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Climate change may kill millions in Africa: report
 LONDON (Reuters) - Disease spread by global warming could kill an extra 185 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of the century and turn millions more into refugees unless rich nations take action now, a report said on Monday.
Christian Aid said rich developed countries had to end their dependence on fossil fuels and set aside large sums of aid to help poorer nations ride out the worst impacts of global warming and switch to energy sources like wind, solar and waves. "Rich countries must take responsibility for having largely created this problem -- and cut CO2 emissions radically," the non-governmental organization said in a report "The Climate of Poverty: facts, fears and hopes."
I think he should add imagination in there, too.
| He's going to have to find a new schtick when global warming fails to occur. |
"Climate change is taking place and will inevitably continue. Poor people will take the brunt, so we are calling on rich countries to help them adjust as the seas rise, the deserts expand, and floods and hurricanes become more frequent and intense."
Most scientists agree (no they don't. do a google search moron) that global warming is due to burning fossil fuels for transport and power, and new calculations suggest that having risen by 0.6 degrees Celsius in the 20th century, global temperatures could surge three degrees by 2100.
Patrick Michaels, a University of Virginia climatologist, Cato Institute scholar, and long-time climate change skeptic,recorded temperature increases of +0.032 degrees Celsius per decade for January 1998 to February 2006. This is not significantly different from zero at all.
| And even if the globe is warming, it might be a whole lot cheaper to accommodate that rather than try to fight it. |
Christian Aid said it based its estimate of 185 million deaths due to disease on figures from the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
| And who can you believe if you can't believe the U.N.? |
Global warming should allow carriers like mosquitoes to expand their ranges. Moaquitos are already found in the Artic and have been since people started going there. How much further can their range be expanded?
This writer doesn't take in to account mosquito control. We have virtually eliminated malaria here in the US because of mosquito control.
| He also doesn't take into account that a warmer globe means a longer growing season for crops in the breadbaskets of the world, which means (as long as one controls for civil wars and mayhem) less hunger and more prosperity. |
Melting ice caps and glaciers were not only eroding coast lines at a rapid rate but were also raising sea levels and reducing reliable sources of fresh water.
Again, statements without documentation.
| He's a true believer, he doesn't need documentation. |
At the same time changing weather patterns were increasing the incidence of floods and droughts, with arid regions becoming drier and wet regions getting wetter. These changes would increase tensions as key resources like water and fertile land became more scarce, the religious charity said, noting the farmers in northern Kenya were fighting over a diminishing number of waterholes to feed their cattle. "The unfolding disaster in east Africa, where 11 million people have been put at risk of hunger by years of unprecedented drought, is a foretaste of what it to come," the report said.
Which was a man-made disaster. The drought is from Mother Nature, but it was idiot, venal governments that created the conditions that put 11 million people at risk.
We've had droughts in this country over the last five decades: when it happens, we adjust, we provide aid, we fix policies, we buy food elsewhere, we undertake projects to fix the drought, and so on. That's because we have a representative government that for all its plentiful warts has to demonstrate a certain level of competence on pain of being replaced. Kenya and Uganda barely have governments, and Somalia is a wasteland. The very large majority of drought disasters are created by man, not by Nature. |
"In this sense, the environment is too important to be left to the environmentalists," Christian Aid said, declaring that it was switching its campaign goals to focus on the four great effects of global warming -- pestilence, floods, famine and war.
The Kyoto Protocol is the only global vehicle for cutting carbon emissions, but it expires in 2012, the world's worst polluter, the United States, rejects it and it does not commit the major developing nations to make any reductions.
Ask the Canadians how well Kyoto is going. Also the EU.As talks get under way to try to find a successor to Kyoto and encourage the United States to sign up, Christian Aid said developed nations had to slash carbon dioxide emissions by two-thirds by 2050, and major developing nations India, Brazil and China also had to agree to set tough targets for themselves.
This is one of the biggest piece of absolute bullshit I think I have ever read. This is nothing less than a scheme to transfer wealth by trying to make people in the developed world feel guilty. If we actually did what this group wants there would be a world-wide depression that would make the 1920's look like good times. Why oh why are the problems in the developing world always depicted as having been foisted on them by the Evil United States. This is pure speculaction on the part of the "Reporter" and not backed up by any type of science. Bugwit.
| Jane Galt had a long article a couple years back about how, simply, carbon emissions equals energy equals standard of living. A two-thirds cut in emissions? That's a two-thirds cut in a standard of living, more or less, and that would take us back to life in the 1930s. My parents remind me that life then wasn't much fun. Perhaps Christian Aid wouldn't mind, since it would give them plenty more poor people to help, but I'm certainly not willing to do that. And if one reply to that is 'well by 2050 we'll have figured out how to cut emissions without cutting standard of living', my response is great, try writing that as a sci-fi novel, you'll have more luck. |
Posted by: Deacon Blues 2006-05-15 |
