When you think about the climate crisis, which of these two images stands out as the face of climate change?
Chances are, the polar bear cub is more closely associated with global warming in your mind than the two Sudanese children on the right. Global warming may threaten one quarter to one half of all species on the planet with extinction if left unchecked, and the unprecedented human-caused loss of so many of our cousins on this small blue globe certainly conjures up images of one of the most charismatic species threatened by our warming planet: the polar bear.
But what about the human face of climate change?
Global warming certainly poses an unprecedented environmental and ecological catastrophe and preserving the habitats and species threatened by the climate crisis may be motivation enough to tackle the challenge. But the climate crisis doesn’t just threaten cute and cuddly animals and their less charismatic cousins. I would argue that the real face of climate change is, or should be, a human face.
The second of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s reports released this year detailed the human impacts and vulnerabilities of climate change and it painted a bleak picture of starvation, thirst and extreme weather impacts (see pdf).
Today, I join over eleven hundred others in the Climate Emergency Fast to raise awareness of these human impacts of climate change. Today, as Congress returns from recess and Americans return to work after a long Labor Day weekend, hundreds of us will make a small sacrifice to send a message: It’s time for our leaders, at all levels of government, to take action to solve the climate crisis!
Today, we will feel hunger and remember that as global warming intensifies, it will bring with it much more extensive hunger worldwide, especially in poorer countries, as drought, intense storms, glacial melting and sea level rise take their toll. Many are begin fasts today that will last much longer than one day.
Join me today in taking a closer look at the human face of climate change.
Hunger, Thirst, Floods and Disease: the Human Impacts of Climate Change
“As the world gets hotter by degrees, millions of poor people will suffer from hunger, thirst, floods and disease unless drastic action is taken.“
That was the Associated Press’s summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) second working group report, entitled Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (pdf). The report, released in April by the IPCC, a UN network of thousands of climate scientists, details the impacts of climate change, particularly those affecting human populations. The report is a true consensus document assembled by literally thousands of scientists and unanimously approved by the 120-plus governments that participate, including representatives of the Bush Administration.
Despite the high level of consensus required of the document, and a deadline-busting contentious final editing session described by the AP article, the IPCC report was nonetheless the strongest authoritative warning that all the world’s nations must take concrete actions to address the climate crisis or hundreds of millions of human lives will be impacted, impoverished or lost.
The picture the report paints is bleak, yet preventable, and we should use it to help keep in mind the human face of climate change.
Here’s what the report warns is in store if we do not rise to the climate challenge:
When coupled with growing populations and increasing standards of living, demand for clean, fresh water will clearly increase, putting further stress on water supplies reduced by climate change.
Crop yields may increase by up to 20% in East and Southeast Asia while falling up to 30% in Central and South Asia by mid-century, the IPCC reports. “Taken together,” the report says, “and considering the influence of rapid population growth and urbanization, the risk of hunger is projected to remain very high in several developing countries” in Asia.
Productivity from agriculture is projected to decline over much of Australia’s southern and eastern regions, home to the large bulk of the country’s population and it’s major breadbasket. This summer, Australians got a sneak preview of what’s to come, as their Prime Minister told them to pray for rain as prolonged drought forced Australians to consider cutting off water for irrigation in order to supply drinking water for urban areas. This year, just enough rain fell in June and July to forestall this dire outcome, but will Australian’s be so lucky in years to come?
-increased malnutrition;
-increased death, disease and injury from heat waves, floods, storms, fires, droughts and other extreme weather events;
-increases in diarrhoeal disease;
-increased heart and respiratory diseases due to high concentrations of ground-level ozone and smog due to rising temperatures;
-several infectious diseases, including malaria, will be wider spread due to increased habitable areas of important vectors like mosquitoes.
The report does note that climate change will likely bring fewer deaths from cold exposure, but these benefits will be “outweighed by the negative health effects of rising temperatures worldwide, especially in developing countries.”
So we’ve got thirst, famine, disease, floods, droughts, and storms – all some pretty Biblical stuff with millions of human lives caught in the cross hairs.
I don’t write all of this to depress us – the good news is that much of this is still avoidable, including the worst affects of climate change, if we act now.
I write this to remind us that the face of climate change is a very human face indeed. Literally billions of humans will be negatively affected by the climate crisis, with those in poorer, developing countries feeling the brunt of the warming world’s effects.
So next time you think about climate change, don’t just think about the loss of countless species, some even as cute and cuddly as penguins and polar bears. Their loss is a tragedy, one that climate change activist and economist Eban Goodstein eloquently argues will impoverish our economy, our lives and our very spirit. Massive species extinction presents a clear moral imperative and a primary motivation for tackling the climate change.
But remember that their is also another, very human face to the climate crisis. If left unchecked, climate change will takes its toll on billions of our fellow humans, devastating the lives of many millions.
I fast today to remember this human face of the climate crisis and to urge our leaders to take this crisis as seriously as I do, to take action now, and to rise to the challenge and seize the tremendous opportunity the climate crisis presents.
The dark future described in the IPCC report hangs over us, but another future is possible, a brighter future where the climate crisis is the catalyst for a sustainable, just energy future. It is up to each one of us to decide which future we want to live in, and make that future a reality.
hey jesse,
thanks for the post. For those of us working in highly vulnerable areas, it is encouraging to hear some attention be placed on the issues that, vis-a-vis the mediocre response of governments, are becoming inevitable. Today I visited a community in the what used to be called the coral coast of Fiji to find out what they are doing for a living now the reefs are dead and they can no longer fish there. While there are many reasons for the dead of the reefs, one of them is extreme weather events often hitting the area. MOst of the males in teh communities are now moving to the city where they find odd jobs and live in slums. Once you start linking the dots you realize that something is happening in front of us, but we keep getting caught up in the politics and pointless discussions.
thanks for your efforts.
greetings from the south pacific
It’s great for us to feel what it feels like when you don’t eat for some prolonged time. This is exactly what it will be like for millions if not billions if we don’t prevent the climate from reaching tipping points — and it looks like these tipping points are probably very near (something has to be done quickly).
i want to know how the climate chnage effect people in south asia? the heat waves, monsoon, and so on. how people are facing with it?