The Planetary Emergency

tokala said:
I see ...

I was positively surprised when your comment indicated you did actually had a look at that paper. Must have been a slip-up, though.
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I had to check that footnote to distinguish the two graphs. You think people would clearly label graphs or describe them when they post them, but no.
 
This is something you folks who are still undecided might want to look it.

It's a report that concludes that (edit: pollution linked to) climate change is already taking a toll; costing about 5 million deaths and $1 trillion annually.

Lives and Money: ‘The Cold Calculus of a Hot Planet’
A landmark report published this week by the Climate Vulnerable Forum links neglect of global warming to 5 million deaths and a loss of more than $1 trillion annually.

The Climate Vulnerability Monitor 2012 is the second edition of an assessment of the current and future human and economic costs of the climate crisis put out by a global society of countries that are most susceptible to its ravages. The report draws on the latest scientific research to assess 34 aspects of global warming and the carbon economy within the subjects of environmental disaster, habitat destruction, health impacts and stress placed upon industries. Before it was published, the study was reviewed by more than “50 leading scientists, economists and policy experts, including former heads of government.”

Among other findings, the assessment reports that 400,000 climate-related deaths occur each year due to hunger and diseases made worse by climate change, while 4.5 million people die mainly as a result of air pollution. Economically as well as health-wise, the least developed nations suffer the most. Eleven percent of their GDP will be lost by 2030. China can expect to lose more than $1.2 trillion in that time, while the U.S. economy will contract by more than 2 percent.

And here’s the stupidest part: According to the report, the cost of mitigating climate change—if such a thing is possible—would be nothing compared to those losses. Emissions could be brought down to tolerable levels for half a percent of global GDP over the next decade, a minimum of $150 billion per year for all vulnerable, developing countries.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/a_guide_to_the_cold_calculus_of_a_hot_planet_20120927/

link to the paper in pdf format
http://daraint.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CVM2-Low.pdf
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5 - 4.5, which brings the over-estimate down to a half million. I'm pretty sure the last 4 years can take a significant chunk out of that $1 trillion.

Attribution errors are fun.
 
Murky said:
This is something you folks who are still undecided might want to look it.

It's a report that concludes that climate change is already taking a toll; costing about 5 million deaths and $1 trillion annually.
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You've picked a really bad piece, unless you're actually trying to convince the undecided to be distrustful of these kind of reports.

Both you and the article present it as "5 million deaths from global warming", which glosses over the fact that this figure actually includes 4.5 million from air pollution and smog. No one's arguing that this kind of air pollution isn't a problem in some countries (particularly China). It is however plain dishonest to include it in order to inflate the climate change stats.

Now 400,000 deaths is still a lot. The financial cost still makes a suitably alarming number. However after that earlier piece of dishonesty, I'd be a fool to take any number in this piece seriously. These are stats which would be hard to compile anyway (could they give some specific examples of people who've died from climate change?) Given they've already shown willingness to twist the figures, I have to regard everything in this piece as a complete fabrication until proven otherwise. And so must you if you're going to claim you're even remotely scientific about this.
 
MrCynical said:
You've picked a really bad piece, unless you're actually trying to convince the undecided to be distrustful of these kind of reports.

Both you and the article present it as "5 million deaths from global warming", which glosses over the fact that this figure actually includes 4.5 million from air pollution and smog. No one's arguing that this kind of air pollution isn't a problem in some countries (particularly China). It is however plain dishonest to include it in order to inflate the climate change stats.

Now 400,000 deaths is still a lot. The financial cost still makes a suitably alarming number. However after that earlier piece of dishonesty, I'd be a fool to take any number in this piece seriously. These are stats which would be hard to compile anyway (could they give some specific examples of people who've died from climate change?) Given they've already shown willingness to twist the figures, I have to regard everything in this piece as a complete fabrication until proven otherwise. And so must you if you're going to claim you're even remotely scientific about this.
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Well, just replace the 'global warming' by 'overuse of fossil fuel combustion' and the article becomes correct (air pollution is, as far as I know, mainly caused by burning things), although that does indeed not assure the numbers are correct.
 
There was a recent article in the respected scientific press regarding air pollution and global warming: both soot and methane contribute to AGW, but they both locally contribute to human disease. This makes these specific problems much like leaded gasoline, in that the efforts to curb the pollution will have direct benefits.

Of course, this will not stop global warming, and it certainly won't slow oceanic acidification. However, it will slow the warming.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ime-to-combat-climate-change-cut-soot-methane

by analyzing some 400 potential soot- and methane-emission control measures, the international team of researchers found that just 14 deliver "nearly 90 percent" of the potential benefits. Bonus: the 14 steps also restrain global warming by roughly 0.5 degree Celsius by 2050, according to computer modeling.
...
cutting those 14 together could avoid between 700,000 and 4.7 million premature deaths (largely from smoky, unhealthy air) and increase crop yields by between 30 million and 135 million metric tons (due to concomitant reductions in ground-level ozone, otherwise known as smog, which forms from fugitive methane and blights crops in Brazil, China, India, the U.S. and elsewhere). In addition, the economic analysis suggests that many of these measures provide more value in benefits than they cost to implement.
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strijder20 said:
Well, just replace the 'global warming' by 'overuse of fossil fuel combustion' and the article becomes correct (air pollution is, as far as I know, mainly caused by burning things), although that does indeed not assure the numbers are correct.
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Smog inhalation is an issue, but it's not caused by a "global warming." It happens to tangentially be related to upper atmosphere carbon via a common cause. A gunshot also emits gases. It's not the warming effect of the gases after leaving the barrel that kills. Indirectly here means not significantly related. Correlation =/= causation.

Compare with inhaling SO2.
 
If the majority of the deaths and financial damage are caused by the violence of pollution linked to global warming then wouldn't that make a stronger case for taking action even if you are skeptical that global warming itself is a bad thing? Surely, you don't go around shooting people because you don't see the harm in the warming because of it.
 
Murky said:
If the majority of the deaths and financial damage are caused by the violence of pollution linked to global warming then wouldn't that make a stronger case for taking action even if you are skeptical that global warming itself is a bad thing? Surely, you don't go around shooting people because you don't see the harm in the warming because of it.
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No. The link is from pollution to industrial activity. If we change parts of the industrial process, those hazards will be reduced. At no point does this imply that carbon dioxide* (carbon monoxide is a different story) emission reduction in and of itself is necessary or worthwhile. They are separate issues.
If you replace the bullet with a blank, you have a prop.

It's also intellectually dishonest to misrepresent a death figure by at least an order of magnitude to push an argument when one could bluntly talk about air pollution, "global warming" aside.
 
Murky said:
It could have been better stated, but the original point still stands. It's much more costly in lives and property to do nothing than to take action on (snip) pollution.
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That's more persuasive, and avoids red herring mashups. The door is left open by adding in an essentially unrelated* (or trivially related, if you prefer) point that is oft-disputed. There's no problem in speaking to legitimate concerns of the audience while not emphasizing the possible fringe benefits in relation to the 'global warming' question. Not too many people oppose reducing contamination of the air supply. Those that do have to explain their cost concerns-- carefully.

*Unless you care to explain how the slightly warmer air damaged someone's lungs in some vital way. Or the wetter/drier air. Or that section of ice melting thousands of miles away (strange acting a distance). Maybe the water rose fast enough and they drowned (Does rising water count as air pollution?)... ETC.
 
Murky said:
It could have been better stated, but the original point still stands. It's much more costly in lives and property to do nothing than to take action on global warming pollution.
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The problem is that both you and the article merge the death tolls from global warming and general air pollution in order to imply that measures to reduce global warming will therefore help prevent all five million deaths. In practice many global warming prevention measures will have no effect on the air pollution side of things (e.g. biofuels, most of the geoengineering schemes), and so will not help with 90% of the problems. Yet this statistic will still be presented as an argument in favour of those schemes because the headline boldy and inaccurately states that all are caused by global warming. Similarly even those options that might help with global warming are still not the best way to get those air pollution deaths prevented as soon as possible. We've already been round the whole problem of smog and air pollution in the west, and found solutions that work. How about we prioritise these tried and tested method which will cover 90% of the problems?

Obviously, the above is working on the basis that the actual figures from the article are correct. As mentioned previously merging the stats from two different causes to argue for action against one of them is a serious failing of scientific competance and/or integrity, so the article should never be presented as evidence.
 
The original report is slightly better at distinguishing between climate change and air pollution, but still has a tendency to try and merge the figures in order to push climate change. The evidence that is presented would point far better to a conclusion that resources should be focused on dealing with conventional air pollution (which as pointed out we know how to deal with). Any benefit on the climate change front is a small bonus, which has nevertheless become the "soundbite" taken away from this report. There's such an effort to focus on the small climate change contribution that I'd still file this report under "scientifically dubious", though that's better than the article and your original claims, which were just plain wrong.

It also wins the prize for worst graphs I've seen in a scientific report this year... ;)
 
MrCynical said:
The original report is slightly better at distinguishing between climate change and air pollution, but still has a tendency to try and merge the figures in order to push climate change. The evidence that is presented would point far better to a conclusion that resources should be focused on dealing with conventional air pollution (which as pointed out we know how to deal with).
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Jepp, and the numbers appear to support a "not our problem" stance of in the industrialized countries.

The focus on the short term, and 2030 is short term regarding climate change, detracts from the real elephant in the room:
CO2 has a much longer atmospheric lifetime (millenia) than other pollutants (typically month to years), will accumulate in the atmosphere and stay there effectively forever.
Pollution reduction will be effective pretty much instantly, while CO2 emission reductions will yield no immediate benefit.
But in the (very) long term the interest to pay for any delay in CO2 emission cuts will be steep.
 
And now the refreeze is happening and it is happening quite fast.
Spoiler big image :
ssmi1_ice_ext.png
 
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