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White House defends ‘health benefits’ of climate change
AFP
The White House on Thursday defended its prediction that climate change would bring some “health benefits” to humans, a forecast unlikely to endear it to critics of the US environmental record.
But a document cited to buttress the claim also warned that the advantages would be “outweighed by the negative health effects of rising temperatures worldwide, especially in developing countries.”
On Wednesday, spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters that US experts were trying to determine “what are going to be the health benefits and the health concerns of climate change, of which there are many.”
Asked to detail what the benefits would be, Perino replied: “Look, this is an issue where I’m sure lots of people would love to ridicule me when I say this.
“But it is true that many people die from cold-related deaths every winter. And there are studies that say that climate change in certain areas of the world would help those individuals,” she added. “I’m not an expert.”
(25 October 2007)
Climate change seen hurting poor regions
Michael Astor, Associated Press
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Latin America and other poor regions of the world will bear the brunt of climate change, a top official from the organization that shared this year’s Nobel Peace Prize said Thursday.
…”The results of the IPCC show very clearly the impacts of climate change will be … much more severe for the poorest groups and Latin America is included in that,” said IPCC vice chairman Mohan Munasinghe of Sri Lanka. Munasinghe headed a two-day meeting in Rio of the organization, its first since winning the Nobel prize.
He said water management issues were likely to be the most pressing problem caused by global warming in Latin America. Dry areas will become much drier and other areas will face increased floods and associated waterborne diseases like malaria and dengue fever.
(25 October 2007)
The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock
Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone
One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is irreversible – and that more than 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century
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At the age of eighty-eight, after four children and a long and respected career as one of the twentieth century’s most influential scientists, James Lovelock has come to an unsettling conclusion: The human race is doomed. “I wish I could be more hopeful,” he tells me one sunny morning as we walk through a park in Oslo, where he is giving a talk at a university. Lovelock is a small man, unfailingly polite, with white hair and round, owlish glasses. His step is jaunty, his mind lively, his manner anything but gloomy. In fact, the coming of the Four Horsemen — war, famine, pestilence and death — seems to perk him up. “It will be a dark time,” Lovelock admits. “But for those who survive, I suspect it will be rather exciting.”
In Lovelock’s view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme weather will be commonplace. By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe, and Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad. Atlanta will end up a kudzu jungle. Phoenix will become uninhabitable, as will parts of Beijing (desert), Miami (rising seas) and London (floods). Food shortages will drive millions of people north, raising political tensions. “The Chinese have nowhere to go but up into Siberia,” Lovelock says. “How will the Russians feel about that? I fear that war between Russia and China is probably inevitable.” With hardship and mass migrations will come epidemics, which are likely to kill millions. By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth’s population will be culled from today’s 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes — Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin.
…Lovelock’s doomsday scenario is dismissed by leading climate researchers, most of whom dispute the idea that there is a single tipping point for the entire planet. “Individual ecosystems may fail or the ice sheets may collapse,” says Caldeira, “but the larger system appears to be surprisingly resilient.” But let’s assume for the moment that Lovelock is right and we are indeed poised above Niagara Falls. Do we just wave as we go over the edge? In Lovelock’s view, modest cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions won’t help us — it’s too late to stop global warming by swapping our SUVs for hybrids. What about capturing carbon-dioxide pollution from coal plants and pumping it underground? “We can’t possibly bury enough to make any difference.” Biofuels? “A monumentally stupid idea.” Renewables? “Nice, but won’t make a dent.” To Lovelock, the whole idea of sustainable development is wrongheaded: “We should be thinking about sustainable retreat.”
Retreat, in his view, means it’s time to start talking about changing where we live and how we get our food; about making plans for the migration of millions of people from low-lying regions like Bangladesh into Europe; about admitting that New Orleans is a goner and moving the people to cities better positioned for the future. Most of all, he says, it’s about everybody “absolutely doing their utmost to sustain civilization, so that it doesn’t degenerate into Dark Ages, with warlords running things, which is a real danger. We could lose everything that way.”
Even Lovelock’s friends cringe when he talks like this. “I fear he’s overdrawing our despair budget,” says Chris Rapley, head of the Science Museum in London, who has worked hard to raise international awareness of global warming. Others are justifiably concerned that Lovelock’s views will distract from the rising political momentum for tough restrictions on greenhouse-gas pollution. Broecker, the Columbia paleoclimatologist, calls Lovelock’s belief that cutting pollution is futile “dangerous nonsense.”
…Lovelock looks at me with unflinching blue eyes. “Some people will sit in their seats and do nothing, frozen in panic. Others will move. They’ll see what’s about to happen, and they’ll take action, and they’ll survive. They’re the carriers of the civilization ahead.”
(17 October 2007)
Jeff Goodell is the author of the book “Big Coal.”
