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Jun 10, 2009 05:01 AM | 13
Flooded farmland has already forced thousands of Bangladeshis to higher ground, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, of the numbers of people who will need to move because of climate change in the coming decade, according to a report released by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University, the United Nations University and CARE International today.
As climate change alters weather patterns—hastening desertification in some places and sopping others—increases the strength of natural disasters—from cyclones to landslides—and raises sea levels world wide, it will make many areas and livelihoods untenable, say the authors.
"Climate is the envelope in which all of us lead our daily lives," Alexander de Sherbinin, a geographer at CIESIN, said in a statement. "This report sounds warning bells."
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that by 2050, about 200 million people will have been uprooted by climate change. A sea level rise of 3.28 feet (1 meter) could affect 23.5 million people on the low-lying Ganges, Mekong and Nile river deltas alone, according to the report.
But it's not only the poor or rural who will likely be affected. If projections are on target, "large populations would be forced to migrate as a matter of immediate survival," CARE's climate-change coordinator Charles Ehrhart said in a statement. And that could start a "downward spiral of ecological degradation, toward the bottom of which social safety nets collapse, while tensions and violence rise," affecting both rich and poor, he said.
To safeguard against that outcome, the report authors recommend that countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide more eco-friendly methods to farmers and workers, and come up with plans to make sure those most vulnerable to climate change—especially the poor—will retain rights and security.
The Maldives, a low-slung island country especially threatened by climate change's rising tides, has already heeded previous similar advice and pledged to go carbon neutral by 2020. In fact, the president has said he wants to buy a new country.
Map showing the Nile River delta with a sea level rise of 1 meter (dark blue) and urban areas (hatched) courtesy of Center for International Earth Science Information Network/Columbia University
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13 Comments
Add CommentAAAA+ - Another Asinine Alarmist Article. Climate change has squat to do with this issue. The re-engineering of the delta to make it navigable for river traffic changed the distribution of sedimentation and put the delta into a destructive phase, similar to what has happened in New Orleans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a man-made issue alright, but caused by local engineering on a local scale. The God of AGW did not reign their wrath upon the region. The locals screwed it up quite nicely all by themselves.
Yawn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Shoshin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Climate change has squat to do with this issue The re-engineering of the delta to make it navigable for river traffic changed the distribution of sedimentation and put the delta into a destructive phase, similar to what has happened in New Orleans. "
At no point in this article was the city of New Orleans or for that matter the Mississippi river mentioned. It would help your credibility so much more if actually would read the articles you are commenting on.
Trent1492:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood to see you back. I missed trashing your arguments.
I mentioned New Orleans as an analogue as to unintended consequences of what happens when people engineer their local environment through a pick and shovel; again it has squat to to with blaming everything on the myth of AGW.
"Good to see you back. I missed trashing your arguments."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnly in your fervid imagination. Of course your the guy who thinks that quoting from peer reviewed studies and demanding other forms of empirical evidence is "fascist".
"I mentioned New Orleans as an analogue as to unintended consequences of what happens when people engineer their local environment through a pick and shovel;
The funny thing, is that the article has absolutely nothing to do with any of the above. Surprise me some time and read the article before you comment. Your lame excuse for the irrelevant comments only further illustrate your dishonesty.
"..again it has squat to to with blaming everything on the myth of AGW. "
AGW is only a myth among those in denial of reality. You know like the fact that sea IS rising; as is evidenced by the people abandoning their centuries long homes. Of course you would have know that if you had read the article.
Trent 1492:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI stand by my comments; AGW is a myth. Sea levels are not rising. I know that True Believers such as yourself have a vested interest (financial perhaps? Do you own any shares in Al Gore's companies?) in spreading a false gospel.
People like me call a spade a spade and say show me proof, show me causes, not effects. And so far, there is no evidence that AGW is real. People mess around with their environment through changing drainage patterns, deforestation etc. and those are the causes.
This is another one of a plethora of reports on the consequences of climate change whose existence you are not supposed to question. First of all, let’s get this clear: there is no such climate change - it is just a fantasy that Hansen's testimony in 1988 made popular. By 1987 Hansen had produced a GISS climate model that uses carbon dioxide theory of warming to make predictions he calls "scenarios." Approximately 1977 a warming had started and he had about ten years worth of observations to put into his computer. When he did that his model gave predictions out to 2020 of catastrophic warming caused by carbon dioxide in the air. This scared everybody and the next thing you know there is this organization called IPCC telling us to do something about it. But where did this warming come from? In the sixties and seventies that preceded the start of this warming - a good twenty year time span - there had been no warming whatsoever. Yet carbon dioxide was then already in the air, slowly and linearly increasing year by year as it still does today. And the warming that followed did not start gradually but quite sharply, within a few years. If carbon dioxide is the cause of this warming how do you explain the fact that a gas that has been in the air for decades without causing any trouble suddenly starts warming the world? Actually, you don't, and Hansen has very carefully avoided the subject. Since there is no doubt that nothing happened to carbon dioxide we need to look closely at these rising temperatures. Are they real? People have questioned them and suspected that something like the urban heat island effect may be involved but nothing definite has come of it. But then satellites started measuring temperatures and guess what? Their measurements show that there was no such warming at all! Hansen's temperature values are obviously inflicted with a serious systematic error, and this error had to be present from the moment the warming started, not before and not after! This makes the inputs to his model phony, hence its outputs were also phony – GIGO as they say. Which invalidates his message to the Congress in 1988 that started that whole global warming craze. Those people drawing on the billion dollars of U.S. Government climate research money better get busy and find out how these phony temperatures came into being. In the meantime, Quijotic schemes to limit carbon dioxide production like the Kyoto Protocol and cap-and-trade laws should be abandoned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I stand by my comments; AGW is a myth. Sea levels are not rising."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, that is why your lot is called Deniers. You are in denial of reality. The fact is that sea levels are rising and that is a phenomena that is measurable and is verified as happening. The sea level rise is not only happening but accelerating. A study that came out in 2006 says " Here, we extend the reconstruction of global mean sea level back to 1870 and find a sea-level rise from January 1870 to December 2004 of 195 mm, a 20th century rate of sea-level rise of 1.7 � 0.3 mm yr1 and a significant acceleration of sea-level rise of 0.013 � 0.006 mm yr2 (1).
"Do you own any shares in Al Gore's companies?) in spreading a false gospel."
So no logical response to the data as has been represented? Typical.
"People like me call a spade a spade..."
No you do not. That is pretty clear from the fact that you can not even bring yourself to read the article that you have commented on.
." ..and say show me proof, show me causes, not effects."
Again untrue. You have been shown the EVIDENCE and you simply dismiss evidence as fascist. You are a fantasist of the first order. Disagree? Then respond to what this article has to say and not what you imagine it is saying.
"People mess around with their environment through changing drainage patterns, deforestation etc. and those are the causes."
Once again you demonstrate to all that you did not read the article.
1. Citation: Church, J. A., and N. J. White (2006), A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L01602, doi:10.1029/2005GL024826.
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