New U.N. Climate Change Study Points To More Frequent Extreme Floods & Droughts

[Jingthing]

Definitely some timely and Thailand relevant food for thought in this new UN report. Flooding in particular is linked to the climate change and this study indicates we can expect severe flooding more frequently than historically expected.

The low regrets measure concept is a good way of communicating the reasonableness of taking measures to those who remain skeptical.

...

The overall economic and insured losses are greater in industrialized nations, while in poor countries extreme weather events cause more deaths and represent a greater proportion of the gross domestic product.

...

“I’ve been a meteorologist for 30 years, and I’ve never seen a year like 2011 in terms of extreme weather events,” said Jeff Masters, who co-founded the popular Web site Weather Underground, in a press call organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

...

The report calls on governments to adopt “low-regrets measures” that will offer societal benefits even if climate change does not cause as much damage as many researchers predict.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/report-climate-change-means-more-frequent-droughts-floods-to-come/2011/11/15/gIQAfwqHXN_story.html

[jombom]

Most reasonable people accept that the climate is changing. (It has many times in the past).

To make a jump, and blame mankind, is a completely separate issue.

Right now, carbon is about 400 ppm and the population is 7 billion. When the population was 1 billion (200 years ago, before the industrial revolution), the carbon content was 300 ppm. So, it is obvious the link is tenuous in the extreme.

My own personalized view, is that we insist on eating animals, and all these animals are extremely messy creatures.

The UN food organization reckons that 5 billion Vegans on the planet, would solve the problem, almost overnight.

[isanbirder]

I thought the fact that earth's climate is cyclical had been accepted for a long time. How fast it changes, and what we can do to influence it, are quite separate matters.

There are already more severe floods and droughts, more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, more severe storms. The best precautions we can take are such things as not building on major faults (like San Francisco) or in flood-prone areas (like Bangkok) or where tsunamis can be anticipated (like Eastern Japan). But then there won't be too many places left for us to live!