Interview with Bill McKibbon

Here is a very interesting interview with Bill McKibbon on a radio program on NPR called Speaking of Faith. He had some interesting points about "climate refugees."

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/moral-math/

International Organization for Migration (IOM)

The IOM just released a report on human migration due to climate change. Here is the link to a summary of the report.

http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/media/press-briefing-notes/pbnEU/cache/offonce?entryId=26701

The Developing Countries Dilemma

About half of total carbon emission come from poor and middle-income countries; however, such countries are suffering more of the impact with respect to such increase in emissions. 1% of the world GDP will be lost due to a 2 degrees Celsius in global temperature. This increase will cost Africa 4% of its GDP and India 5% of its GDP.



So how do we really determine this cost? These are all estimates. However, some tangible data to rely on is the increase in natural disasters, which can be quantified in costs suffered. Between 1981 and 1985 fewer than 500 million people required international disaster assistance. That has reached 1.5 billion between 2001 and 2005. This include 4% of the poor nations and 7% of the lower middle-income countries.



The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that climate change caused a loss of 5.5 million disability-adjusted life years in 2000, which most of it was in Africa and Asia. In fact, the Global Humanitarian Forum, a Swiss Think Tank, stated in a study that climate change is attributable to 150,000 deaths a year.



In addition, poorer countries do not have the infrastructure to withstand these natural disasters, such as hurricanes blowing down flimsy houses or flooding the cities near the coastline (10 of the world's 15 largest cities are in low lying coastal areas). Furthermore, they also lack the appropriate health care to prevent spread of disease arising from natural disasters, such as malaria. In fact, it is predicted that by 2030, more than 90 million people more will be exposed to malaria.



The result of this wacky weather will make it more difficult for farmers in developing countries to cultivate food because it will become unpredictable where it is a drought some years and flooding in others.



So how do we combat this? To keep global warming down to an increase of 2 degrees Celsius , the World Bank calculates that it would cost $140 billion to $675 billion a year in developing countries. This dwarfs the current amount allocated of $8 billion. Alternatively, we could spend $75 billion to adapt to global warming, which is 75 times greater than the current amount allocated. Unfortunately, the developing/poor countries view climate change the result of the actions of the rich developed countries and, as a result, they are entitled to compensation from the rich countries to assist them to fight and prevent such changes. The rich countries see this an egalitarian effort where everyone has to share the pain. Copenhagen will be the place where these two interests will meet loggerheads in December. We can only hope that the joy of Christmas will be carried into that Summit in Denmark.

Rebuilding after natural disasters: What is the solution?

Within the last week, the Southeast Asia has been hit with some devastating natural disasters The Philippines has had massive flooding at historical levels. Indonesia and Samoa both were hit with tsunamis almost five years after the one that hit the South East Asia region causing hundreds of thousands deaths and mass destruction. Throughout history, we have faced natural disasters that scale from large to small and for the most part we have recovered from them. There is an instinctive desire of mankind to tame mother nature by rebuilding what is destroyed. However, as we have asked here in the US after Katrina, at what cost should we continue to vicious this cycle of destruction and rebuilding. Sooner or later the economics will not make sense. Perhaps the free market will decide this for us by making insurance more costly and property values drop in these natural disaster prone areas or, in certain countries, the government either forces people to abandon the land or the government ceases to provide assistance. This raises the question that if any of these events occur, where do the people go. For most part, people stay put because they have no other choice or deep loyalty and connection with their home; however, there are many cases in which they go to other places seeking safety from these repeated destructive displays of mother nature's power. This happened in New Orleans where the population had decreased considerable and it slowly is getting back to pre-Katrina numbers. The issues we face today will be placed in the forefront as more of these natural disasters occur with more violent destruction. Governments need to start addressing the possibility that either people cannot or will not want to return to the zones of devastation. In that case, we need a process to handle this group of people and not leave it to the NGOs or other international organizations with limited resources. We should plan now when we have time to prepare as opposed to when the event occurs because, as we have demonstrated with Katrina, when we react to an event as opposed prepare for it, the results lead to further death to the population that is seeking assistance.

Welcome

I hope you find this blog informative. It will provide you updates on a growing group of refugees, the environmental refugees.