latest ipcc report

The International Governmental Panel on Climate Change is releasing a new report today. The summary for policy makers is already available. A few highlights:

Projected climate-change related exposures are likely to affect the health status of millions of people, particularly those with low adaptative capacity, through:
* increases in malnutrition and consequent disorders, with implications for child growth and development;
* increased deaths, disease, and injury due to heat waves, floods, storms, fires, and droughts;
* the increased burden of diarrhoeal disease;
* the increased frequency of cardio-respiratory diseases due to higher concentrations of ground level ozone related to climate change; and
* the altered spatial distribution of some infectious disease vectors.

...Warming in western mountains [in North America] is projected to cause decreased snowpack, more winter flooding, and reduced summer flows, exacerbating competition for over-allocated water resources. Disturbances from pests, diseases, and fire are projected to have increasing impacts on forests, with an extended period of high fire risk and large increases in area burned. Cities that currently experience heat waves are expected to be further challenged by an increased number, intensity, and duration of heat waves during the course of the century, with potential for adverse health impacts. The growing number of the elderly population is most at risk...

Many impacts can be avoided, reduced, or delayed by mitigation.

The most depressing part about all this to me is the fact that those who are doing least to cause it will be the hardest hit, while those who are doing most to cause it are least willing to make even the smallest mitigating changes. Does it have to be a basic characteristic of humanity that we can't see beyond our own noses?

This morning I was reading Collapse by Jared Diamond, a fascinated book that examines the environmental causes behind the destruction of various past civilizations. "What," Diamond wonders, "did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it? Like modern loggers, did he shout 'Jobs, not trees!' Or: 'Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we'll find a substitute for wood'? Or: 'We don't have proof that there aren't palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research, your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering'?"

Never fear, we'll find substitutes for water, for oil, for agriculture, for air...

Then all we'll have to do is adapt ourselves to eat, drink, and breathe something different.