The fact that you’ve written ‘more people die of cold every year than of heat’ tells me everything I need to know about your understanding of climate change. Global warming does not mean the temperature is uniformly going up. It means a large number of the complex earth systems upon which all life on this planet relies, are being deleteriously affected:
‘Climate change means not only changes in globally averaged surface temperature, but also changes in atmospheric circulation, in the size and patterns of natural climate variations, and in local weather. La Niña events shift weather patterns so that some regions are made wetter, and wet summers are generally cooler. Stronger winds from polar regions can contribute to an occasional colder winter. In a similar way, the persistence of one phase of an atmospheric circulation pattern known as the North Atlantic Oscillation has contributed to several recent cold winters in Europe, eastern North America, and northern Asia.
Atmospheric and ocean circulation patterns will evolve as Earth warms and will influence storm tracks and many other aspects of the weather. [However] Global warming tilts the odds in favour of more warm days and seasons and fewer cold days and seasons. For example, across the continental United States in the 1960s there were more daily record low temperatures than record highs, but in the 2000s there were more than twice as many record highs as record lows. Another important example of tilting the odds is that over recent decades heatwaves have increased in frequency in large parts of Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia. Marine heat waves are also increasing.’ https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/question-11/#:~:text=Global%20warming%20is%20a%20long,even%20as%20the%20climate%20warms.
I’m not sure what is your evidence for the fact that the ‘green agenda is about control.’ Either way, and whatever your disagreement about solutions, protesters tactics, etc., the scientific consensus on climate change is clear. 97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change: https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is measurable and alarming and based on evidence – no need for the scare quotes. The last time there was this much of it in the earth’s atmosphere was during the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event (approximately 251.9 million years ago), otherwise known as the ‘Great Dying.’
The effects of similar amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere built up over the last two centuries have caused just 0.8 degrees warming of the world (since pre-Industrial times) which has so far led to the following (again) measurable and scientifically known examples of ‘bad weather’ (to use your term):
– deadly heat waves – in every continent, but especially bad in Sub-Saharan Africa and across Asia;
– water shortages leading to crop failures and famines, including the first famine ‘officially’ recorded as having been caused by climate change in Madagascar;
– extreme ‘once in a lifetime’ disasters occurring several times annually throughout the globe, such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes and extinctions;
– large-scale diebacks in forests, especially the Amazon Rainforest – the ‘lungs of the planet’ – which we need to absorb greenhouse gases, especially Co2, and sequester it in the soil;
– massive melting of the polar ice caps, and other glaciers, including the rapid melting of Asia’s glaciers upon which millions of people rely for water;
– ocean acidification – leading to the death of coral reefs (including the Great Barrier Reef), upon which millions of people rely for food;
– a sea level rise of just 8 centimeters in the last 25 years.
A further 15-25cm of sea level rise is expected by 2050. If unchecked, this would put large parts of many of the world’s most populous cities and countries under water, including: London, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Georgetown, Guyana, Basra in Iraq, Kolkata, India, Amsterdam, Osaka, Japan, Shanghai, Bangkok, New Orleans, New York, Ho Chi Minh, Venice, Savannah, USA; large parts of mainland China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Caribbean. It would also result in the disappearance of whole island nations: the Atolls, the Maldives, Tuvalu, Fiji, and the Marshall Islands.
Indeed, some nations have already lost islands and begun relocating communities. Five of the Solomon Islands have already disappeared due to the combined effects of sea level rise and extreme winds. Across the South Pacific, small island countries are experiencing the loss of fisheries that drive local economies and ensure food security. Some countries could literally disappear from maps. https://time.com/5478446/climate-change-vulnerable-countries/
As for your rather imperious suggestion that ‘the urgency that poorer countries improve their economic output is far greater than climate change’ again, what is _your_ evidence?
7/10 of the countries most affected by climate change are in sub-Saharan Africa. By 2050 it’s estimated that there will be 200 million climate refugees… https://time.com/5687470/cities-countries-most-affected-by-climate-change/
The Horn of Africa recently saw almost three years of some of tge worst drought conditions in history, according to the Famine and Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). Ethiopia and Somalia have had five failed rainy seasons since late 2020, which have displaced 1.4 million Somalis and killed 3.8 million livestock.
Politicians and heads of state have been meeting to discuss the greenhouse gas effect and the dangers of global warming since the 1970s. Since then, CO2 emissions have increased by approx 90%.
At the Copenhagen Climate Summit of 2009, a non-binding target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees was agreed upon, despite it also being agreed that 2 degrees (as opposed to 1.5) was a ‘death sentence’ for low-lying islands and Sub-Saharan Africa. At the much-celebrated COP21 in Paris 8 years ago, after much lobbying by African and Pacific Island delegates, the Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, got everyone to agree on (again a non-binding) limit of 1.5 degrees’ warming. Do you think the African and Pacific Island delegates know less about their countries’ needs than you?
Even if the Paris accord signatories kept to their agreements, a big if, it will lead to a 3°C rise in temperatures in the next couple of decades. Failure to implement even those would leave our planet on track for a 4 to 5°C rise within our children’s lifetime, at which point some of the world’s most densely populated areas will become uninhabitable.
COP26 in Glasgow was described by some as the ‘best last chance for humanity’. Yet of all the countries who had representation at the summit, the fossil fuel industry had the largest delegation, according to Global Witness, Corporate Accountability and others.
Overall, they identified 503 people employed by or associated with fossil fuel interests at the summit. They also found that:
– The fossil fuel lobby is larger than the combined total of the eight delegations from the countries worst affected by climate change in the past 20 years: including Madagascar, Nigeria, Kenya, Haiti, Yemen, the Philippines and Kitribati.
So don’t tell me about agendas and control.
Climate change is a demonstrably provable, scientifically measurable problem of immense complexity. There is a serious lack of consensus on how to fix it but not on whether it’s even happening in the first place…
