What is “the biggest single barrier to improving societal resilience to the vagaries of climate.”?
In a News & Analysis item recently published in Science, Kintisch (2014) discusses the most recent IPCC report, noting it “is meant to be a practical guide to action,” especially in regard to what the report identifies as eight major climate risks: coastal flooding, inland flooding, extreme weather, extreme heat, food insecurity, water shortages, loss of marine ecosystems and loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems.
Interestingly, however, all eight of these threats already occur at various times and places throughout the world; and trying to prevent the harm they cause by mandating policies designed to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions is the height of folly, as spending the trillions of dollars that would be needed to only maybe make an impact on these weather phenomena is far, far worse than doing nothing at all. And why is that?
A hint is provided when Kintisch rhetorically inquires just what is “the biggest single barrier to improving societal resilience to the vagaries of climate.” In response to himself, he writes the most recent IPCC report says it is “poverty.” And in this case, the IPCC is absolutely correct; for the spending of ungodly sums of money to try to alter the planet’s climate will only lessen the well-being of the great bulk of humanity, which is to say it will drive us even further into poverty.
Consider, for example, the recent words of Peabody Energy’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gregory H. Boyce, who in a recent Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics Interview (www.peabodyenergy.com/Investor-News-Release-Details.aspx?nr=818) was quoted as reminding us that “energy inequality is the blight of energy poverty, limiting access to basic needs like food, water and medicine; stunting education and cutting lives short.” In addition, he notes “every one of the U.N. Millennium Development goals depends on adequate energy, yet today one out of every two citizens lacks adequate energy and over 4 million lives are lost yearly due to the impacts of this scourge.”
Boyce also noted at the 2014 ECO:nomics conference that was recently held in Santa Barbara, California, that fully 3.5 billion people currently lack proper access to energy, and “more energy is needed to create energy access for billions, to sustain growth for a new global middle class and improve access to low-cost electricity,” while reminding us “too many families in developed nations face the tough choice of paying for food or energy.”
And thus Boyce concludes, “the greatest environmental crisis we confront today is not a crisis predicted by computer models but a human crisis fully within our power to solve,” which can be accomplished via the means of low-cost power that can readily be provided by today’s advanced coal technologies that (1) have the scale to meet these needs, and (2) are employed in today’s high-efficiency supercritical coal plants that have state-of-the-art controls and ultra-low emission rates, which facts allow him to state that “every large, advanced coal plant brings the equivalent carbon benefit of removing 1 million cars from the road.”
And the marketplace would appear to agree, for Boyce notes coal has been the fastest-growing major fuel of the past decade and is set to surpass oil as the world’s largest fuel in coming years. Indeed, he says coal’s market share for U.S. electricity generation has increased by fully one-third over the past two years, and that it now has twice the market share of natural gas.
Perhaps these several observations suggest there may be a potential for both the IPCC and the NIPCC to agree on the core aspect of reducing poverty, as each moves forward in attempting to determine what is best for the biosphere – and humanity – as time marches on.
I say the UN gets moved to Somalia.
cn
Resistance to antibiotics greater threat to the world than Global Warming!
Slightly off thread, but this was in The (UK) Times this morning:
The threat to humanity from drug-resistant infections is worse than that of climate change, a group of Britain’s most eminent medical experts warned yesterday as they called for a global body to be created to tackle the crisis.
Speaking at the Royal Society in London, the group, which includes Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer and Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, warned that the world is facing an apocalyptic scenario in which people die from routine infections because effective drugs have run out.
In a future without antibiotics, surgery would become deadly, treatment for cancer, diabetes and organ failure would be impossible in their present form and farmers could not contain diseases such as tuberculosis.
Faced with the spectre of a growing number of drug-resistant infections and with few new antibiotics in development, the medical leaders have called for the creation of an equivalent body to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which co-ordinates action on climate change.
“I don’t want to see my children, their children or even myself in hospital with an untreatable infection,” said Dame Sally. “I have pointed out to the government, would they want to be on watch when the health service falls over because they didn’t take action early enough?”
Professor Mark Woolhouse, of the University of Edinburgh, said: “In terms of threats to my own health and that of my children and my family, I am much more concerned about the threat of anti-microbial resistance than I am about climate change.”
Professor Woolhouse and Dr Farrar are co-authors of an article, published in the journal Nature, which calls for “independent, international leadership on this issue”, before the massive health gains made possible by the discovery of penicillin, the first antibiotic, are lost.
Roy Anderson, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London, said that some might take the “cynical” view that the IPCC was a poor model as it had failed to deliver legally binding international targets on climate change.
He added that action on drug resistance was likely to be less fraught with controversy. There are already about 5,000 deaths in England each year owing to antibiotic-resistant strains of infections and resistance is continuing to emerge in a wide spectrum of diseases. About 80 per cent of gonorrhea infections are resistant to the frontline antibiotic tetracycline, and multi-drug-resistant salmonella, TB, and E. coli are also considered significant threats.
Possible measures that might feature in a future treaty include a ban on over-the-counter antibiotics, which are at present available in countries such as India, incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop new classes of antibiotics and tighter regulation of antibiotic use in agriculture.
Dame Sally said that the medical establishment was horrified about the extent of antibiotic use in farming. “In the United States, 70 per cent of antibiotics are used for growth promotion,” she said. “It’s horrible to think about.”
She added that a farmed salmon in the US has typically consumed its own weight in antibiotics by the time it is eaten.
The emergence of antibiotic resistance is an inevitability of natural selection. When the drugs are used to kill infections, they occasionally leave resilient strains behind, which multiply and become progressively hardier the more they are exposed to antibiotics. The eventual result is so-called superbugs, such as MRSA, which are untreatable with frontline medicines.
Dr Farrar said: “Despite repeated warnings, the international response has been feeble. The World Health Organisation has missed opportunities to provide leadership, and little progress has been made.”
“the greatest environmental crisis we confront today is not a crisis predicted by computer models but a human crisis fully within our power to solve,” which can be accomplished via the means of low-cost power that can readily be provided by today’s advanced coal technologies that (1) have the scale to meet these needs, and (2) are employed in today’s high-efficiency supercritical coal plants that have state-of-the-art controls and ultra-low emission rates, which facts allow him to state that “every large, advanced coal plant brings the equivalent carbon benefit of removing 1 million cars from the road.”
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It is that simple. Poverty is anthropogenic. Energy is the life blood of EVERY economy.
“Eustace Cranch says:
May 22, 2014 at 1:08 pm
Low-cost energy is crucial. However, two other factors must be recognized:
1. The primary cause of poverty worldwide is tyranny.
2. The primary cause of poverty in a free society is personal behavior.”
Sorry, I don’t agree. The primary cause of poverty worldwide is lack of access to the means to get out of poverty. Tyranny may be a factor, but not much of one.
The primary cause of poverty in a “free society” has nothing to do with “personal choice.” You will not convince me that the millions of Americans that lost their jobs and could not find other ones to support their moderate lifestyles and ended up in poverty did so “by choice.” I woud say you are either drinking too much koolaid, or you have found a wonderful hallucigen that if shared at a reasonable price would make you a billionaire.
Sorry, that was suppose to say personal behavior, not personal choice.
Producing more energy for the poorest countries will not solve the problems of poverty and vulnerability to climate. Two billion people lack adequate sanitation and clean water. That has not changed much as a percentage of the globe in over thirty years of ‘development’ aid running at about $200 billion (50:50 between private and governmental). From my own research (available at http://www.ethos-uk.com) on the issues of ‘Resilience’ – less than 5% of global development aid reaches the grass-roots poor who need stable community, ecologically resilient agriculture, clean water and sustainable biodiversity..the majority of funding goes to ‘capacity building’ – i.e. to create clone economies for globalised corporations and the market. This does create ‘wealth’ but only if masses of people move from the land to the city – where the majority then live in abject poverty without the real wealth of community and sustainable livelihood outside of the globalised economy.
The current global system creates as much poverty as it alleviates – it simply shifts the focus from rural to urban, lifts the average wage and total GDP, leaving the urban masses totally dependent on ‘energy’ sources that are increasingly expensive.
The whole system cannot now function: however much coal is rejuvenated, it is still expensive, as is oil or gas, limited in production, and geographically scarce. Nuclear is not only just as expensive, but requires a high level of technical infrastructure (with risks of high-consequence and expensive accidents also). Renewable are of course out of the question for the poor – even wealthy Germany cannot afford to make an effective shift.
This is to say that there is NO answer that relates energy to relieving poverty – and it may be the opposite, that its high cost for rural communities will create greater poverty. Poverty needs to be carefully studied – it is not only a matter of money and economic policies – it is also a matter of sustainable community, soil, water, sanitation and food. These needs cost very little to fulfil, but they are consistently ignored by aid programmes disguised as humanitarian when in reality, they are extensions of a global market system.
(Tom O says:)
Wow.
I stand behind what I said.
You almost had me. You see, we do have real terrorism and real threats to our national security. The threat of global terrorism motivated by a particular religion and culture I won’t name, is very, very real. Not that threat isn’t frequently exploited for political purposes and the money to combat misspent on crony projects — that much is also very, very real.
What I would like to quantify is how much carbon dioxide/methane/refrigerant/nitrous oxide emissions are generated by one prisoner in a high security prison in one year.
Then I would like to know why I should be reduced to prison conditions by environmentalist activists in NGOs and in government, who are hawking renewables and claiming cattle, crops, and fire are “dirty” or “toxic.”
I propose an experiment to show that one woman, using concentrated, always available, inexpensive energy could actually support more and more of her family’s needs, granted that she can use:
1. personal transportation/pick up truck for hauling;
2. unrestricted internet access for purchase of books and products from all over the world and to sell items;
3. inexpensive, mass manufactured gadgets which perform most work for her;
4. all disease and pest controls and crop varieties now in use, along with the choice to purchase new, higher yield and more disease resistant cultivars;
5. has full freedom to educate her children through home, charter, or private schools, and
6. has no government rationing of water use; and 7. may have domesticated animals.
This could be a new era for home independence! We should be thinking of the possibilities for home/property ownership, and what can now be produced at home. This experiment should be run.
“Eustace Cranch says:
May 23, 2014 at 8:58 am
(Tom O says:)
Wow.
I stand behind what I said.”
And you’re still wrong.
The energy inequality mentioned here, I believe, is the root of CAGW alarmists being called “racist” by skeptics.
Third-World-ism, Poverty-ism, Class-ism, Culture-ism, these all apply.
“Racism” is not really what it is.
Whatever one calls it, CAGW “actions” are Western elitists in a war. Not against “poverty” per se, but against the poverty stricken.
Peter Taylor says:
May 23, 2014 at 6:32 am
Producing more energy for the poorest countries will not solve the problems of poverty and vulnerability to climate. Two billion people lack adequate sanitation and clean water.
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Peter, sanitation and palatable water require energy, the cheaper the better. The cost of energy has risen dramatically due to the false demonization of CO2. You want clean water. Right now, due exclusively to the world moving from 280 ppm to 400 ppm CO2, the world effectively needs about 15% less water to produce the same amount of food.
Yes, there are other reasons for poverty, most all of them are anthropogenic and government caused. Yet the single most effective way out of poverty is abundant inexpensive energy. Energy is the verb of every facet of society. Cheep energy, liberty, and education, both formal and cultural with integrity, can solve most of the worlds poverty.
“Indeed, he (Boyce) says coal’s market share for U.S. electricity generation has increased by fully one-third over the past two years, and that it now has twice the market share of natural gas.”
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I would like to see the support for this assertion. My understanding is that US coal has declined significantly as to the percentage of electrical generation.
Also I wish this article, which directly addresses the simplest most attainable benefit for the world’s poor, received more attention.
Eustace Cranch & Tom O
Tom O, I must side Eustace here. Eustace said personal behavior, not choice. As an example to illustrate his point, consider the disparate experience of the Black culture in the US, vs the Asian culture. Simply put, this is a result of behavior, cultural behavior. (One cultural says “we are hungry, work our butts off for pride and family”, the other says, “we are owed”
Tyranny, which can vary from democide (death by government) in the millions, such as Stalin’s Russia, to something as simple as heavy handed government decrees driving up the cost of energy, or simply take the form of endless bureaucratic regulations which cripple investment and capitol growth, all conspire to create poverty.
In affect Eustace is saying that both individual and group behavior produce poverty.
Peter Taylor says:
May 23, 2014 at 6:32 am
Producing more energy for the poorest countries will not solve the problems of poverty and vulnerability to climate.
You’re a nut case.
more soylent green! says:
May 23, 2014 at 10:06 am
R. de Haan says:
May 22, 2014 at 4:47 pm
Yes, but we’re not going to get it: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-22/us-government-explained-one-chart
You almost had me. You see, we do have real terrorism and real threats to our national security. The threat of global terrorism motivated by a particular religion and culture I won’t name, is very, very real. Not that threat isn’t frequently exploited for political purposes and the money to combat misspent on crony projects — that much is also very, very real.
Yes, the threat is real but made by the West, continued by hte West and exploited by the West.
Ever spend a single moment thinking about the triggering effect of the bio fuel mandate processing 40% of our food crops in the US and Europe to produce ethanol on the fuel and food protests AKA Arab Spring?
We always fought the bad guy’s.
Today we are the bad guy’s.
Just think about it.
Hannan telling how it is.
Unfortunately the centralists have ruined the party.
When does the story break: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-25/when-does-story-break?
Spreading the wealth.