Thread: If you're worried about immigration, you should be terrified about climate change

ASSAAD W RAZZOUK

Monday 3 November 2014

If you're worried about immigration, then you should be terrified about climate change

Our politicians appear content to jump on the xenophobic band-wagon driven by the likes of Ukip, yet no one is talking about climate refugees



​On Sunday, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report, reiterating, for those who haven’t yet noticed, that we are on the brink of epochal changes driven by climate change, and that we must act now to avoid the worst impacts.

The IPCC report is a welcome distraction from the recent hysterical series of immigration-related news headlines. However, the reality is that both climate change and immigration are inextricably linked.

The truth is that if you are worried about migration then you ought to be terrified of what is happening to the global climate. In addition to increasing the devastation caused by extreme weather events including storms, floods, droughts and fires, climate change will affect water supplies, crops and livestock, ultimately affecting food security. For many, the only solution is to move.

Pentagon and NATO military analysts identify climate change as a "threat multiplier" that increases the chances of conflict and will result in large-scale migration. Just how many climate refugees will be banging on the doors of Europe and the United States is difficult to calculate although estimates range from 25 million to 1 billion by 2050.

What’s clear is that the numbers will dwarf current immigration levels - the UK Conservative Party’s election pledge was to limit the issue of new national security numbers (and that’s to legal immigrants) to 100,000 per year.

So what will happen as agricultural ecosystems across Asia, Africa and Latin America are slowly squeezed, hunger fuels conflict and migration numbers gradually swell by more than ten times, or indeed a hundred times?

Voters in Europe and the US already see immigration as a concern. Our politicians, fearful of upsetting some constituents, appear content to jump on the xenophobic band-wagon driven by the likes of Ukip.

But no one is talking about climate refugees.

Politicians seem unable to join the dots because they have not fully grasped the implication of climate change for migration and for a raft of other policies.

In pictures: Changing climate around the world
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Ironically in Britain Ukip spreads fear of immigration and yet opposes renewable energy - the biggest weapon needed to fight climate change. But they have succeeded in bringing right-wing populism into Parliament.

Economics and conflict are key drivers for migration - both are made worse by climate change. For many people, life is so hopeless that they are prepared to give up what little they possess to seek a new start for themselves and their families. So far this year, more than 180,000 have made their way to Italy, risking death in epic journeys through Africa and then onward across the Mediterranean on decrepit boats.

Others climb walls to enter the Spanish African cities of Ceuta and Melilla; some are camped near Calais as they attempt to get to the UK by any means possible.

Across the Atlantic, refugees from the south continue to penetrate the porous US border.

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This is just the tip of the iceberg. Unless urgent action is taken now our world is heading for a global average temperature increase over pre-industrial level of up to 4 or 5 degrees centigrade. As climate change bites even harder, the tide of refugees will swell inexorably as heat waves and droughts, sea level rise and food shortages get worse. This will drive more and worse conflict and fragile economies will collapse under the weight of having to cope with more severe weather events.

By 2050, when our kids will be running countries, today’s knee-jerk reactions to annual immigration statistics will resemble the focus on brass-polishing on the doomed Titanic.

The only solution is to help communities to stay where they are: if we want to stop the hundreds of millions who basically have no choice but to move north (70 per cent of natural disasters occur in Asia, the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East, where many of the world’s most vulnerable populations live), we need to help them cope.

We need to invest ten times more money worldwide, in clean decentralised energy systems, in adaptable or climate-smart agriculture, and in resilient infrastructure and in education. The money’s there: we subsidize fossil fuels with $2tn a year, but according to the International Energy Agency, we don’t need more than half that amount to act now and finance a transition to green growth and green lifestyles.

There is no alternative unless Europeans and Americans want to welcome potentially hundreds of millions of climate refugees to a home near them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/if-youre-worried-about-immigration-then-you-should-be-terrified-about-climate-change-9835475.html

These hippies/Marxists/socialist are so screwed up, so out of touch with reality you want to cry for them because they are such stunning ignorant asses.

29 Bullets Tell All about Climate Challenge

By Mark Fischetti | November 3, 2014
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.



The results are in. Yesterday the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released it final report crystallizing 13 months of work by more than 800 scientists. The “synthesis report” gives a no-nonsense assessment of how the climate is changing, what is causing the change, the impacts the changes will have on us and the planet, and the “mitigation” steps we should take to prevent the impacts from getting worse. The recommendations are intended first and foremost for national leaders, who in 2015 will make what may be a last-chance effort to reach a binding global climate treaty.

Although the report’s authors try to give a condensed snapshot of the most important data and recommendations, the document still clocks in at 116 pages. I will attempt, here, to capture what you need to know most, in 29 bullets. Forgive the staccato.

Climate changes:

• The atmosphere is getting hotter.
• The oceans are getting much hotter, and much more acidic.

Causes:

• CO2 emissions are by far the largest cause of global warming and ocean acidification, and they are rising.
• Methane emissions are the second largest cause of warming, and they are rising.
• Since 1950 human activities have led to virtually all temperature rise.
• Natural forces have caused virtually none of the temperature rise.
• The largest human sources of CO2 emissions are burning fossil fuels, making cement and burning off gas (“flaring”) from oil and gas production.

Impacts:

• Sea level is rising, and at an increasing pace.
• Glaciers are melting, ice sheets are thinning, and Arctic sea ice is disappearing.
• Permafrost is thawing.
• In North America, snow pack is decreasing.
• The number of cold days and nights are decreasing.
• The number of hot days and nights are increasing.
• Heat waves will occur more often and last longer.
• Heavy rainstorms and snowstorms will become more intense and frequent.
• Overall, precipitation will rise in high latitudes and the equatorial Pacific. In mid-latitudes, dry areas will get drier, wet areas will get wetter.
• Species are vanishing at an alarming and ever-increasing rate.
• Most plants, small mammals and ocean organisms cannot adapt fast enough to keep up with changes.
• Global temperature rise greater than 2 degrees Celsius will compromise food supplies globally.
• Human health problems will get worse.
• Risks to poorer people are greater than for others, in all countries.

What to do:

• To avoid severe damage to natural and human systems, the world should keep global warming to less than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.
• Without more mitigation than is being done today, the temperature is more likely than not to rise by 4 degrees C by 2100.
• Significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 can significantly reduce warming by 2100.
• Keeping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below the equivalent of 450 parts per million of CO2 can keep warming below 2 degrees C.
• Levels are likely to stay below 450 ppm if human emissions are reduced 40 to 70 percent by 2050 compared with 2010 levels.
• Allowing levels to reach 530 ppm by 2100 gives the planet slightly better than 50-50 odds of staying below 2C; that would require reducing emissions 25 to 55 percent by 2050 versus 2010.
• To hit a target of 430 to 530 ppm by 2100, the world must invest several hundred billion dollars a year in low-carbon electricity sources and energy efficiency.
• It is highly unlikely the world will stay below 450 ppm without widespread use of carbon capture and storage technologies.

So…improve technical solutions, reach government agreements, and fund them, now.

Photo courtesy of purites on Flickr

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...ate-challenge/

Originally Posted by csarbww

These hippies/Marxists/socialist are so screwed up, so out of touch with reality you want to cry for them because they are such stunning ignorant asses.

Will calling people names help solve the problems of climate change?

NOVEMBER 3, 2014
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http://www.alipac.us/f19/goodbye-rai...it-90s-313928/