The people most affected by climate change are poor. they cannot afford to rebuild homes destroyed by fires, floods, rising oceans etc. They can't afford to buy large amounts of drinking water or food. They can't afford to move elsewhere and start over. They can't afford higher education to work their way out of poverty.
while large changes in the climate will affect everyone eventually, those who can afford to keep living well will do so and probably keep telling the rest of us that climate change is a load of shit. Perhaps for them it is.
the question on everyone's mind should be, how far from POOR am I?
The recent economic event in the US has shocked a very large portion of what we refer to as middle class into facing the reality that their wealth and stability is an illusion built by the magic of big money. That illusion can and will crumble faster than a stale cookie once there isn't enough money left in the middle class to make it an attractive target. Without credit, decent wages and land value, the middle class as we know it will become poor.
rising petroleum prices, food prices, water prices, energy prices will eventually bleed so much money out of the middle class that their credit will collapse. Increasing competition for the good paying jobs currently held by the middle class will mean that even those with the right education might not get a job no matter how hard they look. what is the value of the land they live on if that land has no natural source of water and there is no one able to afford buying the houses? I think you can see where I'm going with this.
When the people who are, at the moment, living reasonable, safe, productive lives lose their ability to pay mortgage/ rent, car payments, taxes etc and cannot find a way to 'work their way out of' this problem they will become poor.
now the effects of climate change will become real for them. try to grow food in poor soil without rain. try to survive desert heat or wet cold winters without shelter or if you have shelter without a furnace or air conditioner. When the conditions make you sick, how are you going to buy medicine?
yes, there are government programs in place that offer help for all these things but how long will those programs last once the tax base collapses? There is already a lot of pressure to cut most of these programs drastically, to invest tax money into more worthwhile endeavors. The only people who see those endeavors as worthwhile at the moment are those who need them. By the time you need them, they will probably be long gone.
for those who remain able to pay for all they need, climate change will never be a real issue.
I see this happening in fits and starts over a long period of time. A death of a thousand cuts/frog in a pot kind of thing and I doubt much attention will be paid to the growing homeless poor.
how far are you from poor? Really think about it. I know I'll get a lot of knee jerk reactions and rants but I'm really interested in people who really consider the implications of the question.
thanks,
Dawn

Climate Change is ongoing as long as Earth has been in existence. There have been 4 to 5 Ice Ages (Huronian Chryo' debatable).

Each, due to the Historic rapidity at which they arrive, has drastically altered life as it was during the warmer periods proceeding them. Our present 'The Holocene' is quite pleasant.... for the time being.

An Interglacial, such as our present, is fleeting and rare in earth's history (four). Geologists understand them far better than the best 'climatologist'. For mere humans to try and 'Control' their duration, is pure folly of the naive human psyche.

The actual reasoning for 'Control' is POWER oriented, and of course to gather Wealth, by individuals not inclined to actually work for it.

Enron's Ken Lay, advised Al Gore (Inconvenient Truth 'visual horror prediction') on the perfect way to achieve profit. Taxation (Carbon Tax Credit), profit by the transfer of that taxation through a 'Handling Fee' Company (GIM for just one, Kleiner-Perkins, Blood and Gore CCX..). Deposit the Profits in Non-Profit, 'Non-Taxable' shadow companies.

These non-taxable organizations, finance the lifestyle of privilege, and pay all expense while getting the manipulators wealthier. Sadly at the expense of every other person attempting to actually 'Earn' a living.

As Dawn mentioned, the only people doing well under That system, are The politically connected. As history has also proven, choose your 'Tribal' leaders wisely. Your Life as those of others, depends on it.

I find the 'issue' of climate change (don't get me started on the term global warming) to be foolish as well. As if we could control the climate...the hubris.

as you said, the climate is changing. It always has been and always will be. If humans never put one micro-gram of carbon into the air, it would still change. If we HAVE effected the climate in a negative way then...oops. We can't do anything about it but live with the change.

I worry about living with the change mostly because of pollution, a real issue.

pollution isn't a media darling because fixing it, reducing it, eliminating it will cost money. global warming is making a lot of people a lot of money.

as for choosing wise leaders, well, modern leaders, whether wise and good or stupid and arrogant or a mix of the two are leading systems controlled by profit. The only real change that ever happens is who gets to profit the most. Some factions favor religion, banking, the military etc, and some favor bureaucracy, heartstring causes, emotional issues. Its all the same animal.

A paradigm shift is needed.

don't hold your breath.

thanks
Dawn

One Interesting note, We read about desertification as a deadly threat to humanity. It may come as a shock to find out (satellite storm tracking) the BODELE' basin of the Sahara Desert in North Africa, supplies nearly ALL of the necessary minerals and nutrients for the vast AMAZON Basin. Without those nutrients, the Earth's Oxygen and CO2 balance would go into severe imbalance. Intriguing Design?

Evil Deserts, are you sure? The Earth spends the greatest majority of it's existence, 'Without' Polar Ice Caps. Few people understand that fact. The Driest Continent on Earth is Antarctica.

AGW theorists fail to ever note that. As Glaciers (eg: Ross on Antarctica) build up mass Up-slope, they move and slide down-slope (logical). As they extend out over the shoreline, they eventually break away. That is the way a healthy, increasing Glacier functions (Glaciology 101)

When Glaciers become Static, this fails to occur. Ever so brilliant Media goes into Hysterics whenever a large piece, quote: "The Size of Rhode Island" breaks loose, as unequivocal proof that the Earth is warming ('Chicken Little'). Quite the Opposite is true.

Now I understand you may have a problem with English, not being your primary language, incidently, your comments about what happened to the species that used to inhabit our planet, from fossil records. Are you aware a full study of seabottom core samples reveals the earths cycles to repeat until the sedimentation is no longer readable----It goes something like this, the earth survives in ice ages which last for hundreds of millions of years, where the last living survivors are the coldblooded creatures in the oceans, and few others, if any, then the earth heats up again and warmbloodied mammals and plantlife reappear, then its back to the ice ages. This cycle has reoccurred perhaps half a dozen times until we can no longer read the results of below oceanic strata. The warm periods last for only 10's of millions of years. There may be some credibility, the inuit, or "people" according to native american legend are the only ice age survivors of man. They have adapted to live in homes of ice and live on the blubber of sea creatures. All the other theoretical axioms are awash in supersticion and unfounded suppositions. now thats time travel, and the new hubble lens has revealed astronomical bodies more than 13 billion light years old, if you can believe the theoretical math.

No need for insults and I apologize for having offended you.

I am not aware of the results or implications of sediment studies. I am not a scientist. I'm not even very smart. I recently learned something very valuable and true and it has changed my brain function.

I do not doubt what you say here but, beyond making the point that I don't know what I'm talking about, (I bow to that one)what are you saying and could you possibly break up those paragraphs a bit so my eyes don't catch fire while I'm trying to read them?

thanks
Dawn

An African desert supplies things to an AMAZON jungle...are you sure?

Okay...brain working, wait one...both things are below the equator so I'm assuming winds...they're opposite down there right? They move east->west? So...okay...I get that.

deserts are not evil but, IMH experience dry ground gets cold quicker and stays cold longer than moist ground. Campers know this. (wink nudge)

is it possible that the crap we've been pumping into the air has caused drier weather (not climate, weather)which might make a cold spike like Little Ice far worse than it was(historically) or might have been?...if the coin toss comes up...cold...of course

coin toss comes up hot...we have drought, possible dust bowls. China already has that problem. There is potential in the US but we irrigate massively. Did I ask that Aussie guy about dust? I should..

I know its off topic, but a sincere question...about WEATHER, not climate.

Dawn

Dawn, check out the name Bodele Basin. (even WIKI sort of gets Some things right) You should find the SAT pics there. I use WXI (weather Internet) for NOAA, GISS and other pics and data. Storm trackers are good and I also use OregonCoast.com to get access from time to time. (Lots of web cams) their WX (weather) links intertwine. Have not checked lately if links are all active. They come and go depending on....issues :<(

Ref; China dust/pollution. High altitude Wind currents West->East, Dusts the arctic ice, reflects less, heats and melts it seasonally.

Side effect... (everything has a side effect) the Bering Sea, Kodiak Fishing, Crabbing has been at record highs for several years now (note the size of King Crab at Costco and Sams:>).

Reason is the 'NUTRIENTS' (China import;>) left swirling in the sea currents. Deadliest Catch (TV) verifies. I also talk to fishermen that work the Kodiak Island chain. They are docked in Oregon for maintenance and home port (Weather is much nicer:>) They are still earning a living and can afford crews, even with severe restrictions.. See something good comes from Everything. All is not bad (happy face)

Excellent. I adore king crab...with BUTTER. I don't 'do' stuff pretending to be other stuff when it's really made of corn...but that's a different topic...sort of

:::shaking head and sighing as considers inter-connectivity of everything:::

I do not doubt that every negative thing imaginable has a positive face as well. China dust storms must be horrendous for the Chinese but really good for me because king crab will get bigger and cheaper (we can only hope...I don't know what kind of price fixing the gov. does in that industry)

the drier conditions I was mentioning here and posted about somewhere else on this site are part of a weather theory related to greenhouse gases.

drier = land that gets cold very quickly and stays cold much easier -->IF/WHEN we hit a cold turn, we might have made it worse with the greenhouse effect if this is what is causing the dry conditions. This potential combined with diminishing petroleum is something far more consequential to humans than anything they fear happening because of warming.

We have the beginnings of weather manipulation technology already. With a bit more concerted effort, we might be able to mitigate the effects of dry/cold combo if it happens. It's worth looking into.

I would like people to get interested in this because I think the potential cold situation is far more dangerous than the potential heat situation. I'm not trying to fear monger.

Dawn

From my late evening 'dock' walks in the harbors, and chats with the fishing boat owners, The price is more controlled by the world and government restrictions being imposed. Any 'fixing' of the price, is due to 'Limiting' the catch total (closely monitored).

While camping at the Marinas along the Oregon Coast, we often stay at the small ones (Brighton) as well. Some of them rent 'Crab Rings', traps or 'Butterfly rings'. Kind of fun to cast or throw from shore (Public fishing piers are fun) and you can catch a nice meal while enjoying the local wisdom:>)

For the last two years (at the least), The Dungeness Crab, though a little more time consuming to pick apart (wine makes anything fun), have been large and plentiful. The nutrient rich, Northern Pacific food chain is prolific like never before in current times. The last Salmon run up the Chetco, Brookings Oregon, was quite amazing to watch, local Seals loved it (I was not licensed). I got so excited, I even thought of buying a boat:>)

Many really Good things are coming from sources and happenings deemed Bad, by Media driven articles. Either they "know not of what they speak", or are following like sheep, along a pattern of 'Crisis' driven, herd planning. I personally, would rather assume their 'ignorance'. Does not sound so Evil that way :>)

It's a lucky thing that some of what 'they' think are sheep are actually wild goats and don't take to being driven

wait...did I just call my self a goat?

Dawn