So, last night was my Earth Ethics class, which I am trying to count as a skewl class, not just something fun, or interesting, or enjoyable. How I'm making that happen, besides really paying attention, is I'm writing some research papers, and then the pastor leading the class, Tony, who used to be my youth pastor, is going over the papers, sending them back, I'm making revisions, etc. Last night, in addition to going to class, I finished a paper on environmental justice. All of it was fairly outrageous. Lack of access to clean water, destruction of habitat in poor countries, exploitation of resources in poor countries, rich countries dumping waste in poor countries, etc. The issue (I boiled it down to a longish paragraph) that really got me going though, is climate change, and how it is going to effect the poor, and poor or developing nations, in particular. The whole issue of climate change is one I have strong feelings on, but this particular aspect of it really drives me up the wall, and then breaks my heart.
I feel like I need to clarify things just a little here. I think there are poorer nations that will do fine. Heck, some might benefit a little. There are rich nations that will be totally screwed. But of the nations that will be screwed, the rich ones, even if they get hit harder, are still better off. They have a strong infrastructure, allies who will help them, economic wherewithal to incentivize behaviors that help deal wit the problem, and many more assets, assets that poorer nations don't have.
When I was in Liberia (you regular readers understand this) one of the things I brought back was a realization that we really are trying to do a lot about climate change here in the states, and we would have a pretty good handle on things when/if it gets dicey. A majority of the population lives in one of two cities, both of which are port cities. If you check out my web pictures, you can see how close they live to the water, and how devastating even a rise of a few feet could be. Look at the last 4, and then pictures 145-148. Devastating, sure, but everyone can just move, right? Well, when most of the roads are one-lane, bumpy roads, and not very man people have their own cars, moving gets tricky. Also, where would you go? No village is equipped to shelter refugees without any but the most vital possessions. In addition, what little clean water there was would be gone, food would be even harder to come by, and what industry and farming was in the area would come to a halt, due to a combination of drought and flooding. This volatile mix would result in hundreds of deaths, and these conditions would not be isolated. Millions of people would be displaced, there would be riots, battles, and trillions of dollars in loss.
What really irks me though, the bottom line that always pisses me off, is the fact that those nations, cannot make the changes to soften the blow of climate change. Without technology or education, they cannot save themselves from their impending doom. That responsibility falls on us, the privilaged few who contribute a disproportionately large amount of the GHG's in the atmosphere, and also have the ability to make the choices to deal with this problem. Why don't we?
Night!!
Now I think I'll sleep deep, untroubled dreams. Right.
10 comments:
Dearest Auntie,
Thanks for the comment, nice to hear your "voice". Hopefully in a couple of weeks I will have a post on Earth Ethics, which I am really enjoying, and am looking forward to sharing about.
hey chris, what your saying about liberia, yes it would be terrible if the sea level rose a few feet however the scientific facts are that the sea level is predicted to rise only 2.8 mm each year so it would take hundreds of years to get even a few feet and by that time the same thing will have happened through erosion.
you said that GHGs produced by mainly industrialized countries is causing global warming but the effect of GHGs declines the more you put in the atmosphere, plus even if we stopped all man made emissions we would only slow GW in a best case scenario by 2.8 degrees centigrade. and man only emits 3% of CO2 oceans contributing the most. and from a christian perspective how dare we as humans think we are powerful enough to destroy the planet God has given us?
Josiah
Josiah,
First, get your own account.
Second, let's argue scientific method. What are your sources? What data were they using to get that output? What kind of inputs did they use for their modeling? I can find sources for my facts, and their methodology.
I will now quote you quoting me. Or should I say, misquoting me. You said "you said that GHGs produced by mainly industrialized countries is causing global warming". What I really said was "the privilaged few who contribute a disproportionately large amount of the GHG's in the atmosphere". I'm not saying poorer nations don't emit GHG's, but they emit far less per person. The U.S. has 4% of the earth's population, 35% of CO2 emissions.
I'm not sure what you mean by the effect of GHG's declining the more are in the atmosphere. Enlighten me!
If we stopped ALL GHG emissions, which is impossible, there would still be problems. I don't deny that, but there is a tipping point, after which things get a whole lot worse. Ice starts to melt, and this results in more heat being absorbed, because ice deflects heat, while dark water or land sucks it in. The goal is to get GHG emissions to levels that prevent the worst case scenario from occurring. Prep, evac, and damage control can handle the better case scenarios.
Third, as Christians, how can we justify continuing to abuse that which God has given us? I don't think we can destroy the earth, even with the most advanced bombs and missiles, we just don't operate on that level. I do think we can seriously damage the planet. God gave us the planet to live on, and take care of. He didn't say we could do as we pleased, messing things up, and not caring for anyone but ourselves.
Hey, despite the tone of this, I totally appreciate your comment. And thanks for reading!
"What really irks me though, the bottom line that always pisses me off, is the fact that those nations, cannot make the changes to soften the blow of climate change. Without technology or education, they cannot save themselves from their impending doom. That responsibility falls on us, the privilaged few who contribute a disproportionately large amount of the GHG's in the atmosphere, and also have the ability to make the choices to deal with this problem. Why don't we?"
I think that an important point is this, we can as individuals or private group make changes as we see fit. However, a big problem is created when groups and people involved politically use the government to make those changes. When the government begins to regulate usually (I won't say always but in the cases that I have studied thus far in my conlaw class and the ones i know about through the news.) they overstep their power as outlined in the constitution. This is very serious, it is not just an abuse of power, it is tyranny!
The government has absolutely NO power given them to regulate air quality or give power to bureaucracies to do so. Congress is not even allowed to choose to abdicate their legislative power.
that said, if people see a problem and would like to fix it, kudos to them! They simply are not to use the U.S. government to do so.
first source for sea level rise is the IPCC fourth assessment report their method is the actual data recorded."Sea level rose at an average rate of about 1.8 mm/year during the years 1961-2003. The rise in sea level during 1993-2003 was at an average rate of 3.1 mm/year. It is not clear whether this is a long-term trend or just variability." which seeing the level of GHGs put into the atmosphere is not going to increase much. and "the privileged few" = industrialized and western nations, "disproportionately large amount" = mainly produced by. "95% (31.35 degrees) of this warming is produced by water vapour, which is far and away the most important greenhouse gas. The other trace gases contribute 5% (1.65 degrees) of the greenhouse warming, amongst which carbon dioxide corresponds to 3.65% (1.19 degrees). The human-caused contribution corresponds to about 3% of the total carbon dioxide in the present atmosphere, the great majority of which is derived from natural sources. Therefore, the probable effect of human-injected carbon dioxide is a miniscule 0.12% of the greenhouse warming, that is a temperature rise of 0.036 degrees. Put another way, 99.88% of the greenhouse effect has nothing to do with carbon dioxide emissions from human activity."
my source for co2 emissions, from
Bob Carter a Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia). He is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional experience, and holds degrees from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and the University of Cambridge (England). He has held tenured academic staff positions at the University of Otago (Dunedin) and James Cook University (Townsville), where he was Professor and Head of School of Earth Sciences between 1981 and 1999.
and scientists who disagree with GW
The Heidelberg Appeal (http://www.sepp.org/heidelberg_appeal.html)
Signed by more than 4,000 scientists from 106 countries.
The Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming (http://www.sepp.org/statment.html)
The Leipzig Declaration (http://www.sepp.org/leipzig.html)
More than 100 signatories, including editors of Climate Research and Atmospheric Research, former presidents of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, and a member of the Nobel Prize selection committee in Physics.
The Oregon Petition (http://www.oism.org/pproject/)
Signed by more than 19,000 professional persons including 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers and environmental scientists, and 5,017 scientists from other disciplines. Includes, inter alia, the statement; “Not only has the global warming hypothesis failed the experimental test; it is theoretically flawed as well”.
i'm sorry about where i said "even if we stopped all man made emissions we would only slow GW in a best case scenario by 2.8 degrees centigrade" the source from the cato institute actually says the "kyoto protocol would reduce warming by about .19 degrees Celsius over the next 50 years". and what's wrong with us emitting 35% of the GHGs when we protect the entire world from pirating and terror with only a few countries contributing some, and china and india each are about to pass us in emissions. and what i meant by the effect being reduced is like this, say you pour a gallon of water a second in a tank the first hundreds of gallons would make it increase a lot but after the effect becomes much smaller.
and where is your evidence that melting sea ice traps more heat and causes more ice to melt?
plus nature balances itself if there is more co2 there are more plants that absorb more co2 and the level goes down. and even if the WHOLE greenland glacier melted it would not raise the sea level at all because greenland is shaped like a bowl and would collect the water not harming anything at all.
yes i agree with you that God gave us this planet to take care and i also agree with you in your original post that we need to stop dumping waste in third world countries.
see ya later, Josiah.
sorry but my post was so long i had to do two. So what do you think, that the Gov. should do it, or that private persons should do it?
J-Money,
Sounds like there is some serious disagreement about the science, which I think is good, to a point. There is never going to be total consensus, and there is inherent bias, on both sides of the discussion. So, in the interest of friendship, and action, what can be done about other problems that do exist? Air pollution in poor areas, lack of adequate water supply, dumping in poor nations, etc.
Also, I feel that there is a strong basis for individual action, but this is a problem on such a global level (and this is where we probably part ways), there is an amount of action that needs to be taken on a national and international level. There has been a lot of talk about developing nations, and their contribution. China and India are large CO2 contributors, but they are not going to make commitments until we do. Setting examples, that's what we do. We are leaders.
And Gabi, you are right, there is no real Constitutional basis for large-scale action like this, if you read in a 18th century context. Could the Founders see a world with a massively inter-connected economy, and the actions of one affecting all? I don't think they could, or did. There are times where such a level of urgency is reached that the status quo has to change. This seems like one of those times to me. But that's all about how you see the science.
Chris, i agree that air pollution, water supply, and dumping in poor countries, but the solution is NOT bigger government, government is the problem all these things disappear when the nation becomes wealthier, and nations become wealthier through FREEDOM no more government. and what does an interconnected economy have to do with anything, the founders principles are principles for all time it doesn't matter what the state of the world is.
if the poor countries of the world become wealthy they can afford more infrastructure building up their nations and they can withstand economic collapse or natural disasters, and a constitutional republic with checks and balances in the government promotes freedom, bigger government turns into a slide into socialism and communism and looking at all the communist countries they have all been extremely poor.
Hey chris you have to watch these videos they refute all of your arguments with sound science.
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/?p=552
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