2 Tn (USD). That's Real Money.

The US has caused roughly two trillion dollars in greenhouse gas emissions related damages since 1990.

The huge volume of planet-heating gases pumped out by the US, the largest historical emitter, has caused such harm to other, mostly poor, countries through heatwaves, crop failures and other consequences that the US is responsible for $1.91tn in lost global income since 1990, the study found.

Canada, at roughly a tenth the population, is said to be on the hook for $247 billion.

The Dartmouth researchers combined a number of different models, showing factors such as emissions, local climate conditions and economic changes, to ascertain the precise impact of an individual country’s contribution to the climate crisis. They looked for these links over a period spanning 1990 to 2014, with the research published in the journal Climatic Change.

What they found was a perniciously uneven picture – rich nations in northerly latitudes, such as those in north America and Europe, have done the most to fuel climate change but have not yet been severely harmed by it economically. Countries such as Canada and Russia have even benefitted from longer agricultural growing seasons and reduced deaths from the cold as winters have warmed.

The tally is based on economic loss, neat and tidy. But wait, there's more:

Poorer countries, such as those found in the tropics or low-lying Pacific islands, have done the least to harm other nations and yet are suffering the brunt of the economic damage from climate change. The research didn’t factor things not included in GDP, such as biodiversity loss, cultural harm and deaths from disasters, meaning the damage is in reality far greater.

“In places that are already hot you are seeing it becoming harder to work outside, mortality from the heat is on the rise, it’s harder to grow crops,” said Justin Mankin, a geographer at Dartmouth and co-author of the paper. “If you layer that on top of which countries have emitted the most you get an almost perfect storm.

The climate crisis has “escalated humanitarian crises disproportionately affecting the poor countries in the global south,” the letter states, noting that the UN estimates that as many as 3.6 billion people around the world now live in areas that are highly vulnerable to climate disasters.

I know. Why don't we get Justin to deliver a teary-eyed apology.

We might think that fossil fuels are a boon to the Canadian economy.  Even if that was true we're still left with the question "at whose expense?"  Someone else pays our butcher's bill. They forfeit their already meager treasure and they pay with their lives.  That's monstrous.


Comment Response - 

Troy, I suspect you're right. Even the climate science types aren't pretending any longer. Glaciologist, Jason Box, an American, was hired by the Danes to study and monitor the Greenland ice sheet.  Several years ago a colleague sent him the latest data and Box responded by email with something like "We're fucked." He unwittingly pushed "reply all" and that set the fox among the pigeons. 

Last year a number of lead authors who have diligently compiled reports for the IPCC publically mused about packing it in. What's the point of of churning out all the data and analysis if the intended recipients in the political caste won't act on them after a quarter century of increasingly dire warnings?

A couple of months ago I emailed an aquaintance who runs a climate lab at the University of Hawaii. I wanted his assessment of our chances of meaningful action to avert climate crisis. He suggested I watch Leo deCaprio's movie, "Don't Look Up," on NetFlix. I thought he was pulling my leg. Turns out he wasn't. 

More recently I came across British celebrity physicist, Brian Cox', assessment:

“One solution to the Fermi paradox is that it is not possible to run a world that has the power to destroy itself and that needs global collaborative solutions to prevent that.”

“It may be that the growth of science and engineering inevitably outstrips the development of political expertise, leading to disaster. We could be approaching that position.”

Thanks for the link, Troy. I subscribe to Harper's so I'll give it a read.

P.S. That's a fine essay, Troy. Thanks.

Comments

  1. TroyJuly 14, 2022 at 12:16 AM

    Likely, we'll all pay the Pied Piper of Hamelin, come the end. And for an unfortunate too many of us, it'll be sooner rather than later, from one crisis or another.

    OT: An article from Harper's, "Empire Burlesque: What comes after the American Century?".

    ReplyDelete

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