Today, the United States is the greatest contributor of carbon to the atmosphere. China is neck and neck with America. The U.S. is still the richest nation, tremendous resources — but it’s the poor and much of the developing world that are going to pay for America’s eco-unfriendly consumption gluttony, according to a new UN report.
One of the authors of the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has some advice for mankind:
“Don’t be poor in a hot country, don’t live in hurricane alley, watch out about being on the coasts or in the Arctic, and it’s a bad idea to be on high mountains with glaciers melting,” said Schneider, the Stanford scientist who was one of the study authors.
Very grim. We need to get a handle on this, but I don’t have confidence that we will until something systemically horrible happens — like the loss of all polar bears, or bumblebees, or frogs. Until we think that mankind could actually be severely impacted, the rich will keep exploiting the low-costs of a carbon dependent energy world.
— Steve Clemons
22 comments on “Cooking Our Fish Bowl: Climate Change Report Paints Grim Future”