OK, so now we have a book by a guy who begged the SEC to listen to his charges about Bernie Maddoff. I think there is another book along the same lines with Goldman-Sachs. But that is the past, and the future lies ahead.
What current warnings of doom are very credible but are being ignored?
Those pointing out the child abuse scandal in the RCC is even huger in Latin America and Africa.
Those (like me) who claim there are even more cases of abuse waiting outside the RCC.
Claims that the next big pension scandal will be in the US public sector.
I am pretty sure that they will end up being more right than wrong. The human component of GW will either end up being smaller than thought, or any changes we can make to alleviate GW will be too small to make up for the economic impact.
But we won’t all drown. The people who will bear the brunt of the impact will be far outside our Monkeysphere. And anything more than the mildest economic impact will be “too much.”
The exaggeration of climate change impacts is pretty abhorrent. I work on a lot of materials in the area and repeatedly have to fight with authors and collaborators about taking out grossly misleading and over-the-top claims. Cite? Cite?FUCKING CITE?!
Not that there isn’t plenty of nasty shit on its way, but overstating for effect is a nut-kick to credibility.
I wonder where the balance is between the deniers, the Casandras, and those who believe the Casandras but don’t give enough of a shit to do anything about it. I dare say they’re three distinct groups.
Kind of a dumb place to build, especially since you think the sea levels will rise that high.
ETA: and if you can’t drag yoursel dto higher ground over the next 50 years so that you don’t drown, then you have other problems that are more serious to worry about.
Yep, and the funny thing was that that the deniers made headlines in their blogs like “Scientists were wrong, no ocean rise” when one latest study was found to be wrong… because they understated the effects, it seems ocean rise is going to be worse than the currently expected 1/2 meter rise. It is beginning to be more probable that a rise of more than one meter will be seen by the end of the century if nothing is done.
Once again, it depends on what they are complaining, if it is the science the skeptics are demonstratively wrong. If it is about the solutions, there we can see plenty of valid doubts.
I in no way mean or meant to minimize what you’re saying and the impact you face. However, imagine for a moment the totality of resources–personal, civil, social–you will have at your disposal, and compare that to what you would have were you living as a rural farmer on a Bangladesh flood plain.
In terms of moving public opinion and marshaling resources, I wonder which is more detrimental–understating and making conservative predictions or overgeneralizing and making unsubstantiated claims.
My clients and the people who rely on my work are generally moving hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of dollars around (not based solely on my word–don’t think I’m trying for self-aggrandizement). Putting statements in front of them that claim that global warming is already leading to the deaths of millions of people and already causing rampant destruction is irresponsible. If credibility is shot, those funds go elsewhere (which in some ways is bizarrely not so bad, since development funding is needed in all sorts of areas). But if mitigation and adaptation efforts are insufficient before the impacts do start causing unfortunate levels of harm, the lack of preparation will exact an inhuman toll.
James Howard Kunstler is quite a Cassandra, mainly with regard to industrial civilization being doomed by “Peak Oil” (but also WRT the unsustainability of an American economy that doesn’t actually make things for use) – see his Forecast for 2010, and his book, The Long Emergency – but few on this board accept his prophecies. We’ll see. I sure hope he’s wrong.
Brooksley Born - Wikipedia Brooksley Born warned the people of the derivatives trading dangers and got hooted out of the hearings by Greenspan, Summers and other Libertarians who told her and everybody else markets were self correcting and good.
Elizabeth Warren is screaming loud and hard about financial consumer protection and oversight of the Financial Industry.
That statement indicates a high degree of ignorance about the impact of rising sea levels. A dramatic rise in sea levels (>2 meters) would do more than force Cap Codders to give up their vacation homes; it would require completely relocating all shipping port facilities, would devastate a number of major metropolitan centers, would severely impact aquaculture and off-shore fisheries, and a variety of other substantial effects that would be very costly and disruptive. There may be positive benefits to climate change as well (allowing areas that are currently non-arable to naturally support crops) but there’s no question that significant climate change would have a massive financial cost.
Setting aside climate change, though, one of the major issues facing many agrarian and Third World countries today is potable and irrigatable water. The Green Revolution was predicated on being able to reroute natural water sources for irrigation without consideration for the limitations of those sources (in the case of fossil water aquifers and irreversible subsidence of artesian aquifers) and the contamination and downstream effects of above-ground water sources. Unlike energy production, there is no clear path to successfully mitigating these issues; people still have to eat, cotton has to be grown, and in general, modern industrial society is highly dependent upon fresh water sources that are neither ultimately sustainable or are renewable in human timeframes. There are a number of people who have written and attempted to bring public awareness to this issue, but it remains largely unrevealed by politicians and news agencies, and thus, not occupying a place in the public consciousness.
How far from the shore are you? 3 feet wouldn’t even survive normal storm surge.
I have some friends who live on a barrier island, who have already had their house totaled once during the hurricanes in 2004. I’d compare them to birds building their nest in a drain spout, but birds don’t get federally subsidized flood insurance. Not to mention they have to commute an hour each way for the privilege of living at the beach.