The number of people living in extreme poverty has decreased from 28% in 1990 to 21% in 2001. This has had a real impact on the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people due to global increases in GDP.

If we were to take drastic action on reducing greenhouse gases this economic growth would be slowed – and possibly reversed. This would prevent people from rising out of poverty or plunge people back into poverty.

If Roger’s numbers are true the effects of poverty would be far greater than the impacts of warming. It seems reasonable that the full economic impacts of GW mitigation be considered before deciding on policy actions.

Reducing global warming can’t be an end in and of itself – it should be weighed with the full costs and benefits.

Thanks for weighing in . . . the difference between tooth decay and human suffering is that the climate scientists are suggesting that changes in energy policy can address the risks to the latter. It is a bad argument, even if it feels noble.

And please don’t suggest the tired old saw that if someone is for adaptation then they must be “pooh-poohing” changes to energy policy. One can be for transforming energy systems, investing in adaptation, and making solid arguments — All at the same time!

Is it too much to ask that scientists properly justify their arguments? Or is the cause so worthy that it doesn’t matter anymore?

Of course making bad arguments in support of a cause thought to be noble and just is what happened with the neocons, WMDs, and Iraq . . . but in this case it is different, eh? Some bad arguments are better than others, I suppose.

Anyway, since you are in Bali you might corner some folks from developing countries with large amounts of human suffering and ask them their views on adaptation. Let us know what you learn.

Other Boulder folks I spotted with a quick scan: Jeff Kiehl, Bette Otto-Bleisner, Rick Anthes, Warren Washington, Greg Holland and Marika Holland. I don’t see any NOAA people at all, though I know some who I’d expect would have similar beliefs.

Re Roger’s diverse posts: While I find the slinging of statistics impressive, the ring to me like bullets in an Xbox shooter game. 7.3 million deaths vs. 0.15 million deaths? I’m sure there’s excellent peer-reviewed research behind both. But I think the underlying argument is shaky.

Lots of things kill human beings and make them miserable. Poverty and income inequality is real, and 50-1 ratios and 7.3s versus 0.15s should be addressed with real vigor. But that’s not what’s being talked about in Bali. Pooh-poohing efforts to transform the energy system because poverty remains a problem despite Lyndon Johnson’s best efforts strikes me as diverting from the point. These climate scientists are completely ignoring Tay-Sachs disease, too, not to mention tooth decay and this nefarious hiphop prisoner jeans-at-the-knees look that clearly risks widespread tripping among America’s male teens. I have no numbers.

I have always found Roger’s arguments with respect to warming and hurricane strength compelling. This one quite the opposite.

A few responses to these good questions:

You seem to assume that if greenhouse gas concentrations are stabilized at, say, 450 ppm, that this will prevent sea level rise. It will not. This can be seen in figure 10.34c of the IPCC report which shows that even after stabilization, sea level rise continues for centuries!
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter10.pdf

So regardless of what is done on energy policy over the next few decades, Bangladeshis are going to have to deal with sea level rise. So adaptation is not a choice for people alive today, it is a reality. Further, changes to energy policies won’t help these people, but perhaps their great-great-great-grandchildren.

I find the argument that we can offer help to people who will live a 100 years from now, but not those alive today because it is too hard simply to be unacceptable. Throwing ones hands up on adaptation is no different than throwing ones hands up on mitigation. (E.g., tell me, how you are going to stop China’s CO2 emissions?)

Action on energy policies could reduce the risks of very large increases in sea level rise post-2100, but that is not going to help anyone in poverty or in marginal ecosystems coming decades.

When it comes to human suffering, in the short term (21st century), climate change impacts are indeed marginal to much larger influencing factors. This is found in the IPCC reports quite clearly. Bottom line: reducing human suffering is not the best argument for energy policy action on climate change.

For anyone who has thought seriously about the problems of poverty, I
think it is inescapable that the poor are likely to suffer the most
from climate change. You seem to be saying that those marginal
impacts are miniscule compared to the problem overall. But you
haven’t answered my question about people in Bangladesh: Tens of
millions of Bangladeshies already suffer terribly from poverty, but
how much more will they suffer when rising sea level forces them to
migrate? Reading between the lines, I think you are saying that we
ought to move them out of harm’s way because they are already
terribly vulnerable. But where are you proposing to send them? They
have nowhere to go. It’s very easy to talk about adaptation in the
abstract, but give me a concrete proposal for how we should help
Bangladeshies adapt to rising sea level from climate change.

A similar argument pertains to people living in the Sahel. Of course
we should be investing much more than we do toward empowering them
economically. But what actions specifically do you propose we take to
help them deal with the fact that climate change may well add a
profound layer of drought on top of a system already prone to severe
water shortages? Are you saying that we should simply ignore the
marginal impacts of climate change? And in this case, how should we
help them adapt? Should we build desalination plants along the coast
and giant canals to bring them fresh water?

– Tom

This is one aspect of the climate debate that I simply cannot fathom. We should care about those people marginally affected by climate change, but those people without such good fortune? Well, saying that “the poor will always be with us” seems pretty unsatisfactory.

Here is what I wrote on this elsewhere:

“the ratio of poverty deaths to putative climate change deaths is about 50 to 1.

Does this mean that we should not worry about climate change? No.

Does this mean that we should emit greenhouse gases with reckless abandon? No.

What it does mean is that efforts to justify greenhouse gas mitigation policies on preventing human impacts run up against the reality that if it is human lives that you really care about, then there are obvious, straightforward and comparatively inexpensive ways to reduce human death and suffering that do not involve first reordering the global energy system.

Further, reducing greenhouse gases, per se, will do little or nothing to address the 7.3 million deaths from poverty each year, but addressing the conditions that lead to those 7.3 million deaths has the side benefit of also addressing those very same contributing factors that lead to the 0.15 million deaths attributed to climate change.

From this perspective, adaptation to climate change by focusing on reducing societal vulnerability to climate-related impacts deserves a much more prominent role in discussion of climate change. At the same time, advocates of climate mitigation should think carefully about the use of human death and suffering as a justification for adoption of greenhouse gas emissions — the numbers don’t make a strong case.”

Erika’s point still pertains: What is the marginal risk imposed by climate change? We’ve always had poverty. (As an aside, poverty is improving in places like China in direct proportion to their
greenhouse gas emissions.) But how much worse will the problems of poverty be with the addition of climate change? Yes, many tens of millions of people in Bangladesh already suffer terribly. But how much more will they suffer when sea level rise forces them to migrate — and they have nowhere to go?

– Tom

Thanks for the update! (Send more!) You ask a great question:

“I’d also like to comment on the thread above: while it’s true that many are at risk from all of these climate-related events with or without AWG, the real question is the marginal risk. How many MORE people will be affected, and will they be affected more strongly?”

Do you know the answer to this? Do the scientists who signed that statement know? Should they have made that explicit? Does it even matter?

It is a relatively small number in comparison to the number of people who suffer dues to poverty, disease, etc., like 50 to 1 using a wide range of measures. I discussed this a bit here:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000368adaptation_and_clima.html

If the future human suffering caused by climate change is an important reason to act, does that make dealing with poverty 50 times more important, as poverty causes 50 times more suffering? Funny how that issue didn’t get into the statement by the scientists . . .

The U.S. delegation held its own press conference soon afterward to answer general questions about the Bali meeting. In response to a question about the scientists’ statement, lead negotiator Harlan Watson brushed it aside, saying “I don’t know who the scientists are who signed it.” He then emphasized that the U.S. is “fully on board” with the recent IPCC report but that the IPCC does not advocate policy. A reporter came back with the comment that this statement was signed by leading scientists and DOES advocate policy, to which Watson replied that he would not endorse something he had not read. A clean sidestep, in other words.

I spoke to one of the scientists who presented the statement at the press release, Richard Somerville of the University of California San Diego. He’s a climate modeler and coordinating lead author for Working Group I of the IPCC (science and impacts). He said that he has not interacted with the U.S. delegation but that as an American, he hopes for U.S. action soon.

Now, I doubt that the scientists who signed this statement thought that it would turn the U.S. on its heels. But the statement did serve to underscore the increasing isolation of the U.S. in Bali.

I’d also like to comment on the thread above: while it’s true that many are at risk from all of these climate-related events with or without AWG, the real question is the marginal risk. How many MORE people will be affected, and will they be affected more strongly?

is true without any influence of “global warming”