Report: Climate Change Causes 300,000 Deaths Yearly Already

LONDON — Climate-change disasters kill around 300,000 people a year and cause about $125 billion in economic losses, mainly from agriculture, a think-tank led by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan reported Friday.

The Global Humanitarian Forum also estimated that 325 million people are seriously affected by climate change _ a number it says will double by 2030, as more people are hit by natural disasters or suffer environmental degradation caused by climate change.

"Climate change is a silent human crisis," Annan said in a statement. "Yet it is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time."

The report suggests that rising sea levels, desertification and changing rainfall patterns are reducing many people's access to safe drinking water and food. This in turn increases diarrhea, malaria and malnutrition.

The report said 99 percent of all people who die due to climate-change related causes live in developing countries, even though those countries generate less than 1 percent of total emissions of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

The report used existing data on weather-related disasters, population trends and economic forecasts to draw its conclusions. It was released ahead of climate change talks in Bonn, Germany, next week, that are to lead to a possible new global treaty on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in Copenhagen in December.

Comments

[mikvan52]

Within the lifetimes of 50+ yr-olds (such as me) we have seen hard evidence of the degradation of many ecosystems on smaller scale than the climate (as a whole). Now there is hard evidence to support the contention climate as a WHOLE has being affected (since the beginning of the industrial revolution). What a shame that instead of gathering data to support or refute this data, we have interest groups or the "divinely inspired" who try to change the subject.
Let's not frame this topic in terms of belief but, rather, simply address the data. Many have a shameless and inflated sense of the ability of mankind to second-guess nature's way of preserving the necessary balances for life to be preserved and protected in the long-term. This pride could be our downfall unless it is recognized and circumvented. My Church would even call it a form of sin.
May we stick to facts and not belief systems in "sheep's clothing" ?

[Rhetticent]

Hard evidence? Are you kidding?

[Rhetticent]

How many times in your 50+ years have you been told about apocalyptic environmental catastrophes? How many of them came true?

[realpolitic]

"Climate change poses as great a threat to the world as the nuclear arms race, scientists warned yesterday as they called on leaders to take urgent action to tackle the problem."

"The scientists and Nobel laureates attending a three-day conference hosted by St James's Palace drew up a memorandum calling for global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2015. The memorandum from the experts, who included the US energy secretary Steven Chu, said a new global deal on emissions expected at the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen in December was urgently needed."

"Professor Hans Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said that with "probably the biggest concentration of brains on the planet" drawing up the memorandum, it could be more vital than many mass protests on climate change. "We are in a crisis as deep as the times of the arms race," he added."

"The memorandum from the conference said that without protecting tropical forests, there was no solution to tackling climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warned that the impacts of climate change could cause havoc in many of the poorest places in the world."

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-crisis-equal-to-nuclear-arms-threat-1692549.html

[Rhetticent]

This stuff is so incestuous. The newspapers go to the IPCC for statements that support the IPCC.

[realpolitic]

The IPCC uses hundreds of scientiifc sources. Look at their bibliography.

[niko73]

Anthropogenic climate change is 100% real. However, this report is bull. Follow me:

The poor in developing countries have been dying because of failed crops ever since humans started farming. So, let’s say it’s 1920 and we haven’t seen any effects of a warmer earth. Let’s say 100,000 poor die that year because of failed crops. Do we blame that on climate change? This is no different. People have always been dying because of failed harvests, many due to climatic factors. So why do we point the finger at climate change this time? Climate has ALWAYS been a factor in agriculture. Sure, we can say climate change might be exacerbating these deaths, but how in the heck can you put a number on it?

[realpolitic]

Worldwide food production will be affected by climate change in a variety of ways. Crop ecologists estimate that for every 1.8�F rise in temperature above historical norms, grain production will drop 10 percent

[niko73]

I agree with you, realpolitic. My point is that we don't have a baseline measurement to compare these figures against. If there are crop failures associated with "normal" climate, how do we know what's due to "normal" climate events and what's due to anthropogenic factors? Are they blaming ALL losses on climate change? That would be very disingenuous. I guess maybe the researchers did this somehow, but it's not explained in this article.

[FormerReaganite]

According to our favorite mosquito (on this thread) water vapor is a significant factor, as is carbon dioxide, in causing global warming. If this is true, then that would be another very good reason NOT to burn fossil fuel, or biomass, or hydrogen, since all of these fuels produce water vapor as a byproduct of combustion. "mioffe" has me convinced of this.

Thank you, fellow physicist.

[guinganbresil]

Boy this is a bad conclusion! The oceans pump orders and orders and orders of magnitude more water vapor into the atmosphere than humans ever will. We have no control over the atmospheric concentration, nor should we.
I think the cart is in front of the horse here. The point is not to reduce CO2 (or H2O) emissions - the point is to minimize the adverse effect of our activities on the environment. The question is whether or not CO2 (or H2O) emissions adversely effect the environment. If so, to what extent, and how can it be minimized, and what are the trade-offs.

[realpolitic]

According to a Department of Defense study (and conservatives love that department­)...

Mountain glaciers are an especially threatened source of fresh water. Forty percent of the world’s population derives at least half of its drinking water from the summer melt of mountain glaciers, but these glaciers are shrinking and some could disappear within decades.


Concerning Darfur, Long periods of drought resulted in the loss of both farmland and grazing land to the desert. The failure of their grazing lands compelled the nomads to migrate southward in search of water and herding ground, and that in turn led to conflict with the farming tribes occupying those lands.

Worldwide food production will be affected by climate change in a variety of ways. Crop ecologists estimate that for every 1.8°F rise in temperature above historical norms, grain production will drop 10 percent


Climate change is expected to increase the geographic range of infectious diseases such
as malaria, dengue fever, and schistosomiasis and increase the risk of water-borne disease.

http://securityandclimate.cna.org/report/National%20Security%20and%20the%20Threat%20of%20Climate%20Change.pdf p.9 of 35

[realpolitic]

The World Meteorological Organization and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have linked increasing extreme weather events to global warming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather

A Department of defense study says..."Mo­untain glaciers are an especially threatened source of fresh water. Forty percent of the world’s population derives at least half of its drinking water from the summer melt of mountain glaciers, but these glaciers are shrinking and some could disappear within decades."

"Probably more than any other recent conflict, Darfur provides a case study of how existing marginal situations can be exacerbated beyond the tipping point by climate-related factors."

"Worldwide food production will be affected by climate change in a variety of ways. Crop ecologists estimate that for every 1.8°F rise in temperature above historical norms, grain production will drop 10 percent."

"Climate change is likely to have major implications for human health. The major concern is significant spreading of the conditions for vector-borne diseases, such as dengue fever and malaria, and food-borne diseases, such as salmonellosis. The decline in available fresh water in some regions will also have an impact, as good health and adequate supplies of clean water are inextricably linked."

Finally, Adm. Lopez says: Those changes in nature will lead to changes in society. “More poverty, more forced migrations, higher unemployment. Those conditions are ripe for extremists and terrorists­.”

http://securityandclimate.cna.org/report/National%20Security%20and%20the%20Threat%20of%20Climate%20Change.pdf p. 9 of 35

[Rhetticent]

Nonsense based upon nonsense. http://www.uah.edu/News/newsread.php?newsID=875: "There are significant gaps in the scientific understanding of precipitation systems and their interactions with the climate, he said. "At least 80 percent of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds, and those are largely under the control of precipitation systems.

"Until we understand how precipitation systems change with warming, I don't believe we can know how much of our current warming is manmade. Without that knowledge, we can't predict future climate change with any degree of certainty.­"

[realpolitic]

The fact that mountain glaciers are melting all over the world is not nonsense. Unfortunately what is nonsense is your inability to comprehend something you can look into with a simple google search.

Scientists are looking into how cloud formation may mask or act as accelerant to the warming. Scientists know, and the IPCC document states, that a large part of Earth's natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds.

"If you were to read through the table of climate forcings in the IPCC report or at NASA's page about forcings in its GCM, you won't find water vapour there at all. This is not because climate scientists are trying to hide the role of water vapour, rather it is because H2O in the troposphere is a feedback effect, it is not a forcing agent. Simply put, any artificial perturbation in water vapour concentrations is too short lived to change the climate. Too much in the air will quickly rain out, not enough and the abundant ocean surface will provide the difference via evaporation. But once the air is warmed by other means, H2O concentrations will rise and stay high, thus providing the feedback."

http://www.grist.org/article/water-vapor-accounts-for-almost-all-of-the-greenhouse-effect/

But your source this time was much better than usual.

[Rhetticent]

Yes. The US EPA, which has now classified CO2, which you exhale with each breath and which plants have to have to live, as a pollutant.

[realpolitic]

"The role of clouds in global warming is widely agreed to be pretty uncertain," Spencer said. "Right now, all climate models predict that clouds will amplify warming." What is important to remember is that cloud formation is one feedback of warming among many, such as methane release.

[ssfahrer]

Yet the population of the world still manages to RISE. Perhaps climate change isn't doing enough to keep human beings from OVERPOPULATING THIS PLANET!

[guinganbresil]

Fear mongering.

[vie2012ne]

Respect for Kofi Annan plummets. Climate change has been killing people ever since there were people. The ice ages were really hard on the human race.

[realpolitic]

Were they? Becasue we have only been around the last 150,000 and our more ape-like ancestors before that. What we are experiencing is more like global climate disruption. You conservatives should stop seizing on semantics as your last defense of your unsupportable views.

[bunnyv]

I'm not really sure where your argument is going. Yes, humans and our ancestors have been around for awhile. Yes, they/we did survive hardship during fluctuations in climate. That doesn't mean there wasn't suffering/death as well as adapting and migrating to new environments.

And no, I am not a conservative R or D.

[Rhetticent]

If you note, Kofi Annan is using his reports to get guilt money from the developed countries, and to solidify his following in the undeveloped countries. Nothing less than a lowering of the standard of living of the US, and a redistribution of wealth, will satisfy him. Remember Kofi, and the "Oil for Food" fiasco and massive corruption in the UN? But I'm sure that now he's part of the global warming movement, he's a good guy. It's all about the benjamins, folks.

[tomsowell]

How come this site only shows one side

[FormerReaganite]

What other "side" is there?

[realpolitic]

Yes, they always pretend there is another side when there often is not.

[Amalek]

The sad thing is that the debate is no longer about global warming. it moved on from that a long time ago. It is now been cast by the right in Manichean terms - good v. evil, us v. them, Bush v, Gore. The whole concept of global warming has become a threat to the existence of republicans. Admitting that it exists requires them to reject God, to reject capitalism, to reject family values and to descend into a hell of godless communism and homosexual lust.

Science, reason and civility were the first victims.

[realpolitic]

Sir, you are so right. Climate change undermines the conservative belief system. They want to believe that individual consumption is the greatest good and is tantamont to liberty. They want to believe that selfishness is the highest value and pursuing selfishness is the highest form of patriotism and Christianity. Then they despise science because it makes objective claims which they can not legitimately spin or claim as biased. So they attack scientis and science, but really are just protecting their own juvenile belief systems.

[FormerReaganite]

And all of this, just because there is a real need to simply switch our primary energy sources.

[JulieSA]

That's a ridiculous stereotype. Anyone who can be so close-minded and bigoted about a huge group of people demonstrates the inability to objectively separate prejudice from fact.

[ssfahrer]

"Science" is nothing more than applied witchcraft­.... It denies God's influence on things-- denies God-- thus is NOT objective (since it has an anti God bias from the very beginning). "Science", by claiming a monopoly on 'truth' is truly the selfish one here-- not Christians. Christians say, on the other hand, that there is much we shall NEVER KNOW, so much we SHOULD NEVER KNOW, and so much we should NEVER WANT TO KNOW. This is TRUE humility; not what science is about at all....

[Rhetticent]

Let's count the logical fallacies here. Straw man, ad hominem, circular reasoning.

Real, if you want to attack conservatives, at least start from a realistic, not an emotion, definitiion. Conservatives believe that the individual is the source of RIGHTS, not the government. Indivudals make a social contract with government, ceding certain liberties in exchange for things like defense. That's what the US Constitution is all about. Selfishness is a value judgment you make, for whatever reason, but if you think an insistence on freedom and liberty is selfish, I don't really know what to say to you.

[Rhetticent]

Conservatives don't want people like this controling energy and health care. Do you?

Government empathy and common sense in action, in that bastion of liberal thinking San Francisco. Here's how cap and trade, and free health care, will work. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/05/MNVJ1817N1.DTL

[JanBjernfalk]

This is pure bunk.

The real scientists are already tearing this one to shreds, so rather than repeat it all, here is a substantive link:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/a-methodological-embarassment-5314

[SFTor]

The critique is devastating. It is rare that you see a University of Colorado at Boulder scientist take of the gloves to the extent you see here. Do not debate this thread without reading his letter to the New York Times.

Let's see if anyone can find any Exxon funding in his past.

[realpolitic]

The University Boulder scientist who you say debunks this claim is a political science professor. What do political science professors know about climate change? Absolutely nothing!

[SFTor]

Excerpt from the rebuttal:

"It will give ammunition to those opposed to action and divert attention away from the people who actually need help in the face of disasters, yet through this report have been reduced to a bloodless statistic for use in the promotional battle over climate policies. The report is worse than fiction, it is a lie. These are strong words I know."

Roger L. Pielke Jr.
University of Colorado at Boulder

[realpolitic]

Pielke is a political science professor who knows nothing about climate change or its implications! He should be speaking about elections or something he is qualified to talk about and not climate change.

[Amalek]

The non-peer reviewed article you cite was written by a "political scientist", an oxymoron if there ever was one.

[realpolitic]

Yes, they dismiss everything, except that which is written on right-wing blogs, which they take as gospel.

[realpolitic]

You mean the real scientists like Roger A. Pielke, Jr. who is a political scientist, I think he is more qualified to talk about the recent Supreme court nominee than he is about climate change, given his educational background.

[JulieSA]

Thanks for the link. He's right. There's nothing in the "study" that shows the deaths are due to AGW.

This isn't science; it's politics. This is the sort of thing that really harms the AGW argument.

[realpolitic]

But then, you supported Bush and so must have something that is funny in your water!

[mioffe]

Mr. President fire from your Government all supporters of wrong Al Gore ideas that GHG are main player in Nature.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT BECAUSE THEY INVOLVE OUR GOVERNMENT IN WRONG DIRECTIONS OF GREEN ENERGY SOURCES, WHICH IN REALITY ARE DISASTER FOR ENVIRONMENT.
After that newspaper and other mass media will not print nonsens like this.
We MUST REEVALUATE SCIENSE OF GW ASAP!

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO WILL BRING THIS MESSAGE TO ATTENTION OF OUR GOVERNMENT.

[OneVoiceInACrowd]

you do realize the President does not read these comments.

[mioffe]

Yes of course but maybe someone will send him my message.

[Richard2]

Mr. Annan is quoted as saying "the report could never be as rigorous as a scientific study..." Gosh, this report is not even a scientific study.

Within the last decade, a giant tsunami in Indonesia, triggered by an earthquake, killed 250,000 people. The news media provided wide coverage to this disaster, which impacted several countries. Where is the evidence that 300,000 people have been killed by man-caused global warming?

20 years ago, the United Nations could have spent money to develop a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean region. Instead, the U.N. spent its money on global warming conferences and global warming research, to deal with a hypothetical problem that, in the 21st Century, can not be objectively observed with scientific instruments.

[JulieSA]

Yes. Far more lives are saved immediately by things like mosquito nets, pharmaceuticals, clean drinking water systems, sanitation systems, early warning/evacuation programs (for storms and tsunamis), and raising the general standard of living by encouraging job growth.

Even this report mentions obliquely how cyclone deaths in Bangladesh have drastically decreased. This is because they have a little more money now since they make some textiles that we buy, and because of the raised storm shelters they've built.

[Rhetticent]

One of the great enviro successes was Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring", one of the early apocalypic visions of the future, in which she predicted that all birds would be dead in a matter of years because of the use of DDT. Never mind that DDT had been successful in saving millions of lives from malaria because it was effective against the mosquitos that carry it. Of course, enviros screamed until DDT was banned, and now millions die again from malaria. Of course, later, Carson's theories were disproven, but what's a hundred million African lives compared to songbirds. These kinds of environmental disasters have come down the pike so many times, always supported by a "CONSENSUS" of scientist somebody signs up, that I cannot trust science any more. It goes to the highest bidder.

[JulieSA]

Even just a smidge of knowledge can save many lives. Regarding the giant tsunami, there were some islands where the population knows that if you feel an earthquake, you automatically go to high ground. These areas had low mortalities.

Also, a little English girl on vacation in Thailand with her parents had just learned in school that if the sea recedes suddenly, it'll come back as a tsunami. When she saw this happen on the beach where she was playing, she told her parents. The parents told the hotel workers, and the beach was evacuated. That was the only beach in the area that had no fatalities. Never underestimate what one educated person, even a little girl, can do.

[realpolitic]

The orginal earthquake may be thousands of miles away and not capable of being felt on a distant shore.

[realpolitic]

Ricard, why do you take pleasure in saying that the report is not a scientiifc study? There are plenty of studies that link co2 to warming, including the IPCC report. There are also plenty of studies which link climate change to extreme weather patterns and calamitous events. Even the Defenxe Department says in a study: "The nature and pace of climate changes being observed today and the consequences projected by the consensus scientific opinion are grave and pose equally grave implications for our national security."

I mean, it just kills me when a climate change denier says "this is not a study or that is not a study." You guys deny every study out there by saying it is biased or that science is corrupt, anyway. Then whenever you offer evidence to counter climate change it is always from some right-wing blog and never a legitimate study. You guys despise science, but try to couch your derision by cherry-picking existing science.

Show me a study that says climate change is not caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases or that man-made greenhouse gases only account for a small part of the warming we are seeing. Also, for any peer-reviewed, legitimate study you can find that says the effects of climate change will not be so serious, I could point you to ten that say it will, including the Department of Defense study below.

http://securityandclimate.cna.org/report/National%20Security%20and%20the%20Threat%20of%20Climate%20Change.pdf

[Rhetticent]

We're reminded of an earlier story, which happened back in 1912. This was the amazing discovery of a skull and jawbone in which was quickly named the Piltdown Man and which all the world's archaeologists immediately accepted as a hitherto unknown form of early human. It appears no one bothered to examine it closely, assuming that other scientists had thoroughly investigated and vetted it. The hoax wasn't uncovered until 1953, when it was learned that the skull was that of a modern man and the jaw that of an orangutan. Seems no one had ever bothered to take a really close look at the artifact.

Well, folks, it does appear we have a new, 21st Century Piltdown Man, and this time we know his name.

He's called "Anthropogenic Global Warming"

Read this entire article, Real, and tell me what's wrong with the science. Or perhaps you'll attack the author because he's only an Atmospheric Physicist.
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

[busterbrownthefirst]

For heaven's sake, these people are in other countries. Not our problem. I say we wait until we have to shore up Manhattan, see our produce prices increase 20%, and finally lose it when every American is called upon to provide national disaster insurance for every homeowner on the Eastern seaboard. Oh, and when we're told we must allow all Floridians a place to camp out in our backyards--that would be a reason to get on it. But for the time being, there is no reason we should pay attention to almost every credible scientist on earth, as in credible defined as scientists not funded by Exxon and the like, who say global warming is far from a hypothesis but simply a point-blank fact. And just because the cost of cleaning up our mess will be far higher after temperatures and the co2 levels go over the tipping point, there's truly no particular merit in tackling a problem until it's splat in the middle of our faces.

[confidance government]

I have to say that Climate change, is real. but to make well designed policy regarding emissions we need to have the ability model the anthropogenic effect of humanity's contribution quantitively and not just in a general qualitative sense. As a scientist, I would left testicle to work on this sort of project.

But we still need better data to enact well designed policy concerning emmissions.

[confidance government]

A sentence doesn't make much sense without a verb...

*sell my left*

[Rhetticent]

That's my entire point, confidance. Even if you assume that global warming exists, the legislation being debated will have virtually no impact on it, while damaging the economy, making everyone's energy more expensive, and feeding billions of more tax dollars to an already bloated federal government. We are being sold a bill of goods only to justify increased taxation.