Southern, third world countries are bearing the brunt of the early stages of climate change. Westerners are conditioned to think in terms of how many more bags of wheat or aid money to send.
When that country is nuclear armed, the calculus is quite different. Climate change threatens to destablize already-fragile areas of the world, with unpredictable results.
It’s ironic that 3 of the regions most contributing to climate change are the 3 regions getting hit with the seemingly colder/more dramatic winter weather: US, Europe, China.
That is really bad. If events of Pakistan/Australia happened to the US it might shock the zombies out of their stupor and relegate the energy industry’s credibility to tobacco company status, probably worse.
It’s a strange feeling to ‘hope’ for such a significant set of events that will cause so much hardship for so many but I think it’s what will be needed to break the inertia. The problem is these our resultant events don’t hurt us as much, and they’re colder, so there’s no light-bulb moment for the typical person.
It’s really got to hurt us so we wake up and take notice.
there’s some reason to believe that the unusual weather – hot or cold – is making people more anxious about the larger change in climate.
http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/31/polling-climate-change-threat/
The UK also suffered two unusually cold winters in 2009 and 2010. But three times more people said the freezing weather had actually made them worry more about global warming than those who were less worried.
kronocide: “It’s a strange feeling to ‘hope’ for such a significant set of events that will cause so much hardship for so many but I think it’s what will be needed to break the inertia. The problem is these our resultant events don’t hurt us as much, and they’re colder, so there’s no light-bulb moment for the typical person.”
My sentiments and “strange” feelings exactly. I believe we will wake up when the shelfes and produce bins in the grocery stores and big boxes dwindle. The impact will have to be widespread for us to get it. Localized trauma here and there ain’t gonna do it — we are so isolated from “there” — and the physical proximity will have to touch us, each and every one of us. This is my fear: it won’t happen soon enough.
I am optimistic that the people of the world can see this threat and work together to prevent too much damage.
We need some wide exposure for scientists to present their work to the people. Maybe the Journal of Geophysical Research, Nature: Climate Change, universities, and the Discovery channel could team up to do a TV series on the subject, complete with references to prominent peer-reviewed journal research. I also think that Climate Crocks should be a TV series… 😛
We need some exposure for donation funds towards climate change research and mitigation. We can wait for governments to figure out a subsidy program or carbon tax, but getting started on a more robust funding stream to get a strong renewables sector going would be better. Companies like ExxonMobil know the power of donations and lobbying in a big way; the little guys should be able to do the same.
We need somebody to help organize folks that want to tell their utility companies that they are will to pay a little more in the short term for renewables, now.
We should be educating folks in science/math/engineering in a big way, giving them the academic tools to go out there and discover the next vehicle-grade battery or biodiesel production process.
A whole host of things could use attention in a big way. It has to be fun and interactive for the public, too. Otherwise, climate change plays second fiddle to the TV shows and other trivial things in the world.
Oh, and aside from all that stuff, peak oil will shake the world awake in a big way. The oil sands, coal-to-liquids, gas-to-liquids, and enhanced recovery technologies will most likely not be able to keep pace with conventional crude depletion.
With a flat world oil production curve since 2005, we may be there already. 😡