The stock market took a tumble over the last couple of days, but that may look like a hiccup compared to what may be in store. World elites are starting to wake up to the unpleasant reality that their present business models relying on fossil fuels are not only unsustainable, but they are increasingly damaging the world economy.
Top Economic Risk of 2016 Is Global Warming
By Benjamin Hulac,
Climate change is the most severe global economic risk of 2016, the World Economic Forum said yesterday.
The nonprofit economic analysis institution, set to convene next week in Davos, Switzerland, for its yearly meeting, has labeled climate change or related environmental phenomena—extreme weather, major natural catastrophes, mounting greenhouse gas levels, water scarcity, flooding, storms and cyclones—among the top five most likely and significant economic threats the world faced in each of its annual reports since 2011.
The WEF document does not paint a sanguine picture.
North America’s eastern seaboard, East Asia, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific are particularly exposed to extreme weather patterns and natural catastrophes, according to the report—a survey conducted in the fall of 750 experts, who answered questions about 29 types of global risk, like cyberattacks, government instability and weapons of mass destruction.
Global climate change threatens top producers of wheat, corn, rice and other agricultural commodities, the report notes. Recent years illustrated the “climate vulnerability of G-20 [Group of 20] countries such as India, Russia and the United States—the breadbasket of the world.”
Hot, dry and tense
Climate change is compounding and amplifying other social, economic and humanitarian stresses globally. It is linked to mass and often forced migration; violent conflict between nations and regions; water crises; and, as the world population rises and simultaneously gets hotter, food shortages, the report reads.
“Forced displacement is already at an unprecedented level,” the authors continue, referring to emigration.
We care conducting a monstrous experiment with the planet’s atmosphere and oceans creating multifaceted detrimental effects. Climate Change is a threat not only to the world’s economy, but potentially a threat to our very survival as a species.