Posted on 08/07/2018 7:56:45 AM PDT by Eddie01
Full Title: Terrifying insights into climate change could build legislative momentum for emissions cuts, researchers argue
New research in climate science indicates that extreme events, such as heat waves, the collapse of major ice sheets, and mass extinctions are becoming dramatically more probable. Though cuts in rising emissions appear unlikely with the stalled 2015 Paris agreement, University of California San Diego scientists argue that new developments present an opportunity to shift the politics around climate change.
For the first time, scientists can make a strong case that no one is exempt from the extreme and immediate risks posed by a warming world.
The findings were recently published in a Foreign Affairs piece led by Veerabhadran Ramanathan, professor of climate and atmospheric sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and co-authored with David Victor, a professor of political science at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) and director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation. They collaborated with Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences members Msgr. Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, Partha Dasgupta, and Joachim von Braun.
In the article, the authors outline a variety of grim impacts scientists predict climate change will have on human health and food supply in the near future. But this does represent an opportunity: These same consequences from climate change on developing economies may give rise to the political capital needed to make deep cuts in carbon emissions.
Wealthier economies feeling the heat
Scientists long believed that because wealthier societies had the resources to adapt to a warmer world, that poor countries would suffer more, even though the wealthiest one billion people around the world are responsible for more than 50 percent of emissions. However, Ramanathan and Victor point out that new studies show that the rich are far more exposed than anyone realized—especially to deadly heat.
"Massive fires in Sonoma and Napa, the richest wine-growing areas in the United States, may have a larger political impact than distant crises—just as heat waves in Japan and super-fires in Europe are having a political impact there," the authors noted.
The opinion piece originated in a meeting organized in November 2017 at the Vatican by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by Ramanathan, Sanchez Sorondo from the Vatican, and Dasgupta of Cambridge University. A declaration from the event urging governments and other stakeholders to take the scalable and practical solutions was signed by several Nobel laureates, the late physicist Stephen Hawking, California Gov. Jerry Brown, Rep. Scott Peters, and mayors of several major European cities.
A hot planet is bad for human health
Today, scientists can also more clearly convey the rising risk of extreme events that will have major consequences for human welfare. For example, researchers forecast that beyond 2050, as much as 44 percent of the planet's land areas will be exposed to drying. This will lead to severe drought conditions throughout southern Europe, North America, much of southeast Asia, and most of the Amazon—affecting about 1.4 billion people. There is also a heightened risk of more extreme rainfall which will expose an additional two billion people to floods.
If realized, these disastrous predictions will have major impacts on human health in a variety of ways.
"Beyond 2050, there is a 50-percent probability that about half of the world's population will be subject to mean temperatures in the summer that are hotter than the hottest summer on record unless the world takes immediate and large-scale action," the authors wrote. "In the most highly populated regions of the world, by the end of the century, there are 10- to 30-percent chances of heat waves greater than 130 degrees Fahrenheit."
They added that heat and droughts threaten regions that produce much of the world's food. Food prices are expected to rise 23 percent by 2030, making food markets more volatile, and under heat stress, the nutritious content of food crops is declining.
"Extreme weather disasters also have negative impacts on mental health. When heat is over 130 degrees, whole societies can come unglued," the authors wrote.
And, to make matters worse, diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and other insects, such as malaria and dengue fever, seem likely to proliferate as the habitats of mosquitoes expand, thanks to climate change, indicating the worst is yet to come.
A silver linings playbook
Victor and Ramanathan urge, however, that there's still time to act and the scientific community can lead the effort: "To communicate these new findings, scientists also need to think about how they influence society, in particular, they should build new partnerships with groups that shape how societies frame justice and morality, including religious institutions."
In the years to come, it is expected that more than half of the population may be exposed to extreme heat waves and perhaps one-third to vector-borne diseases. With few immune to these negative effects, the authors recommend that activists along with the scientific community should seek alliance with faith leaders, health-care providers, and other community leaders as part of the strategy on combating climate change.
"In particular, even when they do not share the same notion of God, faith leaders should act both together and separately in their own communities to preserve human dignity and our common home." They added, "the silver lining in all of this, if there is one, is that a recognition of the nasty and brutish new normal may yet mobilize the political support needed to make a dent in global emissions."
I always wanted to be the 1st to post that on these AGW threads.
Recycling.
If you look at predictions based on actual science and the historical record rather than un-validated computer models, you’ll see that the next few decades or even centuries are going to be noticeably COLDER, with shorter, cooler, cloudier growing seasons and a corresponding decrease in food production.
Sounds like Christine needs to change her adult diapers.
The sky is still falling?
Whatever...
thanks!
Oh nooooeeee .... we’re ALL GONNA DIE. Baked to death!
Kind of like the “Day After Tomorrow” with huge ice sheets over a large portion of North America? Which is more likely? And, is there really anything us puny humans can do? Adapt or die.
Things About Which Alleged Liberals are Terrified:
President Trump
Climate Change
Racism — Unless It’s Their Own
.
.
.
Wow, they’re just cowardly bullies, and they know it!
You can’t reason with ignorant fools, even if they write Phd after their name.
‘Science’ article uses strictly emotional headline.
Says it all.
Let’s say solely for the sake of argument that global warming is a man-made thing and drastic cuts in emissions need to be made.
Why does no one point to a number of the largest polluters in the world, for example, China and India, and ask them to do their part?
Ping.
For the first time? Really? What about all those other hundreds of thousands of times that they have already tried to "make a case"?
WOLF!!!! WOLF!!!!! WOLF!!!!!
And, to make matters worse, diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and other insects, such as malaria and dengue fever, seem likely to proliferate as the habitats of mosquitoes expand, thanks to climate change, indicating the worst is yet to come.
This article has it all:
Fear mongering
Emotion
Fake Picture of future doom
Using the recent heatwave “make their case”.
Of course USCD will need many many more grant dollars to continue its ground breaking work in climate change
“There’s still time to act and the scientific community can lead the effort”
Best to pass laws locking in that money, than have to fight against the truth every day.
Christine, you get an A+ on your propaganda final.
forgot Class Warfare “Wealthier economies feeling the heat”
Funny that the original science behind the 1978 fear of "Global Cooling" was actually more scientific than the BS that has followed in the years since. The original science followed some geological science and history that proved we are currently in an inter-glacial warming period for this planet. Based on history, the planet is scheduled to start a cooling trend, like it did during the Dark Ages soon after the warming period of the middle ages. Life on earth, generally speaking does better when the planet is warmer. There is more greenery and more oxygen and the wet and dry cycles of the seasons are more frequent. So...
1) A warmer planet, historically, fosters a healthier and more lively planet.
2) A cooler planet, historically, brings about famine, disease and death.
3) More evaporation and heating causes more weather that more frequently cycles cool and warm air as well as precipitation. Life likes water.
4) Humans are the most adaptive species in the history of the Universe.
5) This rocky, wet planet barely notices we are here. And it will be here, sustaining life long after we have left, one way or another (barring an apocalyptic, astronomical event and God willing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.