Why are we not discussing trying to stop these disasters?
We live in a dangerous world. Every year, natural disasters take a multitude of lives. And yet, we talk of changing the climate, but we never talk about spending trillions of dollars to stop these disasters that happen all the time.
On average, there are 90 deaths from lightning related accidents. Currently, no deaths can be attributed to global warming. Should we start spending trillions of dollars in an effort to eliminate all lightning strikes, or should we spend a fraction on educating people about lightning strikes?
A single tsunami from Dec 2004 caused an estimated 225,000 deaths in Sumatra alone. Currently, no deaths can be attributed to global warming. Should we start spending trillions of dollars in an attempt to control tsunamis, or should we focus our energy on detection and avoidance?
In 1985, a volcano released a mud flow which killed 25,000 people in Ruiz, Colombia. Should we spend our children's life savings trying to cap all volcanoes, or should we change our behavior to minimize the danger?
In 1976, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake in China killed 255,000 people. In 2005, a 7.6 earthquake killed 80,361 people in Pakistan. Should we spend trillions trying to eliminate the earthquakes, or should we spend a miniscule amount adapting to the dangerous planet we call Earth?
Why don't we spend the $75 billion spent trying to prove global warming (as yet an utter failure) on trying to stop these other disasters (yes, I know, it would be stupid. Now do you get my point?)
2009-08-26T20:25:40Z
Paul, I am confused. There is evidence that earthquakes DO cause deaths. Yet, we do not call for trillions of dollars to be spent trying to stop them. Compare this to AGW, which has yet to cause a single death, yet our politicians want to tax us and spend trillions of OUR dollars.
andy2009-08-27T04:16:28Z
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Because most people know that every time we try to control nature we fail. I mean look at Hurricane Katrina, we had enough advance notice given to people along the coast to evacuate but New Orleans and Louisiana failed to follow the advice and waited until after New Orleans was underwater to call it a disaster area and ask for Federal aid.
Also, more of the recent research is pointing that gasp the Earth and natural forces have stronger effects on global temperatures. I even had Dana explain how the little ice age was created and prolonged but when the major volcanoes stopped erupting and the solar activity increased we started to warm up again.
For the people who are saying that man's emissions are driving global warming, then how come most researchers who don't have government grants or people who retire from these organizations say that there is more evidence that it is natural. Even the IPCC says that climate change is only likely to be caused by human emissions. This is a movement away from man is causing it that they held only 10 years ago.
There are many natural disasters: That you suggest that these are not being discussed is nonsense, there is quite a lot of safety information on how to avoid/minimize the chance of being hit by lightning.
"A single tsunami from Dec 2004" Lead to the Tsunami Warning System which now warns of such events.
Can we stop earthquakes or volcano's, now you are just being silly Can we reduce our output of Co2, Yes
And as for $75 billion spent on global warming, large amounts are spent on monitoring and researching earthquake activity around the world and large amounts are also spent on designing and building homes and office blocks that can survive quite powerful earthquakes, because most people killed in earthquakes are killed by building collapse. Just as scientists are trying to do something about GW there are also thousands of scientists researching earthquakes and volcano's (and have been for many decades) but you seem to have missed this in your efforts to run down science.
We do. There as been a lot of research into predicting earthquakes and storrms. We have established building codes to make sure buildings can withstand the natural events. We have tsunami warmings. We have build levees. We spend Billions to defend against disasters and to clean up after them. We aslo enacted regualations to stop acid rain and prevent more Chernobles or Three Mile Islands. We do all that. We don't know how to stop earthquakes, and so far as we know they are natural. There is not something we can do to stop earthquakes.
And don't be so sure that nobody has died from AGW. 37,000 people died from the Euopean heat wave in 2003, plus droughts cut food production.
There is nothing we can really do to STOP these disasters, they are all natural and caused by mother nature. However, we can try our best to prevent deaths that these disasters cause. It is true that the disasters have become much more common and frequent in the past couple of years, and that could be a sign of global warming. Even though global warming is not proven yet, it is still a very reasonable hypothesis and the nature of humankind tends to prove things before they can do anything about. I don't think we can really do much TOGETHER, but we can still make a difference if each and every one of us take the time to protect the environment (if not "protect it", at least to not harm it)
I'd prefer to apply game theory to each problem in turn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
Global warming isn't lightning strikes. Extensive research has been undertaken into climate, and estimates of the cost of inaction, adaption and mitigation have all been made. It appears that mitigation is the cheapest and safest in the long term. Not to mention the ethical implications of knowingly damaging our children's wellbeing and the rights of non-human life.
I'd rather pick the cheapest, safest and most ethical solution in each case, rather than have some ideological tendency towards a policy.
Finally, there is research linking global warming with deaths. The 2003 European heat wave was linked to global warming (~30-35kdeaths) & the WHO estimates it's led to an increased death rate of about 150,000+/year so far. http://www.wpro.who.int/media_centre/press_releases/pr20080704.htm
Of course, you can't directly point to an individual death and say 'THAT'S GLOBAL WARMING'. If you argue that statistical methods aren't acceptable, then I expect you also believe that air pollution, obesity and smoking can't kill anyone.