The Globe’s Not Only Getting Hotter. It’s More Unjust and Unstable, Too

[marmar]

via AlterNet:




ColorLines / By Michelle Chen

The Globe’s Not Only Getting Hotter. It’s More Unjust and Unstable, Too
The future of a warming planet holds more than just melting ice--it will see a lot more conflict over resources, food, and living space as well.

July 6, 2011 |


Over the next few decades, tens of millions of people will be driven from their homes. Braving violence and poverty, they’ll roam desperately across continents and borders in search of work and shelter. Unlike other refugees, though, their plight won’t be blamed simply on the familiar horrors of war or persecution; they’ll blame the weather.

If you haven’t heard about the rising tide of environmental migrants, that’s because throngs of displaced black and brown people don’t evoke the same public sympathy as photos of polar bear cubs. The governments of rich industrialized nations will scramble to shut the gates on the desperate hordes with the same self-serving efficiency with which they’ve long ignored the social, ecological and economic consequences of their prosperity. But both efforts at blissful ignorance will fail, because climate change is forcing society to confront the mounting natural and man-made disasters on the horizon.

In 2010, according to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, “more than 90 percent of all disasters and 65 percent of associated economic damages were weather and climate related (i.e. high winds, flooding, heavy snowfall, heat waves, droughts, wildfires). In all, 874 weather and climate-related disasters resulted in 68,000 deaths and $99 billion in damages worldwide.”

Those numbers look worse on the ground. In rural Bangladesh, where some of South Asia’s major riverways converge, rising waters are threatening to swallow vulnerable coastal communities and leave millions without homes. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the sea level need only rise by a few feet to turn a cultivated area of 1,000 kilometers squared into sopping marsh. The frequency and intensity of floods continues to escalate exponentially, pushing young workers into the cities to earn a living and eroding rural communities and their cultures. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/151542/the_globe%E2%80%99s_not_only_getting_hotter._it%E2%80%99s_more_unjust_and_unstable%2C_too/

[bemildred]

1. Gee, who could have predicted this? nt

[RC]

2. Miss Rice was good at that too.

[bemildred]

3. It seems to have "growing popularity" these days.

As the USA circles the drain, all our "leaders" are staring back up through the toilet seat. It's just too scary an unremunerative to contemplate the hole beneath us.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.