Refugee Warning To Global Polluters

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 9-30-2003 | Paul Brown

[blam]

Refugee warning to global polluters

Up to 20 million likely to flee environmental damage, report predicts

Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Tuesday September 30, 2003
The Guardian (UK)

Countries such as Britain which are destroying the environment of poorer nations by contributing to global warming and using tropical hardwoods should be prepared to take a fair share of the refugees they have created, says a thinktank report today. The New Economics Foundation says the idea of being responsible for environmental refugees is an extension of the "polluter pays" principle. "People whose environment is being damaged and destroyed, and who are losing their lives and their livelihoods, should be recompensed and protected by those responsible," the report says.

It suggests that the Geneva convention should be expanded to include those displaced by environmental degradation.

Whole countries such as Tuvalu in the south Pacific will be drowned and large areas made too barren for crops, but the people displaced have nowhere to go. The freedom to pollute and consume should have a price tag.

Among the polluting states this is not likely to be a popular notion because there is widespread denial of the link between consumption patterns and the global environmental crisis. But, far from being a "soft touch" for refugees, the UK is failing to take a fair share of the displaced people it is responsible for.

The foundation argues that harm is intentional when policies are pursued in full knowledge of their damaging consequences.

"The causes and consequences of climate change - who is responsible and who gets hurt - are now sufficiently understood."

To disregard that knowledge must be classed as intentional behaviour, the report says.

America's energy plans will increase global warming and result in refugees - something that could be classed as environmental persecution.

The Geneva convention defines a refugee as someone forced to flee because of a well-founded fear of persecution, be it religious, political or "other".

"A well-founded fear of starvation or drowning is a compelling reason to escape," the report says.

Environmental refugees outnumber those fleeing from war, political or religious persecution and could reach 20 million people a year.

The report targets George Bush's America in particular for being responsible for the largest share of global warming, but includes "Fortress Europe", which is attempting to keep out refugees.

Many of these so-called economic migrants, heavily attacked by politicians and press, are people who can no longer make a living in their home country because of environmental changes caused by the policies of the rich countries.

Since the UK is responsible for 3% of the world's global warming through carbon emissions, and global warming is likely to create 20 million environmental refugees a year, this country should in equity offer 300,000 displaced persons a year a home, Andrew Simms, one of the authors of the report said yesterday.

The report says it is both a moral and an economic case. Fossil fuels, coal, gas and oil drive the global economy, and allow the wealthier nations to enjoy a lavish lifestyle compared with the developing world.

Rich countries spend £50bn a year subsidising fossil fuel industries, but around £300,000 a year helping poor countries manage their emissions and adapt to climate change.

"Is it unreasonable to expect the wealthier members of the international community to pay for their profligate enjoyment of the earth's finite fossil fuel supply?

"We believe not. Only by creating new legal responsibilities towards environmental refugees will the international community - and especially industrialised countries - accept their obligations."

More people are on the move around the world than at any time in history.

By 2050, 150 million people may be displaced by the impacts of global warming.

Doing nothing to address the problem will create problems for the world community.

Millions of refugees moving across borders will be a major cause of global instability, a fertile breeding ground for bitterness and resentment, and a recruiting ground for terrorism, the report says.

[blam]

Boy O Boy.

[ladyinred]

THE WORLD IS NUTS!

[per loin]

The third world breeds like crazed rats, overwhelming their local physical and economic environments.

[MayDay72]

...EnvironMENTAList BUMP...

[ancient_geezer]

but around £300,000 a year helping poor countries manage their emissions and adapt to climate change.

Hmmmm, what climate change is mankind responsible for?

Figure 1-2 Climate of the last 2400 years

 

Figure 1-3 Climate of the last 12,000 years

 

Mankind's impact is only 0.28% of Total Greenhouse effect

" There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "

Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia,
and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service;
in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal

 

Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)

Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics	% of All Greenhouse Gases	% Natural	% Man-made
Water vapor	95.000%	94.999%	0.001%
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)	3.618%	3.502%	0.117%
Methane (CH4)	0.360%	0.294%	0.066%
Nitrous Oxide (N2O)	0.950%	0.903%	0.047%
Misc. gases ( CFC's, etc.)	0.072%	0.025%	0.047%
Total	100.00%	99.72	0.28%

The reality is a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration over current levels, that the UN/IPCC "story line" pretends, even if were true, could not induce significant temperature change whatever its source.

Climate Catastrophe, A spectroscopic Artifact?

"It is hardly to be expected that for CO2 doubling an increment of IR absorption at the 15 µm edges by 0.17% can cause any significant global warming or even a climate catastrophe.

The radiative forcing for doubling can be calculated by using this figure. If we allocate an absorption of 32 W/m² [14] over 180º steradiant to the total integral (area) of the n3 band as observed from satellite measurements (Hanel et al., 1971) and applied to a standard atmosphere, and take an increment of 0.17%, the absorption is 0.054 W/m² - and not 4.3 W/m².

This is roughly 80 times less than IPCC's radiative forcing.

If we allocate 7.2 degC as greenhouse effect for the present CO2 (as asserted by Kondratjew and Moskalenko in J.T. Houghton's book The Global Climate [14]), the doubling effect should be 0.17% which is 0.012 degC only. If we take 1/80 of the 1.2 degC that result from Stefan-Boltzmann's law with a radiative forcing of 4.3 W/m², we get a similar value of 0.015 degC."

A Lukewarm Greenhouse
"The average warming predicted by the six methods for a doubling of CO2, is only +0.2 degC."

CO2-Temperature Correlations

• "(1) correlation does not prove causation, (2) cause must precede effect, and (3) when attempting to evaluate claims of causal relationships between different parameters, it is important to have as much data as possible in order to weed out spurious correlations.
  
  ***
  
  Consider, for example, the study of Fischer et al. (1999), who examined trends of atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic ice core data that extended back in time a quarter of a million years.  Over this extended period, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each of these climatic transitions, earth's air temperature rose well in advance of any increase in atmospheric CO2.  In fact, the air's CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to warm.  Such findings have been corroborated by Mudelsee (2001), who examined the leads/lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration and air temperature over an even longer time period, finding that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged behind variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years over the past 420,000 years."

[ see also: Indermuhle et al. (2000), Monnin et al. (2001), Yokoyama et al. (2000), Clark and Mix (2000) ]

• "Other studies periodically demonstrate a complete uncoupling of CO2 and temperature "

[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]

• "Considered in their entirety, these several results present a truly chaotic picture with respect to any possible effect that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have on global temperature.  Clearly, atmospheric CO2 is not the all-important driver of global climate change the climate alarmists make it out to be."

 

Global warming and global dioxide emission and concentration:
a Granger causality analysis

http://isi-eh.usc.es/trabajos/122_41_fullpaper.pdf

•  "We find, in opposition to previous studies, that there is no evidence of Granger causality from global carbon dioxide emission to global surface temperature. Further, we could not find robust empirical evidence for the causal nexus from global carbon dioxide concentration to global surface temperature."

[AF68]

If we don't listen to the Marxist greenie correspondents of The Guardian, then we're all DOOMED!

What a big, steaming pile of bullsh*t!!!