Climate report warns of droughts, floods, mass starvation

[Watser?]

Climate report warns of droughts, starvation

WASHINGTON — 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.

...

“Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent,” the report says, in marked contrast to a 2001 report by the same international group that said the effects of global warming were coming. But that report only mentioned scattered regional effects.

“Things are happening and happening faster than we expected,” said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., one of the many co-authors of the new report.

The draft document says scientists are highly confident that many current problems — change in species’ habits and habitats, more acidified oceans, loss of wetlands, bleaching of coral reefs, and increases in allergy-inducing pollen — can be blamed on global warming.

For example, the report says North America “has already experienced substantial ecosystem, social and cultural disruption from recent climate extremes,” such as hurricanes and wildfires.

But the present is nothing compared to the future.

Global warming soon will “affect everyone’s life ... it’s the poor sectors that will be most affected,” Romero Lankao said.

And co-author Terry Root of Stanford University said: “We truly are standing at the edge of mass extinction” of species.

The report included these likely results of global warming:

—Hundreds of millions of Africans and tens of millions of Latin Americans who now have water will be short of it in less than 20 years. By 2050, more than one billion people in Asia could face water shortages. By 2080, water shortages could threaten 1.1 billion to 3.2 billion people, depending on the level of greenhouse gases that cars and industry spew into the air.

—Death rates for the world’s poor from global warming-related illnesses, such as malnutrition and diarrhea, will rise by 2030. Malaria and dengue fever, as well as illnesses from eating contaminated shellfish, are likely to grow.

—Europe’s small glaciers will disappear with many of the continent’s large glaciers shrinking dramatically by 2050. And half of Europe’s plant species could be vulnerable, endangered or extinct by 2100.

—By 2080, between 200 million and 600 million people could be hungry because of global warming’s effects.

—About 100 million people each year could be flooded by 2080 by rising seas.

—Smog in U.S. cities will worsen and “ozone-related deaths from climate (will) increase by approximately 4.5 per cent for the mid-2050s, compared with 1990s levels,” turning a small health risk into a substantial one.

...

Many — not all — of those effects can be prevented, the report says, if within a generation the world slows down its emissions of carbon dioxide and if the level of greenhouse gases sticking around in the atmosphere stabilizes. If that’s the case, the report says “most major impacts on human welfare would be avoided; but some major impacts on ecosystems are likely to occur.”

More here

[Shelli]

[Watser?]

Here's a more localized report on how climate change will impact Peru:

[...]
"Global warming for us is not just about the environment," warns Julio Garcia of Peru's National Council on the Environment, Conam.

"It's more about how on earth we can develop Peru in a sustainable way over the coming years."

Peru's water problem lies in part in the peculiar geography of the country.

Most of the Pacific coast would be desert if it were not for the water flowing down from the Andes.

Seventy per cent of the population live along the coast, where less than 2% of the country's water resources are found.

In contrast, the Atlantic side of the Andes has 98% of the water and about a quarter of the population.

"Much of our water supply is on the wrong side of the wall," says Mr Garcia.

Glacial melt

Peru has the largest number of tropical glaciers in the world. These water towers are crucial for slowly releasing water, particularly in the dry season. And Peru desperately needs the water all year round.

Apart from the need for drinking water, 80% of the country's power has traditionally come from hydro-electricity. And, the current boom sectors of the economy - agro-exports and mining - also absorb huge volumes of water.

The latest figures on glacial melt are alarming.

Estimates by a team of Peruvian and international scientists say that Peru and Bolivia, which together account for more than 90% of the world's tropical glaciers, have lost about a third of the surface area of their glaciers between the 1970s and 2006.
[...]

[fragment]

This would be the IPCC Working Group II summary, "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability", due out on 6 April.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Wonder how many people will have senselessly died because Al Gore wasn't elected in 2000?

[Dingfod]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

[godfry n. glad]

I personally don't think the election of Gore would have made an appreciable difference, but I'm pretty pessimistic, given not only the increase in both the number of humans populating the planet, but the upwardly spiralling resource extraction to provide for the status lifestyle demanded by these people. Famine, drought, flooding and disease will make a significant dent in world human population. I suspect we passed the level of sustainability some time back, and it hasn't caught up, yet. It will...nature always bats last. It's just a matter of time.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

How about substantially engaging in the issues, for a change?

[Dingfod]

I don't really feel like engaging on this topic, this kind of fear-mongering does nobody any good. There are a number of items in the above articles that cannot or have not been positively linked to global warming, droughts in certain areas for one example, hurricanes (the number or the intensity) for another.

[Shelli]

It's alarming indeed and high time that people wake up.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

I don't really feel like engaging on this topic,

You just prefer sniping from the sideline? OK.

this kind of fear-mongering does nobody any good.

Which kind? The WG II summary report, or the (possibly inaccurate) news article reporting on a draft version of it?

There are a number of items in the above articles that cannot or have not been positively linked to global warming, droughts in certain areas for one example, hurricanes (the number or the intensity) for another.

I'd say cannot is too strong. Have not might be the case, I suspect it might be best to reserve judgement until the release of the summary.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by fragment

You just prefer sniping from the sideline? OK.

I just gotta be me.

[godfry n. glad]

The dimunition of fresh potable water is directly related to human action, in most cases. We've been soiling our nest that way for quite some time. In local news, fresh water sources in the American Rockies in now being threatened by acidic releases from old mines and mine talings; the Oglalla aquifer is being drawn down at a rate much faster than it can ever be replenished with current demands, and the Colorado River barely has any water emptying into the Gulf of California due to the excessive water rights claims along it's length...most of which have yet to be met. California has already made motions about piping Columbia Rivershed water to meet the demand that is rapidly outstripping fresh water availability in the southwest.

It's worse in the "less-developed" parts of the world.

I think it's long past time to monger fear on these issues. The problem has been that fear-mongers have been "proven wrong" when their prognostications are delayed or deferred through human action...Malthus and the Club of Rome, notwithstanding.

Having been given a reprieve, we wasted it.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Stuff just seems to happen too slowly for humans to notice even when it's coming at us fast.

We leaked the upcoming IPCC report! – Scientist Rebellion

Greenhouse gas emissions must peak within 4 years, says leaked UN report | Climate change | The Guardian