Climate Change Effects: How Westerners Kill Africans (MAP)

WashPost's Ezra Klein spotted one of the most interesting maps we've seen in a while:

The first shows the world in terms of carbon emissions. America, for instance, is huge. So is China. And Europe. Africa is hardly visible. The second map shows the world in terms of increased mortality -- that is to say, deaths -- from climate change.

It shouldn't really surprise us that the United States seems bloated in the "cause" map and nearly non-existent in the "effects" map, should it?

Take a look at the EPA's page on climate change effects. Doesn't look too urgent. But if masses of United States citizens were suffering from what the Lancet calls "climate-sensitive health consequences" (malaria, malnutrition, diarrhea, and inland flood-related fatalities), stopping climate change would be a pretty high priority.

Check out the maps:

The map and detailed report from the Lancet are available in a PDF.

Another way to look at this is through the lens of a building international water crisis: lack of clean water is killing children, and innovative (if silly-sounding) solutions like the Peepoo bag can't keep up unless rich countries and poor countries start doing their parts.

And if you want to see climate change's effects only in America, well, that's not a pretty picture, either.

Comments

[vie2012ne]

This is exactly the kind of crap masquerading as science that gives AGW a bad name.

[Bill Greer]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but the first map is Carbon emissions Data, and the the second map is mortality Rates. I think you're making a pretty big jump claiming that malaria, malnutrition, and diarrhea are 'caused' by Global warming and Climate change, although they are impacted by the harsh environmen­t...

I think this would be a much more interesting map if you could show a direct link (maybe a pearsons correlation between actual change in local temperature to change in local mortality rates), might not be as pretty as your cartograms, but could provide a more compelling story.

also, making the data publicly available(atleast through links direct to the source data tables) might silence a few of the comment pundits claiming bias.

[leFauxPax]

1) It doesn't matter what life or temperatures existed on this planet millions and billions of years ago, it matters what kinds of life exist NOW and if they can continue to live in a changing climate. Most of them can not.

2) You wouldn't sit in a closed garage with your car running, so why do you have such a hard time imagining that on a larger scale that might ALSO be bad? Granted, the garage scenario is not about global warming, but those who say there is nothing wrong with exhaust and emissions are really, REALLY dumb, and should probably go sit in a shut garage with a running car. NOW.

[fumes]

pax..

you're confusing CO with CO2

[RomeoMD25]

CO2 is likely not the major cause of global warming.!!


The same Antarctic ice core shows a relationship between CO2 levels and temperature that’s the opposite of what environmentalists would expect: temperature changes precede increases in CO2 by 100 to 1000 years. Even if carbon dioxide was the cause, there isn’t much we could do about it. Man made CO2 accounts for a very small percentage of atmospheric CO2. There is a much stronger correlation between solar output and global temperatures. Solar output is influenced by radiant heat energy and solar winds, both of which appear to have natural cycles.

Global warming is such fruad icant believe gore is no in jail

[elmerfude]

If your science isn't any better than your spelling, I don't have much faith in it.

[OneVoiceInACrowd]

Most people have a hard time understanding that temperature can lead CO2 AND CO2 can lead temperature. They like simple processes. Climate Change is anything but.

Temperatures rise, the oceans heat. In the past this has occurred, the wobble in the earths orbit has definitely been a driver of this, as have other processes, the process of warming the oceans has taken millennia's. As the oceans warm they are not able to absorb as much CO2 and the levels rise. (note that the oceans do not also become acidic in this long warming)- However things are not the same this time.

This time, through a never before seen process, CO2 levels are rising ahead of temperatures, faster then they have ever before. The oceans are becoming more acidic too, as the chemical reactions that neutralize the acid cannot keep up.

This time CO2 is the driver of the warming.

As far as the 380ppm is such a small amount argument, lookup the total amount of green house gases in the atmosphere, which are largely responsible for our planets temperature. They are just .5%, a small amount to be sure, yet they do so much.

[fumes]

but.. but..

what about soot?!!

say ov, it's a good thing the earth rotates like a chicken in a rotisserie

because all the king's CO2 and all the king's methane can't stop it

from getting below freezing at night in the desert.

[prosha]

I try to but I just can't care about this. My bad.

[dan-o]

Can't we just change the name of the effects of Global Warming on population groups to western financed post birth abortions.

[scottyknows]

"Ugh. U.S. bad, Other lands good. Ugh."

Liberal caveman summary. Ugh.

[joebaggadonuts]

Don't miss the link within the article : http://www.climatehotmap.org/index.html . Evidence every human can believe.

[fumes]

i don't believe it.

the ipcc thinks co2 is warming the earth and the ice.

i think our soot melts the ice and then oceans warm and in turn the earth.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LT461035.htm

[carlgt1]

so icemelt water warms the oceans? hahahahahaha

[JnrNorman]

CO2 is a nutrient
Mercury, and lead from coal power kills people and birds too.

[fumes]

unfortunately only trace amounts of CO2 exist..

[suec03]

Due to global deforestation over the centuries, the globe does not currently have enough plant life to reprocess all the CO2 that we expel into oxygen at a rate fast enough to prevent greenhouse effects. The leftover CO2 adds to the greenhouse gas effect, acting as a blanket to hold heat close to the earth rather than letting it dissipate. We must simultaneously reduce the amount of CO2 expelled into the atmosphere while reducing deforestation in places like the Amazon and encouraging tree planting programs like the one Wangari Maathai is doing in Kenya.

[elmerfude]

Correct. Carbon dioxide is not the limiting factor in primary plant production worldwide. What the carbon dioxide plant food advocates forget is that plants require a number of factors to be right: water, space, sunlight, trace metals, nutrients and soil fertility, proper pH, etc. Water is going to be the major limiting factor to primary plant production and is already in many places.

[ccairnes]

Please don't forget your own Tongass National Forest in Alaska. Deforestation is happening in the U.S. as well. Contact your Representatives and Senators in Washington, D.C. and support the Roadless Rule to stop deforestation of your own National Forests. Forest Service timber sales are being litigated in the Ninth Circuit court right now to stop clear cut logging in the Tongass National Forest, the last temperate rainforest.

[sc300nc]

Just looking at the maps showed me that this was just some more environmentalist gloom federally funded lets blame it all on the US crap.

[Exusian]

Yep, damn the liberal bias of reality.

[sc300nc]

What a bunch of poppycock.

[InLosAngeles]

I believe you meant poopycock

[justmeinAz]

I like how you dismiss what must have been hundreds of hours of research and data collection with an instantaneous judgement based on nothing.

[fumes]

bull twinkies