Try this:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/05/29/annan.climate.change.human/index.html
Those durn greeniacs at the United Nations, they just won't shut up about climate change, will they? I have written them letters explaining that God's in charge, and they are worrying over nothing, but they keep on yammering. Now they have hit a new low. Instead of just claiming that climate change will cost human lives, someday, they are saying that it is ALREADY killing 300,000 people per year.
They are trying to explain that climate change does not usually kill people by making them drop dead from heat stroke, but rather that nine out of 10 are related to "gradual environmental degradation," and that deaths caused by climate-related malnutrition, diarrhea and malaria outnumber direct fatalities from weather-related disasters. I don't get it. How could hot weather-induced crop failures result in deaths from starvation, that just does not make sense. How could an increase in populations and natural ranges of mosquitos cause more people to die of malaria? All you need to do to wipe out malaria is live in a big ol' air conditioned house like I do, anyway. The whole idea of climate change killing people is just too goofy to dignify with a response, so I don't know why I am. Why, everybody on Fox News understands that it is just a bunch of bleeding heart greenies trying to sacrifice our economic future to save a few polar bears or blue streak mud darters, whatever the H they are.
These people are just trying to make General Motors go bankrupt, that's all they care about. And they are too dumb to realize, that cow has already left the barn!
In case you missed it, yup, that's sarcasm. And yup, the U.N. has a point.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 21
Wow! Amazing!
yes Carol, 'tis. some highlights from the article:
"Around 45 million of the 900 million people estimated to be chronically hungry are suffering due to climate change, the report says. Within 20 years that number is expected to double. At the same time food production is expected to fall, driving food prices up 20%.
The countries considered to be most vulnerable are those in the semi-arid dry land belt that runs from the Sahara/Sahel to the Middle East and Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America and parts of the U.S., small island states and the Arctic region.
Australia is singled out as the developed country most vulnerable to the direct impacts of climate change. Over the past 15 years, the combination of rising temperature and lower rainfall has produced the worst drought in the country's recorded history."
not too many climate change deniers left in Australia. Even arch-conservative Rupert Murdoch has left that bus.
lol Chris that's pretty good, at first I was wondering if Limbaugh had paid you a visit lol.
those "parts of the US" would probably be in the Southwest, a region that depends almost totally on the flow of the Colorado River for its survival. Drought conditions there in recent years put agriculture and economic growth in Arizona at risk.
glad you enjoyed it Jack!
When it comes to a choice between more money for me and someone else's life there's no contest. The average person cares almost nothing about people who aren't friends or family. They will believe what they want to believe rather than risk learning the truth.
Yeah too many people - and too many of them are stupid and selfish.
I deleted that so know one will ever know I used the F word.
because I didn't!
Denying global warming is a sign of ignorance.
If global warming was a hoax the deniers would show some scientific proof instead of just saying deny, deny, deny. Of course the denial could come from their belief that science is anti religious.
Great post, Chris W, you da man! I live in Alaska. I do not think anyone in the 'lower 48' can actually see such enormous changes as those that are occurring here, save for those in drought stricken areas. Human history consistently shows us just how resistent to change we really are, especially if it involves changes to habits and lifestyles that we like .
Joyce- yes, Alaska! Despite the Palins, yes most in Alaska see the scope of the problem with their own eyes.
Forgive my omission, I should have said that the regions most affected in the USA are the Southwest AND Alaska.
It's happening in every city, village and berg on our planet; most folks are either too indifferent or too busy to notice. In my little corner of the world we noticed the abundant main-stay of food and commerece disappeared along with the sardines...and that was nearly sixty years ago! The magnificent Monterey pine trees and oaks that huddle against our Pacific Ocean shoreline are suffering and dying from a canker we can't seem to cure. The population of sea otters has depleted. These are the obvious occurances.
Each of us who have enjoyed the abundances of our Mother Earth must take notice in our own neighborhoods and DO SOMETHING!
I like mine better;
Climate change causes 315,000 deaths a year-report
Yes climate change effects many and we "rich" countries supply a lot of money to help, the U.N. however points out that the amount is not nearly enough.
Every year we more affluent countries give billions to ease the poverty and suffering of others around the globe but we still have poverty and suffering. There is no amount of money to give that will stop all poverty and suffering.
A wise man once proposed a world wide energy grid, Buckminster Fuller knew that a cleaner healthier and more prosperous planet would take more energy rather than less. Even the 50s he saw the correlation between affluence and a cleaner environment.
The answer is not to give the world more money to end poverty and suffering but to give the world more energy to allow them to rise out of poverty and suffering.
P.S.
The climate changes naturally, there is nothing we can do about that.
lol we wealthy free world created the poverty so we could call ourselves wealthy and free but we should not correct what we caused?
Worldwide power grid to destroy what is left of the environment? Do you work for CityGroup or Morgan?
Do you hate the poor Jack?
Do you want them continue in poverty and suffering for your perceived benefit of the environment?
Your not alone, Hundreds of energy projects have been roadblocked by environmentalists to benefit the environment that would have brought energy to hundreds of thousands people.
These projects would have allowed farmers and businesses to produce more for society, allowed for better health care, allowed for families to move away from using wood and dung as cooking fuel.
Many environmentalists are detirmined to keep the poor and suffering, poor and suffering for the sake of the environment, they can not see what that revolutionary thinker buckminster Fuller envisioned.
You one of those type of environmentalist Jack?
No but you are Dan. You think hoping on a bandwagon in phony support for these starving people and support environmental destruction is a benefit to these waste lands we have already created is going to help anyone. The technology is available to fix what we have caused and needs to be used to help people in a way that will not continue to make more desert lands that cannot support anyone.
You advocate over production of crops that use chemical fertilizer to destroy the water and over burden the ground until acre by acre the land is used up and worthless. Water supplies are becoming scarce and yet you advocate more destruction of your very source of life.
You do realize Jack that you have just admitted that to you the environment is more important than the people who live in it!
Despite your denial the rest of the words you post says 'yes' these people can starve and suffer, they are not as important to me as the environment.
Jack your words speak for themselves, you'd have to provide quotes of mine to prove that those are my positions. Like many others who can not effectively argue a point you try to use mischaracterization, but it just does not work.
people and environment are not separate, Dan. That is the meaning of the word "environment". We are part of the environment, and the environment is part of us. We cannot live without the environment. The environment, unfortunately, can do okay without us.
The best reason to insist on the preservation of the natural systems of planet earth is to ensure the survival of our grandkids. The next best reason is "biophilia"- the love of living things, that biologist E.O. Wilson praises.
"people and environment are not separate, Dan."
I realize that Chris but why are environmentalists trying to eliminate people from the equasion? Everything gets preferential treatment above people who are as much a part of the environment as anything else?
Forget fossil fuels, Environmentalists oppose hydroelectric dams that can produce clean energy for many people and can result in a cleaner environment in favor of animal habitat that would be destroyed by rising waters.
Environmental organizations send letters to the governments of third world countries threatening boycotts if they try and develop traditional energies, energies that could help the people of their country rise out of poverty.
Environmentalists glamorize these down trodden people of the third world as quaint villagers who would rather stay living their simple lives than prosper and grow as the rest of the world has.
When in fact the people of the third world want the same opportunities as the rest of the world...They want to see their children attend school become educated and prosper.
They want access to the same health care that the rest of the world has, they want the same comfort and convience the rest of the world has! But the environmentalists don't want then to have what the rest of the world has because that would be bad for the planet.
The environmentalists know they can not force their wishes on the modern world so they focus on the third world where they can.