Guest essay by Eric Worrall
UK Climate experts have prepared a map of countries they think are most at risk of climate change. However their map could easily be mistaken for a geopolitical risk map – the most “endangered” countries are, with few exceptions, countries which are neutral to or even hostile to the USA and Western interests.
http://blog.theecoexperts.co.uk/climate-change-map
High on their risk are countries such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan, countries whose populations regularly express hostility towards the USA and Western values.
US allies such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and most of Europe score well on the risk map – they are listed as countries least likely to be severely impacted by climate change.
All of this poses an obvious question – if we accept the map at face value, why should we care about climate change?
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According to this map the biggest risk factor for adverse climate impacts is having a black or brown skin.
Coming from Canada, I am deeply disturbed, that we did not get the “warming”, that we were promised. We are still up here, freezing our darned butts off! (Can’t wait to get my calendar!) He he!
Maybe if you stare at the global temperature anomaly graphs from the IPCC you will feel warmer. Seems to work for the cultists.
At the risk of stating the Un-PC obvious, according to this map it looks to me that if you are white or asian you are ok, but it you are brown, black, or muslim you are pretty much screwed
And here I was thinking, that the greening of Africa, would be a good thing!? Omg. GK
As an aside, but really more intriguing, I am only browsing this site – no other tabs or windows open – and my spam/virus software (Avira) is fighting off many Trojan horses. Metjhinks we are under attack.
I agree, something is strange with WUWT lately. TrendMicro is not warning of any malware but Microsoft services is saying there are certificate errors and is having some other issues with the site this week.
Also got the certificate challenge, but there isn’t one – no SSL
Time for malwarebytes all around – not an ad, there’s a free version
https://www.malwarebytes.org/
I had trouble earlier with comments not posting. It seems to be ok now.
What a despicable post.
It is the governments of these countries that you consider to be your “enemies”.
The rest of the population are human beings like the rest of us. And deserve all the help possible to pull them up to our standard of living.
In the last few months much has been said on wuwt about how the green agenda will impoverish the impoverished and this disgusting green conspiracy should be halted. Now all of a sudden these people you were so worried about should be thrown to the wolves man, woman, and child.
I am truly sadden by such an attitude (I’m alright jack! Bu**er everyone else!) shown by the author and many of the posters.
You seem to be thoroughly confused. It’s not wolves, but rather man-bear-pig, that is the threat.
Sergei –
In my state of Vermont, the loonies are preparing to impose carbon taxes and subsidies to bulldoze more of our ridge lines and erect wind deals that don’t work and will require natural gas back-up.
OK, now they’ve got my money and my neighbors.
I don’t believe for one moment that those green backs are headed to Nigeria. Why would they give away the money? They are NOT generous.
Would you give money to someone who is blaming you for all of his problems and openly threatens you like the thousands or maybe millions of people in those countries shouting “death to USA” ?
This is not the first map which shows that a developed economy is the best guard against any kind of risk. Giving unconditioned money to poor countries has kept them poor for decades.
You better don’t try to offer them something else than cash like economic advice or attach conditions to the donations. Africans think you are trying to colonize their continent, Arabs claim you’re a Zionist or Israeli spy and South American’s tell you to go back to the ‘Empire’ if you tell them what to do.
Even humanitarian help is often found conspicious and only accepted when the desaster already happened.
The green’s way of destroying our own economy is insane and dosn’t help anybody.
So what else is on the table?
It’s not only despicable, but incredibly narrow-minded and short-sighted. One should ask, why are these countries “hostile”, and why do terrorist cells form in these countries? It’s because some people are desperate and feel taken advantage of or ignored by the “industrialized west.” Religion is then used by some to incite this distrust, resentment, and even hatred. I suggest a book called “The Prosperity Agenda,” by Soderberg and Katulis, which outlines how to build relationships with these countries by helping them prosper.
Ethiopia is a threat to the US of A? I don’t think so. Most people there worry more about feeding themselves for a day, and many don’t. Strangely, some of the poorest people I’ve seen there live in makeshift huts, made from items such as sacks that once contained grains supplied by…the US of A during the 1980’s famine!!!
On what basis? [Tropics] have least change. Bet this BS refers to danger of ” climate-induced war”.
Doesn’t look like temperature or sealevel rise threat.
I see something interesting and ironic in this map. Those countries most deemed at risk are the most likely to survive in an economic- technologic crash. During the depression of 1930 and WW2 people living in remote places with weak governments did not notice much change. Their population was in balance with their support infrastructure. They were basically living off the grid in a non monetarised existence as they had for most of time.
Right after WW2, I went with my father to a very remote place in the central Andes. An old man in his nineties or older asked my father if those people up north were still killing and destroying each other. He stumbled around a bit for an answer, and finally said yes. My father later told me he was not certain of which instance of destruction the old man was talking about.
The reason for the visit to the remote places was a yearly health check and delivery of pharmaceuticals for residents of remote places. The people in the remote places were in better health and nutrition than their counterparts that visited the clinics in the large cities.
You mean all that hype with the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” with the North Atlantic currents is now passe. How else can you explain North Europe and the North Sea area with such shining scores ?
Not one Govn’t or person in the “non-green” areas of this map are the least bit “worried” about “climate change”. None! Finding dinner for the family, that day, sure! Of course that cost has been exaserbated by corrupt Govn’ts and all the usual “climate scams” so much so that most people CANNOT afford to buy enough food for a day!
So Netherlands and Greenland, to pick two examples, have low probability of severe consequences according to this map. Yet, the bleating I hear is that the Netherlands are more than a third below sea level already and Greenland will melt away and become a large lake. Why does a rational person tend to ignore work of this sort?
How were these maps made? Is there a single fact or data point even mentioned in the making of them?
Countries with a low CO2 output seem to be at the greatest risk! Those countries, which are at risk on the map, are mainly at risk from their low standard of economic development or political and social stability. The weather would be the least of their worries. It is definitely drawn from some political-economic source as ferdberple says.
Elmer upstream brought in the satellite CO2 map. ( http://m4gw.com/ ) It seems that Nature trumps coal plants in in CO2 production.
(Oh Gosh! Lew is going to put out a paper that says efficient energy production is a conspiracy against all the “lesser” nations!)
Interesting that the island of New Guinea has a distinct risk boundary between it and Papua. Maybe there is a sky high cloud barrier there. Obviously man made as the straight boundary implies.
May make a great tourist attraction!
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
UK and Australia has the supposed lowest risk. And at least the UK, of tiny comparative size, has decided that it should lead the way in trying to save the rest of the world by shooting itself in the foot. Lol. Kudos to Australia now though!
Not so fast. Australia is only ~18 months or so away from a federal election. I see the LNP and Abbott being ousted in favour of an ALP/Green coalition, and with an assortment of bullcarp green/carbon taxes.
Eric Worrall reads the graph wrongly.
Now look at the pattern of vulnerability.
Why is Mongolia more vulnerable than Russia or China?
Why is Haiti more vulnerable than Guatemala & El Salvador, which in turn are more vulnerable than Mexico, which in turn is more vulnerable than the USA?
Why is Zimbabwe more vulnerable than Botswana?
Why is Burma more vulnerable than Thailand?
The answer is that climate change vulnerability is related to economic development, not to regional climate change. It is the same as vulnerability to earthquakes. Economically failed states – due to conflict and/or oppressive governments – are most vulnerable to economic shocks.
The most populous country with a high risk is India. In fact it has more people than the 50+ nations of Africa, or nearly twice the population of the OECD – the rich nations club. It is determined not to constrain the rapid growth in emissions if it means sacrificing the rapid economic growth that is pulling people out of poverty. Even if climate change is real, this is the most sensible policy, rather than climate mitigation. I explain more at my blog.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2015/01/15/why-no-country-should-sign-up-to-climate-mitigation-at-paris-2015/
Note the link given to see who created the silly map, it’s perverse blah-blah produced by a company that compares solar panels, in the UK.
Funny…the areas that will be in trouble are the ones that are already in trouble either due to already marginally inhabitable conditions and/or tribalism and corrupt governments.
In most cases, “no change” in climate would cause all of the same problems.
“US allies such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and most of Europe score well on the risk map – they are listed as countries least likely to be severely impacted by climate change.”
All these regions will effected adversely through the next decade because of weak solar activity.
This is by far the least informed and most jingoistic post I have ever seen on this sight. It would be disappointing even if it wasn’t so utterly bigoted and ignorant of geopolitics.
Well said Doug. I wonder if it represents a cross-section of the readership, or just the those who comment
Frankly, they only got themselves to blame… the poor people should have invested more heavily in coal-fired electricity output, air-conditioning units, and a free-market capitalist philosophy (like wot we got) and they could have been just as green as us and less shitty-brown coloured. Wait a minute…. more green…????…think i saw a pussy cat!
It looks to me like the more industrialized and wealthy a nation is, the less the risk. Some people look at this and cry “unfair.” Others look at this and say “Let’s help make the poor nations wealthier.”
The former type believes there is only so much wealth to go around. if one nation gets a bigger slice of the pie, then somebody else just gets a sliver. The latter type (the non-Marxists) know that wealth is not limited. Economic growths creates a bigger pie.
I have recently heard African reasonably educated people say that there is a belief about in their area that combating climate change by de-industrialisation is just a method by the rich “West” to prevent them from improving their lot by getting on to the industrialisation bandwagon like China has.