The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.
At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press.
Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive.
For a time, food will be plentiful because of the longer growing season in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.
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Not until 2080 ... let 'em eat cake.
Couldn't get the link to work, but the post was depressing enough!!
They say it's a drought here but it seems more than that- towns are running out of water, people are paying to have water carted to them as the storages are dry, and we all are on restricted water useage. Maybe it will rain here again,this used to be the coolest and most temperate part of mainland Australia. There have been other times in Australia when there have been prolonged dry spells broken by floods. Certainly it has been a huge monsoon season in the north and at the moment in the north west there is a cyclone (hurricane/typhoon) charging towards the coast, but the weather has also been freaky. We had SNOW in the mountains on Christmas Day, huge thunder storms with enormous hailstones have happened in parts of the country. It was the worst bushfire season ever in the SE of the country and one huge fire burned for nearly 60 days and destoyed almost 1/3 of the state of Victoria this year.
Because this is not a 3rd world country no one has died as a result of these events, people losing property and jobs are helped, but if this isn't Climate Change it's a very good dress rehearsal. However still we have some who question the whole concept of Climate Change and there is minimum attempt to do anything about it. Why is this?
Ellis:
I too have long and often asked myself that same question; why do people not see what is going on in terms of pollution, mostly, despoiling the biosphere? And the only answer that I can come up with is apathy. "It's not happening in my back yard, right at this moment, why should I care?", The "So What? Syndrome".
I remember those bush fires outside of Adelaide a few years back. I recall wondering if the vineyards of the Barossa Valley were destroyed. Excellent Wine, BTW.
Most people never venture very far from where they were raised. I think that "narrow scope" has something to do with why we are apathetic as a Species. We simply don't relate to people starving in Africa, dying of Aids in Haiti, being forced to leave their homes in Vanuatu. It's on TV, it's not real. "Honey, switch to American Idol, will ya?"
I feel no sympathy whatsoever for us. We all learned in Primary School that if a species could not adapt, it was doomed to extinction.
Dan,
Your link reverts to the SAGG post. I don't know how you did this, but could you post the link to the story?
Thanks.
Amaranth
Wolfman- here is some bad news regarding the bushfires ths year!!!!
The grapes are now being harvested and many have a smoke-taint flavour so our wines this year will be greatly reduced in quality! Sad for those of us who like a glass of the really good stuff we produce. It's good enough for blending in some cases but some of the quality wines are badly affected. The odd thing is that some of the affected vineyards are a long way away from the fires, but where I live is 300 k away from the worst ones and we had smoke haze for days at a time here.
Maybe this particular shortage will shock the climate change sceptics into reality!
Ellis. The smokey taste might make them quite interesting.
I was living in Oz just before the Ash Wednesday fires, 1982 was it? I was west of Sydney at the top of the Great Divide. Fire had been blazing out west for weeks. Beautiful sunsets.
Isn't it generally accepted that the Australian vegetation is a result of continued Aboriginal burning over the last fifty thousand years. I know that when Europeans first saw Kangaroo Island in the distance they knew immediately it was uninhabited. No smoke. The sky on the mainland coast had been constanly full of smoke.
Ellis
This means I won't have my Wolfblass Platinum label in about 5 years form now?
Don't mean to insult the French people but Australia has the best wine all-around, keep up the good work :P
When Australia produces the equivalent of a Batard Montrachet let me know.
Sorry bloke but they are decent and drinkable ... and that is as much as can be said for them.
Unfortunately I don't have much of a taste for white wine...
I'll stick with a good shiraz...
Yeah. There are some pretty good Ozzie reds.