
On Monday, right-wing contrarian Bjorn Lomborg argued that we have "twenty to forty years" to spend on researching new technology for global warming.
He argues that "efforts to reduce global warming pollution can wait, because 'coping with climate change is something we know how to do.'" Go tell this to Pakistan flood victims.
I guess "coping" now means death, illness, economic deficits, job losses, hunger, national security risks, environmental destruction, wildlife extinction and environmental racism.
It also means allowing nations to face the threat of extinction. When wildlife is threatened by extinction, our endangered species law may provide protected status while recovery remedies are implemented to save the wildlife. What about people threatened with rising sea levels that might swallow up entire nations? Are people as important as our wildlife?
Cross-posted at BPI.

Some scientists and government officials recognize that recent disasters, such as the flooding in Pakistan, mudslides in China and heat waves/fires in Russia, "match predictions of extremes caused by global warming." Looking at Pakistan alone, almost 20 million people, which is almost equivalent to the entire population of Australia, were affected by the floods in Pakistan that "ravaged an area larger than England." What if flooding had impacted every person in Australia or if the entire country of England had been submerged? Would people then see that we can't keep fiddling with if and how to address climate change?
Does anyone care that extreme weather events are claiming more lives each year now? Oxfam, an international confederation, reported (pdf file) on the lives lost due to climate-related disasters, such as floods, heat waves and sea level rise:
2010 has seen more than twice the number of lives lost as a result of climate-related disasters in its first three-quarters than the whole of 2009. It is also on course to record a higher number of extreme weather events than the ten-year average of 770.
Oxfam reported that 10,000 lives were lost in 850 extreme weather events in 2009: In the first nine months of 2010, there have been 725 extreme weather events resulting in 21,000 lives lost. Oxfam acknowledges that it is "difficult to attribute individual climate-related disasters to climate change," but "scientists predict that such extreme weather events will become more frequent and severe as a result of climate change in the future."
Insurance giant Munich Re reported the same figures of a "total of 725 weather-related natural hazard events with significant losses from January to September 2010, the second-highest figure recorded for the first nine months of the year since 1980." Munich re has its own natural disaster database:
Munich Re’s natural catastrophe database, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world, shows a marked increase in the number of weather-related events. For instance, globally there has been a more than threefold increase in loss-related floods since 1980 and more than double the number of windstorm natural catastrophes, with particularly heavy losses as a result of Atlantic hurricanes.
Munich Re calculated the financial costs for the weather-related natural disasters (such as floods in Central Europe and Pakistan and wildfires in Russia) in 2010, emphasizing that it acknowledges the "probability of a link between the increasing number of weather extremes and climate change." Given the focus on global economic crisis, does anyone care about how our refusal to address climate change impacts is contributing significantly to our financial distress:
Overall losses due to weather-related natural catastrophes from January to September came to more than US$ 65bn and insured losses to US$ 18bn.

Small island states are particularly vulnerable and want to "protect their people from 'going extinct.'" (Photo of the island of Tarawa, Kiribati, South Pacific.)
Antonio Lima, vice-chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), said whole nations will be washed away by sea level rise.
He said the people of Kiribati, Tuvalu, most of the Cook Islands, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives -- which are just a few metres above sea level now -- could be lost as a race.
"We are going to be the first human species endangered in the 21st century. We are going to be in danger of going extinct," he said.
These island nations face the "end of history."
Island states say that storm surges are eroding beaches, blowing salt water onto farmland and contaminating fresh water supplies. In the longer term, they fear that rises in sea levels will wash them off the map.
Yet, U.S. lawmakers don't go to Cancun.
From "the House is in session" to "I haven't thought about it," Republicans and Democrats alike have excuses aplenty for skipping the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change talks.
GOP Sen. Coburn says "we got bigger problems than climate right now." Sen. Feinstein: "I haven't really thought about it, to be honest with you."

Too bad. A trip to Cancun, a look at how the beaches in Cancun are washing away due to climate change, might have opened some eyes to the inhumanity of fiddling while the world suffers.
Cancun’s eroding white sand beaches are providing a note of urgency to the climate talks being held just south of this seaside resort famed for its postcard-perfect vistas. Rising sea levels and a series of unusually powerful hurricanes have aggravated the folly of building a tourist destination atop shifting sand dunes on a narrow peninsula. After the big storms hit, the bad ideas were laid bare: Much of Cancun’s glittering hotel strip is now without a beach. Hotels built too tall, too heavy and too close to the shore, as well as beaches stripped of native vegetation to make them more tourist-friendly, have contributed to the massive erosion.
You can Watch Live Interactive Video Coverage from COP16 Here and ask questions to be answered during the live broadcast. (The embed coding worked in preview but would not publish.)
The TckTckTck team and One Climate TV have joined together to bring live interactive video coverage from COP16 in Cancun. While you’re watching the streaming video, which is a mix of live news, interviews, and pre-recorded video, you can type questions into the chat box below the video and your questions might be answered during the live segments.
You can also tweet your questions to @oneclimate using the hashtag #oneclimate, but I think the chat box below brings faster results. I had the chance to test this during the last live broadcast and was amazed at the speed with which my questions were addressed.