When it comes to the prospect of starvation, all other issues will become secondary. Widespread crop failure may be the first major impact of global warming to affect developed countries as well as poorer countries; but by that stage it will be too late for any kind of geoengineering, and our minds will be on our stomachs!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/23/china-food-shortage In his book, "Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed", Jared Diamond remarks that, when a society collapses, all will starve - the rich will just take longer! I fear that, while rich countries only see poor countries suffering from global warming, they are not going to take it seriously. So we can expect no effective action from Copenhagen, unless people face up to the real issue of how to avoid catastrophic tipping points in the Earth system. Any hope? Cheers, John P.S. I've just heard that the forecast of 1.5-2 degrees warming in the UK this century is based on an assumption of a weakening thermohaline circulation. The interior of Europe will get 3-4 degrees! So in the UK "we're all right jack". But we ignore that we rely on getting much of our food from other parts of the world! And the modelling ignores the looming tipping points (esp. in Arctic and Amazon) to boot. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
