Global Warming Bigger Than Terrorism

Climate change cited as bigger global threat than terrorism

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 at 07:24 JST, Japan Today LONDON — Britain should not tolerate the United States' refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming, a former senior adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday.

Stephen Wall, who served as head of European Secretariat in the Cabinet Office from 2000 to earlier this year, argued that climate change is 'a threat to life on our planet much greater than that posed by terrorism.' He outlined that while terrorism often dominates the world's thoughts, 19,300 more people died from the heat of last year's summer alone than died from terrorist attacks in the same year. (Kyodo News)

This story and many good links to this subject are at:

That could be said of many things, except of course that for the most part 'climate change deaths' are still future deaths, and others causes are killing far more people today. I doubt that today there's a country on earth, even Israel, or Iraq, where more people die of terrorist related actions than of smoking related diseases. In those countries where alcohol is permitted it most likely also causes many deaths. AIDS, malaria, and many other disease also take a far greater toll than terrorism. Heck hunger kills far more people - 'hunger and malnutrition claim 10 million lives every year' www.wfp.org

I accept that if government spend on protecting lives was determined by the actual number of lives lost, then anti-terrorism measures wouldn't get much spend, but then neither would climate change. So it doesn't strike me as a very sensible route to take to get more funding for climate change issues. Though perhaps it might help focus minds on dealing with hunger and disease; which has to be a good thing.

Michael Saunby

Well, they could use a few more AC units. Oh wait. That would add to the co2 now wouldn't it.

Well it's said that rat borne disease has killedd more people than all the wars there have ever been. Perhaps a further couple of minutes of silence to reflect on that ..... and since they all came from Asia in the first place, it just shows the harm that global trade can sometimes do.

It might, it might also make growing crops in other areas possible.

Humans have migrated before when the climate changed.

More rats!

Indeed, but it happens.

It would be extremely naive to imagine that even the most extravagant spend on anti-global warming/green measures, nuclear power, wind and wave power, low energy light bulbs, recycling every possible bottle and cardboard box, etc. would have any significant impact on the number that will die of hunger over the next 25 years.

Michael Saunby

Hey Roger boy,

We have more than 700,000 deaths a year in the USA from heart attacks, half a million from cancer, and about 200,000 from stroke alone. Maybe we need to work some of these much bigger problems before agonizing over your 'global warming' chimera!

When all else fails, keep things in proportion, sonny!

WDA

end

Do you know what happens when you assume? You make an ASS out of U and ME. Here you are ASS-U-MEing that the death rates from these causes are constant. Watch the growth rate on global warming deaths over the coming decades. We are only in the beginning now.

The other problem is cost of doing something or even knowing what to do. Heart attacks, cancer, and stroke have many causes. For example, I have terminal cancer from just one cause, exposure to CFCs. There are probably about 1,000 to 10,000 people in America with cancer from the same cause. We make up only a few hundred of the half-a-million who die from cancer every year. (I'm due to add one to that total in the next two years.) If one does the math, there could be thousands of causes of cancer, each which must be researched and treated. Heart attack and stroke are probably just as complex.

By comparison stopping global warming deaths is much simpler. Mainstream science has known for years the relationship between global warming and greenhouse gas emissions.

So perhaps it's worth spending a little on researching cancer cures, and not devoting all the spend on cancer prevention. There might be no end to the number of things that can cause cancer.

Of course in time some countries will no doubt criminalise smoking and anything else that might cause cancer, but even that won't completely prevent it.

And yet we seem powerless to deal with the problem only at its root cause. Rather like the cancer problem.

Michael Saunby

Right. We should go on using DDT, aldrin, eldrin, dieldrin et al until they have no have no effect on malaria etc, and screw the rest of the food chain / web / wildlife !

Oops ! Maybe we already tried that and noticed we cocked up !

Indeed.

When you know some environmental history you'll have a clue about what you need to keep up with.

Suggest you go google the above.

Clearly not in your mind. Perhaps we should sacrifice as many people as we can to the gods of 'not in my back yard'!

Do you know something about the use of DDT in the tropics for the control of mosquitos, and about the reasons it's soon to be withdrawn that the rest of us haven't been told?

BTW Carson's 'Silent Spring' was, and remains, fiction. Perhaps even dangerous fiction since the notion of greater concern for the future than the present seems to remain a harmful influence throughout environmental science. Shit, I once met an Australian educated environmental scientist who believed that the only way to save the planet was to have no people on it! Which I suppose might be a fair thing to do with Australia, but everywhere?

Today the 'Slient Spring' idea is called 'the precautionary principle' and makes about as much sense as what Richard Dawkins calls the 'BBC theorem' of a world in perfect balance if it weren't for man.

Michael Saunby

Quiet please; it's late. You'll wake folks up.

How do you find working against terrorism? I must admit it's something that doesn't seem easy to contribute to in a very active way.

I'll stick to helping the hungry, a bit of education where I can, and of course the day-job (saving the planet?).

I find it easier to live my life in a meaningful way if I don't walk about with a big sign reading 'THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH'. I hope that it also makes me look rather less stupid than those who do - but it's hard for me to judge.

Michael Saunby

You need a refresher course in reality. Start with..