Poor Nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms

Oh Goody-at least we might yet be ok... :sarcasm:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/science/earth/01climate.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin


snip
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The world’s richest countries, which have contributed by far the most to the atmospheric changes linked to global warming, are already spending billions of dollars to limit their own risks from its worst consequences, like drought and rising seas.

In its fourth assessment of global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used its strongest language yet in drawing a link between human activity and recent warming.

But despite longstanding treaty commitments to help poor countries deal with warming, these industrial powers are spending just tens of millions of dollars on ways to limit climate and coastal hazards in the world’s most vulnerable regions — most of them close to the equator and overwhelmingly poor.

Next Friday, a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that since 1990 has been assessing global warming, will underline this growing climate divide, according to scientists involved in writing it — with wealthy nations far from the equator not only experiencing fewer effects but also better able to withstand them.

Two-thirds of the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas that can persist in the air for centuries, has come in nearly equal proportions from the United States and Western European countries. Those and other wealthy nations are investing in windmill-powered plants that turn seawater to drinking water, in flood barriers and floatable homes, and in grains and soybeans genetically altered to flourish even in a drought.

In contrast, Africa accounts for less than 3 percent of the global emissions of carbon dioxide from fuel burning since 1900, yet its 840 million people face some of the biggest risks from drought and disrupted water supplies, according to new scientific assessments. As the oceans swell with water from melting ice sheets, it is the crowded river deltas in southern Asia and Egypt, along with small island nations, that are most at risk.

“Like the sinking of the Titanic, catastrophes are not democratic,” said Henry I. Miller, a fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. “A much higher fraction of passengers from the cheaper decks were lost. We’ll see the same phenomenon with global warming.”

“The inequity of this whole situation is really enormous if you look at who’s responsible and who’s suffering as a result,” said Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations climate panel.

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:kick: & :thumbsup:

for Americans, if so. By the way, I do believe there is a god.

:grr:
Most of these people are born into and die in misery. We loot them for all they are worth and are now secretly relieved that they will suffer more while we are ok with our toys...:grr:

:shrug:
I have posted about this multiple times here and its always interesting how this particular topic always sinks like a rock.

Every single time...

Somehow acknowledging that we in wealthy nations will be less affected by climate change than the poorest nations (who we are essentially fucking over) is too unpleasant to touch I guess.

Oh well....

:shrug:

I am going to keep kicking this.

It's a tragedy that people's sense of justice, compassion and solidarity is limited by national borders.

Here's a :hug: for ya from this socialist

:hi:

:kick:

Children of Men. One of the bonus features is a film by the director, where economists and philosophers are interviewed about our future.
One point made is that migrations will occur. They will constitute the poor of their host country, or rather less than enthusiastic host country.

It is a pretty amazing film. I believe it is called Hope.

Wealthy countries/people are hard pressed to acknowledge they are at the core of the problem.

K&R

What the article doesn't go into much, but I think would be true, is that even in the wealthier cpuntries it would really hit the poorer people (especially the poorest like the homeless) the hardest. Remember Katrina?

:kick:

Transformational Change For America And The World


JOHN EDWARDS 08

:hi:

:kick:

:kick:

Maybe no one will bother to recommend or comment but at least I hope some will see the post and be unable to entirely ignore what we in the West are doing to the rest of the world...especially the poorest people on the planet.
I cannot believe that every post about some sensationalistic crap keeps getting kicked and recommended/or becomes a hot topic but we look right through something like this. I am sure if I posted about global warming affecting only Americans or Europeans I would be generating a lot more interest :eyes: or maybe about boobs,breast feeding, olive garden, some versace ad or something equally inflammatory and pointless in the big picture....


I could get a lot of replies if I posted about the sexual life of some random political operative or started one of the instant flamewar threads about something entirely inconsequential-shiny object of the day stuff....
Next time I post about poverty or the environment, I will title it AnnanicoleboobsolivegardenbreastfeedingVaginaDouchebag :eyes:....

But the fact that we contribute inordinately to GW while the poorest people in the world will be affected the most is somehow not worthy of comment. I think this is pretty sad don't you? Maybe not...

:kick:

:hug:
You get it as always..

:hug: and thank you!

It might be that the lack of comments isn't a matter of people not considering this "worthy of comment" so much as it is a matter of wondering what can be said?

I mean, what is there to say? The First World has fucked over the Third World so badly for so long in so many ways, this is just one more item on the list. I don't mean that in a callous way, it's just that fundamentally, ALL the misery in the world springs from the same source; the greed and lust for domination on the part of those who wield power.

The world is breaking; the common people of the world are being poisoned by chemicals, bombed and massacred, enslaved and brutalized -- and now soon to be drowned en masse. And it is all because there are those who profit mightily from that which causes all these things.

How do we dismantle the power structure that inflicts so much misery and destruction on our fellow human beings? Because that is what it will take to save our earth.

sw

:)

n/t

:)