Originally posted by What Would Jesus Do?:
Originally posted by KennyPowers_96:
I think we need a "potential body count" to gain the interest of the people.
That's a really good point. A quick googling turns up some interesting results but I didn't see anything that looked at it quite like that or looked at all the ways people could die from global warming.
So, for example,
Scientific American tells us this:
The World Health Organization predicts that an additional 250,000 people will die annually between 2030 and 2050 from conditions caused or exacerbated by climate change, the Geneva-based agency reported yesterday in an update of climate mortality estimates.
But the causes of sickness and death will shift over that period as child deaths from malnutrition and diarrheal disease decline across much of the world, while mortality rises from things like mosquito-borne malaria, heat exposure and other conditions, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
"Overall, climate change is projected to have substantial adverse impacts on future mortality, even considering only a subset of the expected health effects," the agency said in its latest "Quantitative Risk Assessment of the Effects of Climate Change on Selected Causes of Death." And those impacts are expected to be felt even "even under optimistic scenarios of future socioeconomic development."
Meanwhile
Reuters tells us this:
LONDON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - More than 100 million people will die and the global economy will miss out on as much as 3.2 percent of its potential output annually by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change, a report commissioned by 20 governments said on Wednesday.
As global average temperatures rise due to greenhouse gas emissions, the effects on the planet, such as melting ice caps, extreme weather, drought and rising sea levels, will threaten populations and livelihoods, said the report conducted by humanitarian organisation DARA.
Elsewhere, we have already seen a couple of Pentagon reports predicting food and water wars in response to climate changes plus massive population shifts causing even more conflict. We are talking about potentially billions of people having to move and, in turn, forcing others to move and competing for dwindling resources. But I haven't seen focused numbers.
And that doesn't even take into account the likely emergence and spread of new disease agents - potential pandemics - and the spread of formerly cold-limited pestilence with serious impacts on food supplies, water safety, and parasitic infections among humans.
