This is a wonderful TED talk by David Grinspoon discussing Astrobiology and what has been learned about Earth by scientists studying what other planets would need to have in order to support life.
Monte
Global Conflict and Climate Change
In January of 2010 the Pentagon revealed that it is now including the impact of climate change in its planning for future issues that might require military intervention. Several possible crisis scenarios were cited by Pentagon planners including humanitarian disasters and violent conflict resulting from food and water shortages and extreme weather events like drought and flooding.
Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times on February 6, 2011 about rising world food prices in response to reduced food production, especially a failed wheat crop due to drought in Russia last year. He made the case that the decrease in food production is partly a consequence of extreme weather conditions. The Wall Street Journal reported that the drought in Russia last summer reduced their wheat crop by 40%, and was the worst drought they had suffered in 100 years.
Rising wheat and food prices have been identified as one of the causes of current rioting in Egypt and other Arab countries. This is the sort of social instability created by climate change that Pentagon planners are concerned about.
The worst drought in 60 years in the wheat growing region of China began in September, 2010 and could lead to severe shortages of wheat and corn that may require China to begin importing grain, which it doesn’t usually do. If China has to import a large amount of grain it will cause another spike in world grain prices, which will impact poor nations most severely leaving large populations with food shortages, and the possibility of social unrest. The Chinese drought is also leaving millions of Chinese with drinking water shortages.
In 2010 there was unprecedented flooding in Australia, extreme snowstorms in America, and a severe drought affecting the Amazon rain forest. The 2010 Amazon drought was even worse than the 2005 Amazon drought which was believed at the time to be a “once-in-a-century” drought. An article in the Huffington Post notes the Amazon rain forest generally soaks up significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the air, but the two droughts in 2005 and 2010 will actually cause the forest to produce excess carbon dioxide over the short term from the trees that died and are now producing carbon dioxide as they decay.
How much longer will we keep buying the fossil fuel-industry-funded misinformation campaign that climate change isn’t happening, or at least isn’t related to their product? Or, asked another way: Are we smart enough to save ourselves from our shocking gullibility?
References:
Pentagon to rank global warming as a destabilizing force
Pentagon Planning for Global Warming
Krugman blog: Speaking of Extreme Weather
Krugman editorial: Droughts, Floods, and Food
Wall Street Journal: When Will Russia Resume Grain Exports Again?
Climate Change and Food Production
I Just read Paul Krugman's editorial in today's NYT.
How bad and obvious will climate change have to get before people stop denying it and start working to solve the problem? Sadly, it appears that global appreciation of global warming will finally occur only after it is way too late.
Monte