It has already started. The first ripples from rising seas are inundating low-lying areas, threatening coasts and islands. Climate refugees around the world are fleeing regions beset by violent storms, extreme temperatures, melting glaciers, spreading deserts, swelling oceans and other escalating effects of global warming. Billions of people are at risk and the number is growing. Environmental stress forced more… return to article
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Reader Comments (11)Page 1 of 1 pages“Two years after Katrina, the richest country in the world leaves thousands of its climate refugees to live in poisoned trailers or camp in the kitchens of relatives far from their former homes.”
Given the nature of the low lying land, maybe these people need to learn to live somewhere else? It has been two years now, how many more before they can get on with new lives?
The quote below seems silly in light of the quote above:
“And what about the self-indulgent fools society continues to subsidize—with insurance premiums, taxes or extraordinary and repeated rescues—who insist on building beach houses on eroding sand, mansions in fire-prone hills and sprawling ranches in the bone-dry desert?”
Best to let the free market handle this. Eliminate government subsidizes for the so called “fools: above and also limit it for the poor “fools” who lost their neighbourhoods to Katrina. (To be brutally fair, it is likely that the taxes paid by the “self-indulgent fools” makes up for their usage of same, while the taxes paid by the poor “fools” in NO were very small compared to their usage.)
Posted by wolf on Sep 4, 2007 at 11:31 AM Europeans and US residents wil luse their wealth to mitigate the first effects of climate change, So the first effects that will cause them to suffer may well be the inflow of desperate unwanted migrants from Mexico and Africa.
Posted by John Burton on Sep 5, 2007 at 8:13 AM Hey John - those effects have been going on for decades! And kudos to Germany for their aggressive development of solar power (if only the US had a real energy policy, sigh)!
Posted by wolf on Sep 5, 2007 at 8:40 AM wolf,
Which is it, aggressive energy policy, or let the market decide?
You think we have an immigration problem now? Just wait. Not to mention millions of internal refugees.
Yeah, the free market will make it all cosy and nice. You betcha!
Posted by luminous beauty on Sep 7, 2007 at 8:33 AM Not very long ago the usa gov. insisted there was no scientific evidence on climate change, and refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Today your president tried to bring up the subject in Australia but of course no results came out of the “meeting of the powerful”.
Oh, what a fool I am, I forgot Almighty Market will take care of everything. Meanwhile, we can continue blaming Bin Laden for keeping your gov. so busy they have no time to seriously consider the damage to OUR planet.
Posted by Maria on Sep 8, 2007 at 10:32 PM Maria - I agree that the US should do more to cut carbon emissions. But if we cannot convince the Chinese to do the same, it will all be for naught. Coal mine fires alone in China produce more CO2 emissions that all of the cars in the uS. . .
Still, i strongly advocate the transition to solar power. In the long run, i think it will be a very good investment, not just in the first world, but in the rest of the world as well. (Nuclear is my second choice, if we are serious about cutting CO2.)
Posted by wolf on Sep 10, 2007 at 8:05 AM wolf,
I heartily congratulate you on endorsing solar power. But there are other technologies besides nuclear that are more promising and much more sustainable than nuclear. Uranium is a fairly rare and limited resource. France is already finding it difficult to find fuel for their reactors. I suggest you research geothermal, wind and tidal sources. For fun, you could look up ZPE.
Energy substitution is just one leg of the solution. Conservation and sequestration are equally important.
“Coal mine fires alone in China produce more CO2 emissions that all of the cars in the uS. . .”
Are you kidding me! Not even in the ballpark. Where do you get this crap?
Posted by luminous beauty on Sep 10, 2007 at 10:54 AM Here’s a little math problem for you, Wolfgang:
Upper limit of estimates of amount of coal burning in Chinese mine fires: ~200M tonnes/yr.
Amount of coal burned in US per year: ~1B tonnes/yr.
Percent of US carbon emissions/yr. from burning coal: ~28
Percent of US carbon emissions/yr. from petroleum fuels: ~44
Percent of petroleum fuels consumed by cars and light trucks: ~67
What is the maximum likely ratio between Chinese coal fire emissions/US automobile emissions?
(Hint: US cars and light trucks contribute ~15% of all global emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels and ~50% of global contributions from cars and light trucks.)
Extra credit:
Go HERE and calculate potential CO2 reductions from an equivalent change-over to such a revolutionary public transportation system.
Extra extra credit:
Calculate the economic productivity gains from same.
Posted by luminous beauty on Sep 10, 2007 at 11:24 AM It looks to me like Wolf is essentially correct. Both coal fires in China and U.S. autos contribute around 200 million tonnes of CO2 per year:
Coal fires in China burn 109 million tonnes of coal a year, emitting 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. This amounts to 2-3% of the annual worldwide production of CO2 from fossil fuels, or as much as emitted from all of the cars and light trucks in the United States.
So, since Wolf said only “cars”, it would appear that he is correct in saying that China coal fires put out more CO2 than U.S. cars.
Those must be some fires, in any event, and they’re not doing anyone any good, unlike your car, SUV or truck.
(Not sure which year this is from, so it could be that cars have gained on the coal more recently.)
Posted by Natalie on Sep 11, 2007 at 9:25 PM Nat,
For 2005:
“Carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector, at 1,958.6 MMT, accounted for 33 percent of total U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in 2005. Almost all (98 percent) of transportation sector emissions result from the consumption of petroleum products: motor gasoline, at 60 percent of total transportation sector emissions; middle distillates (diesel fuel) at 22 percent; jet fuel at 12 percent of the total; and residual oil (i.e., heavy fuel oil, largely for maritime use) at 3.3 percent of the sector’s total emissions. Motor gasoline is used primarily in automobiles and light trucks, and middle distillates are used in heavy trucks, locomotives, and ships.
“Emissions attributable to the transportation sector increased by 1.0 percent in 2005, from 1,939.2 MMT carbon dioxide in 2004 to 1,958.6 MMT in 2005 (Table 10). The fuel-use patterns and related emissions sources in the transportation sector are different from those in the other end-use sectors. By far the largest single source of emissions, motor gasoline, at 1,170.5 MMT carbon dioxide, increased by 0.1 percent.”
If 200MMT = 1,170.5MMT, I guess you and wolfie are on to something.
Since cars and light trucks (including SUVs) produce approximately the same amount of CO2, then in your caveated argument, 200MMT would have to equal ~585MMT.
It doesn’t.
Posted by luminous beauty on Sep 11, 2007 at 10:02 PM Hmmm....well I guess those Wiki figures are either wrong or outdated. Still, a substantial source of CO2, which I doubt many people are even aware of. At least I wasn’t.
Posted by Natalie on Sep 12, 2007 at 5:44 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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