Chart of the Day – Climate Change
This chart shows vulnerability to the effects of climate change:
As we can see, it is the poorest countries – those with the least responsibility for the carbon emissions that threaten the planet – that will be hit hardest. This is a major moral issue. And yet the arbiters of orthodoxy on the Catholic right – the American Papyst and friends – continue to fight all attempts to take this seriously, including pretending it even it is even happening.
But the effects of global warming are not hundreds of years in the future. In the poorest countries, they are already here. Africa is suffering from desertification, water shortages, drought, low crop yields, flooding in fastly-urbanizing cities, water stress in river basins, increased disease, a decline in fisheries, and increasing population displacement. This is directly affecting the livelihood and security of some of the poorest, most vulnerable, people on the planet. I heard a Ghanaian talk about coastal towns he remembers that simply have been washed away. As noted by another Ghanaian, Cardinal Peter Turkson (president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace), climate change “isn’t just a theory, it’s a real experience.”And of course, the very existence of many island nations is at stake. This is real. This is happening.
But climate change skepticism and denialism runs rampent on the American right. Here are my seven reasons why this see-no-evil approach has taken root in American politics, all related to underlying theology and political philosophy. I should probably add an eight – the vast slush funds from the energy industry, including from the Koch brothers, that gets funneled into hard-right politics. What’s absolutely terrifying is that as climate prospects worsen, the crop of American obstructionists becomes even more extreme – virtually none of the Republican Senate candidates (including the 20 or so with the greatest chance of success) believes in the basic scientific global warming consensus. Even modest proposals like cap-and-trade seem dead, thanks to this selfish extremism. And the Republicans have made preventing the EPA from regulating carbon emissions as one of their key objectives.
Does this map mean nothing to these people? Are they supposed to rely on private charity to deal with the effects of climate change?
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As we can see, it is the poorest countries – those with the least responsibility for the carbon emissions that threaten the planet – that will be hit hardest.
When I look at this chart, I see something slightly different. What I see is that the countries that will suffer most from climate change are also the countries that would suffer most from efforts to fight climate change, (e.g. India). My guess is that if you put it to those countries they would rather be hotter and richer.
I believe this website should, if the formulators were honest, change its subtitle from “Catholic Perspectives on Culture, Society, and Politics” to “Democratic Party Perspectives on Culture, Society, and Politics”.
Why does this site continually focus on attacking “the Catholic Right”? 100% of the political columns attack conservatives. Do you honestly believe that the left has no problems in relation with Catholic teaching?
Unfortunately we know relatively little about our earth, its climate, and how we affect it. Our data only goes back so far and our ability to collect it is only so advanced. Nobody knows for sure how much of the warming is man-made and how much of it is coming from some other variable that caused the huge changes we know happened in the past. And it’s not clear that there is anything we can do to stop it, slow it down or reverse it. Even if every carbon-producing entity in the world shut down permanently, it’s possible climate change would not so much as hiccup as it continues on its current course.
But that is no excuse for lying down and taking it… a lot of the conservation programs are things we should have been doing all along. Political and economic programs I am much more skeptical of, given that they always seem to put a target on the back of the developing world..,
I would like to make a couple of points.
1) Since the current models for global warning show large parts of India and Bangladesh underwater in the next century of two, it would be very short sighted of them to choose to be “hotter and richer.” Since the result of that choice would be for them to have mass migration and food shortages.
2) Global warming is not a “Democratic Party Perspective”, it is a Catholic issue as defined by Pope Benedict and John Paul.
3) Global warming theories are not based on observations of the last few months as compared to 130 years. Extensive data has been collected not just from current sensors but from ice cores and other methods. Many models have been tried and tested to see how they compared to the actual climate conditions we are currently experiencing. The best of those are compared and will continue to be improved on. All of the best models include human generated increased in CO2. Those without this do not predict the climate we currently have.
These models will need further refining, but they are working in general. This is how science works.
Since the current models for global warning show large parts of India and Bangladesh underwater in the next century of two, it would be very short sighted of them to choose to be “hotter and richer.”
Large parts of the Netherlands are already underwater, yet the country is listed as facing the least threat from climate change.
We talk about climate change,and people deny it. There is another problem right in our back yards in this country. It’s called “hydraulic fracturing”. I woke up to find out that the oil and gas lobbyists have bought off all of our politicians in my state. I woke up to find that our water company who owns the 1300 acre lake that gives water to over 150,000 residents, is allowing this fracking to go on right inside our water reservoir. If anyone has read some on this process, you will soon learn that they need large bodies of water, because fracking uses a lot of water. Water guzzling is what is required from this. They have found contaminated waters, rivers and streams all over my sate of PA, and the states of NY, and WV. This is like a new boom happening in our region, and gas companies are flocking to this area in droves, because of the lack of regulation. People have had their water supplies contaminated and no one seems to even think twice about it. No one thinks twice, because it isnt happening to them. Sort of like Global Warming.
Oil and gas wells disgorge about 9 million gallons of wastewater a day in Pennsylvania, according to industry estimates used by the DEP. By 2011 that figure is expected to rise to at least 19 million gallons, enough to fill almost 29 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day. That’s more than all the state’s waterways, combined, can safely absorb, DEP officials say. So think about that. Think about that toxic coctail right in our backyards. It should be stopped until we can be assured that fracking, and the disposal of the fracking water, can be done safely. For my town it’s too late. The drilling has begun. So they can pollute my water, and maybe give my children cancer, and there doesnt seem to be a thing we can do about it. My water company owns the water, and it’s private they say. Gotta love this country.