Is Climate Change The World's Biggest Problem?
Frequent commenter and 2GreenEnergy supporter Tim Kingston sent me this for comment: an article that asserts that climate change isn’t one of our civilization’s most important problems, and that global poverty is, in fact, at the top.
Sorry to be so blunt, but I find this to be pure silliness, put forth in an apparent attempt to promote the guy’s book – which I’m going to skip. In the first place, the concept of establishing the magnitude of problems of this order, mounting and changing as they are over the course of many decades, is asinine.
But that’s not the biggest issue. What we can rationally expert from climate change over the next hundred years is an unknowable level of rising sea levels (resulting in perhaps hundreds of millions of “climate refugees”), increases in disease, shortages of potable water and arable farm land, the decline of ocean ecosystems due to acidification, and a staggering loss of biodiversity. In other words, climate change will increase global poverty, while it brings along countless other dimensions to the scope and depth of human misery.
Moreover, climate change and global poverty are not two distinct things. As described above, the former will most definitely exacerbate the latter. But poverty also accelerates climate change, as billions of the poorest of the poor chop down what remains of our forests to gather fuel for light, heat, and cooking.
Ranking the world’s problems as if they were poker hands may sound like an attractive idea (e.g., a flush beats a straight), but it’s hardly good science.
If your house is on fire with you in it, and your children are being held at gunpoint by violent kidnappers, what is your biggest problem?
Exactly.
Craig,
If this discussion is to be had, it should be in the context in what issues compound the other and how.
In all cases, the lowest-hanging fruit should be grasped quickly, but in many cases the solution to one problem actually helps reduce the problems of another issue.
I do think there is merit in ranking, because there are always limited resources to contend with. If you don’t have some means of knowing some kind of “value” for combating a problem, how do you make resource allocation judgements? The answer: you don’t… you throw some very limited money around randomly and accomplish little, and don’t work towards addressing other issues because they overwhelm you.
Consider the fight against 3rd-world starvation. The most effective tactic that was ever used to raise money for sending food to the poor was the campaign that said: “For $0.50/day you can save the life of a starving child…” Of course, the fact that reducing mortality only lead to increased overpopulation and decreased the chance that the starvation problem could be brought under control is a different argument… the point was that a person who was humane enough to be troubled by world hunger was told “this much of the problem can be countered by this much sacrifice…” The numbers made it feel as though there were an impact, and so the money poured in.
Consider what would happen if we had: You could assure society would be prepared for the damage you are causing through your own GHG emissions by putting forward $20/ton for this fund”… Or “Just $30 from every person in the region will result in the complete removal and cleanup of all radioactive material from your local nuclear plant”… Or “you can educate and empower 10 girls in Afghanistan for a year by contributing $30 to this fund.
Regardless of how much each of us were concerned with various problems, by putting easy-to-find price tags on EACH of them, and making certain they are widely known and easily found… people can begin to feel as though they can eat the elephant, and will start taking their first bite based on THEIR personal rankings… But by saying “it’s insane to say one problem is more immediate than the other”, you just leave the impression that everything must be solved in order for us to bother with anything… and you’re left with most people just giving up before they even try to get started.
For what it’s worth, I certainly disagree with the idea that poverty being the most important problem… Overpopulation – or specifically the too-high fertility of the poor and uneducated – is the biggest problem, and the largest contributing factor to at least 20 of our other big problems. It’s also the cheapest to target – so it’s the lowest hanging fruit for most of the big problems out there.
Thanks. Good points here. Re: your last paragraph, this is why I’m all over bringing distributed generation to the rural parts of the developing world. It contributes to better education (and thus smaller families) as well as so many other good things, like reducing deforestation.