Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Climate impact on humans


The Global Humanitarian Forum's most recent report, "Climate Change responsible for 300,000 deaths a year," outlines the impact of climate change on human life.

The report is way beyond sobering. We have so many reasons to come together in community, both locally, nationally and around the world. Certainly, this report provides additional motivation of the most pressing sort.

Here are summary points to get your thoughts flowing:

--First ever report exclusively focused on the global human impact of climate change calculates more than 300 million people are seriously affected by climate change at a total economic cost of $125 billion per year

--Report projects that by 2030, worldwide deaths will reach almost 500,000 per year; people affected by climate change annually expected to rise to over 600 million and the total annual economic cost increase to around $300 billion

--To avert worst possible outcomes, climate change adaptation efforts need to be scaled up by a factor of 100 in developing countries, which account for 99% of casualties due to climate change

The full report goes on. . .

London 29 May – Kofi A. Annan, President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, today introduced a major new report into the human impact of climate change. The ‘Human Impact Report: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis’ is the first ever comprehensive report looking at the human impact of climate change.

The report was issued immediately prior to official preparatory talks in Bonn for a new UN international climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. These talks will culminate at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The report was reviewed by leading international experts, including Rajendra Pachauri of the IPCC, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, and Barbara Stocking of Oxfam.

The report estimates that climate change today accounts for over 300,000 deaths throughout the world each year, the equivalent of an Indian Ocean Tsunami every single year. By 2030, the annual death toll from climate change will reach half a million people a year.


To read the entire report click here.

At Central Dallas Ministries, we are working right now on developing a job training program to go along with a possible business venture to bring solar power to low-income communities here in Dallas at a price point that makes sense.

Reactions to the need?
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9 comments:

Chris said...

Kofi Annan was a corrupt official of one of the most corrupt organizations on planet earth so I would be careful of giving credence to anything he has to say.

Humans are not responsible for climate change and we certainly cannot do anything about it, even if it exists, which I doubt. Thousands of scientists dubuke the theory, but they are not allowed to be heard.

Cap and Trade, which is designed to bankrupt our country, reminds me of the selling of indulgences in the dark ages. You can sin all you want as long as you pay money. Likewise, you can pollute all you want as long as you pay for it. It's making people like Al Gore mega rich.

Some Americans are like sheep, they will believe anything. Wake up before it's too late.

Anonymous said...

oooh, Fox news is on... bah... bah... bah...

Chris said...

Speedup,

If you want to be taken seriously you might try to make a little sense.

Anonymous said...

The pot has now called the kettle black.

Lorlee said...

Whether there is climate change or not, poor people need assistance with jobs, food, health care, utilities. The need is there regardless

Forget who might or might not be responsible for climate change -- What does it hurt to tread lightly on the earth, to do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto you.

I would add to the list efforts to increase local food security. More community gardens, planting fruit and nut trees in the parks and parkwasy.

Chris said...

The Cap and Trade bill passed the House, not to save the country from carbon emmissions, but they were "bought out." Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) was given 3.5 Billion dollars to vote for the bill. The early morning amendment was full of pork to ensure votes for the bill.

China and India have fast growing economies, three or four times that of ours. They are not about to reduce their economic growth by reducing carbon emmissions. Human activity accounts for only a small percentage of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. So if the US manages to reduce emmissions through measures that bankrupt our country and economic growth, it will have an insignificant impact on Earth's climate.

So if we go back to windmills and horse drawn carts, it will not help and will make us poorer. We need to get the government out of our energy policy and let the oil companies, coal and nuclear plants do their job.

Lorlee said...

Chris, I think they have been the ones in charge of doing the job -- with trillions in subsidies -- and look where it has gotten us.

Time for a change.

Jeff Warren said...

"Climate changes and always has," says many a denier. Unfortunately, climate is now changing very rapidly. The average temperature of the atmosphere is rising more quickly than at any other time in human history --- indeed, more quickly than at any time since the appearance of humans on earth.

Not only is the change in temperature rapid, the temperature itself is headed to a level higher than any seen since humans appeared. The most recent comparable warming and temperature level was during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum about 55 million years ago. That era of rapid climate change led to mass extinctions.

None of this can be contested scientifically.

So --- much as Lorlee pointed out --- even without assigning a cause to the warming, we know that we are facing an unprecedented challenge to human existence. Very simply: humanity has never existed in a global climate as severe as what we now foresee.

We have never peformed agriculture outside of Holocene climate, and the coming changes will eliminate many features of Holocene climate on which our most productive agriculture depends --- notably, year-round river flow from glaciers and snowpack.

Simply due to Post-Holocene climate, agriculture will increasingly be done on non-irrigated fields in semi-arid places. And that doesn't account for the increased costs of automation and fertilizer in a world with more expensive petroleum.

We will not be able to feed six billion people.

The die-down will not be peaceful.

The science community that shows us what is happening to the climate also is attempting to show us that we humans are actually pushing the climate ourselves. We have rapidly transferred hydrocarbons from the lithosphere to the atmosphere. We have done this so quickly and so thoroughly that we have increased the concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane at key levels of the atmosphere, causing the earth to emit less infrared radiation into space. This has resulted in the current regime of rapid warming.

If we don't get the offending gases out of the atmosphere, we'll face horrible consequences.

Anonymous said...

MIT, in a report released this week, reported that the temperature rise is a natural cycle not impacted by "greenhouse gases". My point is that this Cap and Trade nonsense is based on a political payoff that Obama is making to his Green Peace constitutents. A politically motivated "environmental" decision that will severely impact all of us, and the poor among us the most, is a terrible waste!