers have of U.S. politics, as one of the "other alternative" the state legislature of North Carolina found was to propose a law making it illegal for anyone to mention "global warming" in any official publication of the state of North Carolina, or make any legislation responding to it.
The LA Times reported in July:
Here's the NoCa solution: pretend it’s not happening. Pass a law saying it can't happen because we say it can't. Which is to say, ban any government agency from using the standard scientific tools like extrapolating data to figure out what's happening, and thus avoid all those scary, silly scientific facts and figures. ... Global warming? Flooding seas? Not in North Carolina. Why? Because they say so, that's why.
News reports point out that businesses and local governments along the state's coast lobbied for the law, which declares that only data from years past can be considered in calculating future sea levels; essentially, if it didn't happen before, it can't happen, period. The pending law bans using real scientific techniques and formulas about rising sea levels because that could mean rising building costs, rising insurance rates and rising restrictions on coastal building. So instead, let's invoke wishful thinking and say it isn't so.
The state's Coastal Resources Commission, which looked into that soon-to-be-forbidden future, had anticipated a sea level rise of more than three feet within 90 years. The precise figure, 39 inches, has now been deleted from the commission's policy.
Although, we shake our heads and laugh at how backwards this seems, many in other parts of the world see entire nations such as the U.S. and China acting in ways not that much more progressive after decades of holding back international treaties to restrict the burning of fossil fuels, with programs such as cap-and-trade.
Will the U.S. Act?
A report in SmartPlanet.com reports an Asian perspective, where a week before the U.N. conference on climate change in Doha, Qatar, leaders are "wondering whether Hurricane Sandy will propel the United States to adopt a more pro-active role in addressing the global challenge at a domestic and international level."
While some see hope:
“We do see some momentum,” said Harjeet Singh, the climate change coordinator at ActionAid International. “Sandy shattered the myth that only developing countries are going to be hit by climate change.” ...
In the election issue of Time Magazine, Michael Grunwald writes that Obama’s fuel efficiency rules could reduce carbon emissions by 6 billion metric tons by 2025, and his stimulus bill had put $90 billion into clean energy.
Research supports the ideas that adopting new technologies to improve efficiency, and investing in new renewable and sustainable energy sources, as President Obama has supported with this $90 funding for cleaner energy, can create enormous numbers of new jobs. Also, we should be pushing President Obama's Infrastructure Bank to improve our infrastructure including smarter and more robust electrical grids. The Keynesian-like stimulative effect of these kinds of investments can be a temporary and transitional offset the "austerity bomb" impact of other cuts to government spending, as well as offset reduced defense spending.
Others, though, do not expect much action from Americans:
Speaking to the press after winning the elections, Obama said any future action on climate change could not come at the costs of American jobs and growth.
“I don’t think anybody is going to go for that. I won’t go for that,” he said. “If, on the other hand, we can shape an agenda that says we can create jobs, advance growth, and make a serious dent in climate change and be an international leader, I think that’s something that the American people would support.”
Climate activists in India see his remarks as vague and non-committal.
“I don’t think it will change the American position. If Katrina didn’t do it then neither will Sandy,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy chief of the Centre of Science and Environment in Delhi. “I think there is a clear message from the Obama administration that there will be little change if it affects jobs.”
“The time has come for the US to take climate change seriously,” said Ashok Khosla, head of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. “Now that the elections are behind, the president can make some tough decisions for his country and the world.”
Indians have cause to be concerned.
Well, time will tell.
Much research suggests that an aggressive approach to concerting our economy to sustainable and renewable energy generation sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, and improving efficiencies, as President Obama has supported with fuel emission standards and his support in developing new energy sources, will create enormous numbers of jobs, and could also stimulate the economy and lead to a better and more sustainable future for our country and the world.
Winston Churchill also said:
"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities."