Why is this a western and US problem, alone. China is by far the world's largest carbon emitter and along with India accounts for one third of CO2 emissions, and neither China nor India plans to stop increasing their carbon emissions any time soon. There's virtually nothing the US can do by itself to stop CO2 consequences. What happened to fact based reporting?
1
The daughters in this piece are treated like pawns. Like chattel. Climate change and selling daughters are two independent, unlinked disasters. stop them BOTH.
10
Our country should be a leader in fighting climate change. Unfortunately because of the "head in the sand" attitude of the Grand OLD Party, who denies climate change, this will not happen.
Good citizens of the USA need to band together and help the less fortunate people of the world.
4
Nick,
Would the people in places like Bangladesh be better off not having children? If the man followed sensible family planning would he not be in such a predicament? After all isn’t pop growth a primary factor in climate change?
I have seen liberals predict world demise due to republican in action. Why hasn’t this come to fruition?
6
I used to study the growth, in culture, of cancer cells and the normal, healthy counterparts. When normal cells detect that they reached a certain density, they stop growing, reduce their consumption and live on healthily for quite a while, without needing any new nutrients. Cancer cells, in contrast, keep growing until they die of starvation, and when you add extra nutrients, they keep growing to even higher densities, only to be stopped by starvation and death.
It seems to me that humans are like cancer cells. The cancer ends with the death of the host organism.
3
Sea level rise? For the right wing, it is fake news, or, a natural fluctuation, or, nothing can be done, or, let them drown.
But Bangla Desh and other countries with rapidly growing population are also in denial, the grpwht rates cannot be sustained. Bangla Desh population has grown in a generation or so from about 88 million in 1980 to about 163 million now. Such growth is unsustainable even if sea levels were not rising. I think the US should prioritize aid to those countries that make an effort to control their populations by ensuring access to birth control, girls education and economic opportunity, legal abortion, and not giving religious zealots who want to control women's sexuality control over social affairs. We should also help polar bears as unlike humans with about 7.4 billion in our species, the bears are increasingly endangered. If there were 7.4 billion polar bears and diminishing humans I'd say the opposite!
3
It's only going to get worse for Bangla Desh and many other countries that are coastal or Oceanic. The ocean is not going to stop rising for a very long time. Many of these places will no longer be above the waves in 100 yrs. or less. What will Bangla Desh's 163 mil. ( today's pop.) do when it's country is on the bottom of the Indian Sea?
4
Why aren't American coastal cities encountering this problem, or are they?
The world is denial about us being in the twilight of our existence. An acre and a half of rainforest is destroyed every second; 75% of the world’s fish stocks are on the verge of collapse and humans consume about 25% more of the world’s natural resources than the Earth can replace. To deny humankind's destruction of the earth (CO2 emissions being part of it) can only be an emotional response at this point; to say otherwise is like saying the Earth is flat. We as a species are just too successful and nature always has a self-regulating fix for those species that become too populous.
If we believe these things (a bit taboo for many), then we must decide how we want to live with this knowledge. Some will continue to blame others for their misfortunes, others will deny reality, while others will try to fight for something better. Which one will you be?
5
Does anyone acknowledge that an ice age occurred about 10k years ago? Or is that just climate change denial by unbelievers? Wow! Do climate events happen without human causality? Why do climate scientists not provide details of regression testing of their models? Is climate science really a species of political science?
Strange that Mr. Kristof neglects to mention the fact that the population of Bangladesh has grown to an unsustainable level - the fact that this is equally true throughout the entire region. How about encouraging family planning into these regions instead of compulsively blaiming America for for each and every bit of misery on this planet - and exactly how many wives does Mr. Haque have? How many children?
9
Thank you for mentioning Mercy Corps. The USA headquartered organization does excellent work throughout the world with people who are at risk. It also has been providing hot meals to citizens of a Puerto Rico, where half the citizens still lack electricity and running water.
It is a good organization if you wish to donate funds that will make a difference.
4
I come from Brazil a tropical country that a couple of years ago faced life threatening droughts and still shied away from global warming. At no point in my whole life in Brazil have I seen my school or any other talk so drastically about global warming like it's a real threat.
It's sickening to know that there are still educated people that believe Global Warming is not only a lie but as a far as a conspiracy theory. In fact it is paramount that people know how badly global warming has hit the world. Nowadays there are whole nations that are in the brink of being washed away. The Tuvaluans, are a nation constituting of several little islands on the South of the Pacific, and in the past decade their lives have been continuously threatened by the rising waves and the destruction of coral reefs just like in Bangladesh.
In spite the overall countermeasures being made by several nations around the world , it is still not enough to slow down the unforgiving atrocity that is global warming.
What I am trying to say is that the only way for humanity to beat the rising waves and increasing carbon dioxide emissions, is to introduce the concept of global warming as a real threat to the planet just like terrorism. There are a lot of ways in which countries like the U.S can reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, people just need to be rightfully educated otherwise the matter will continue to look unimportant.
3
This is not mostly a climate change problem, it is a deltaic subsidence problem. The earths crust sinks under the continuous load of sediment supplied from large rivers entering the ocean, like the Ganges and Brahmaputra delta (largest in the world). Kutubdia is on the east flank of that delta.
Tide gauge data you can access in a clickable map on the NOAA "TidesandCurrents" website shows sea level rise trends on the east side of the Indian continent are very low, but get higher the closer you get to the delta. The stations at Chenai (.32mm/yr), Vishakhapatnam (.79mm/yr), and Paradip (.77mm/yr) are well below the global average sea level rise as measured by satellites. However, adjacent to the delta (Diamond Harbour), the sea level rise is much higher (4.67 mm/yr).
Analysis in the peer-reviewed science indicates that the historic subsidence rate of the delta is 4 times higher than change in eustatic sea level. In a recent paper in the journal Geology (Hanebuth et al 2013), total sea level rise of 5.2 mm/yr was calculated, but only 0.8mm/yr was a result of eustatic sea level change. GPS measurements show the city of Dhaka further up in the center of the Ganges delta is sinking at over 15 mm/yr.
The premise of this story, that climate change is the main cause of land losses in the Ganges delta area is not supported by scientific research.
9
The Sunday Times has an article about a refugee from Congo who now works at the Moonie fish-packing plant in Elizabeth, who pines for his wife to admitted, so they can have 8 children.
Chatting yesterday in a barber shop, we discussed the growing number of empty storefronts on the Upper West Side. A landlord claimed that the real cause of the problem is the taxation needed to fund the Public School system. It does take lots of money to educate the children of prolific immigrants. At this point, the City is having to choose between schools and subways. This is how narrowly-based local taxation crushes cities.
6
So do we let these Bangladeshi people come to the US to live?
3
Welcome to earth. We changed it for you, nice tourist from some other solar system. Be sure to take a few bacteria home with you and a pound of salt, to later kill it when It takes over your space ship.
But just remember no one in the other side of the coin thinks there is anything wrong and also that having all that new land not covered in Ice in Greenland will be good for them to go farming on. Florida guess you will be next, get your waders on.
3
Let's direct ourselves to solutions not band-aids. As renewables have not yet lowered CO2 PPM, the world needs to tax carbon enough to lower demand by 1/3. The revenue could be used for free public transportation and renewables. Let me be clear: the Carbon Dioxide measured in parts per million has never decreased-- it is over 400 PPM. The world will continue to heat (and see extreme weather) until we reduce it to pre-industrial levels, 300 PPM.
6
How appalling! My apologies if I missed this discussion in another comment, but is there somewhere I could send money that could get money to these families so they don't have to pull their daughters from school and marry them off just to support them now that farming has become so precarious? I would happily do so to keep a ten- or thirteen-year-old in school and with her family rather than married off!
7
Have you heard of Plan International? It is a NGO that supports children all over the world, and helps to provide them with an education. A lot of girls in Africa and Asia are saved from an early marriage thanks to them . In my family, we have been supporting them for 3 generations, and my daughter is now the "godmother" of a Laotian girl, while I have been helping Maureen, from Malawi, for the past 10 years. It costs 37$ per month, a sum that most Westerners can afford. Just do it! Please. www.plan-international.org
8
Plan International has some very uneven reviews, especially from employees and ex-employees. So be sure to look those up before donating.
It reportedly is effective in some nations, but much money waylaid to corrupt contacts in some nations such as Ethiopia. The senior management in DC gets some poor marks from employees, as lacking direction and vision.
1
All of the countries, the leadership class, had best contemplate what is coming. From what I can see it's inevitable. We're looking at sea level rise and, with the vast number of humans living along coastal areas all over this planet, a concomitant disaster of epic proportions is being set up.
Our leadership class; all of us for that matter, need to figure out a way to deal with a concomitant flood of humanity that will be spilling out and away from coastal areas. You think we have an "illegal" immigration problem now? You haven't seen nuthin' yet.
The forced migrations that are coming will be on an epic scale; almost biblical in their nature. But this time all of it is not caused by God is it? So we'd do best to figure out a way to save ourselves because the Creator (with an attitude of "You've made your bed now lay in it") will probably not be having any of it.
So it goes.
John~
American Net'Zen
2
Kristof claims that one man can change the path of nature, Trump. And ignores the efforts of another single man, Gore.
That is precious. Maybe the entire village can move to Newark, allow Mr. Booker to put up or shut up?
1
Climate change now, too? Girls have to pay for the multiple sins of the rich and greedy fossil fuel billionaires and their enablers, and be sold to rich and greedy (for young flesh) men to pay the way for their fathers, who refused to move when they saw the sea rising? Why is it these girls, the most innocent of anyone involved in this sickening morass of self-interest, who have to pay the highest price?
11
How about some promotion of birth control so people don't have children they can't afford to feed. Marrying them off young just increases the birth rate and exacerbates the problem. As much as I admire much of the preaching of th Pope, until he faces up to the overpopulation problem, war, famine and anger leading to mistreatment of others will not just continue but will increase.
17
It's called e-r-o-s-i-o-n. If the seas rise in Bangladesh, they rise THE SAME everywhere. How on Earth can the NYT think this serious enough to publish?
3
I think the salient point here is that humanity is in a hyper-survival mode which has only exasperated the problems humanity created. You hear all this garbage about being vegan or using solar. These ideas will simply accelerate the extermination of the people in these unfortunately poorly located areas. They want what makes the large powerful countries so. We cannot deprive humanity of the very things that made one greater than another. That is evil.
2
Going to need a bigger boat!
1
R.I.P. Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw
its not necessarily true that the poorest people on the planet dont contribute to global warming. slash and burn agriculture by poor farmers is a significant contributor to global warming. also many of the poorest countries are majority muslim countries which tend to suppress women and therefore retard their economic development.
5
The USA, under the current Administration, is not interested in helping brown people. If brown people were worthy, Jesus would be helping them.
Ipso facto . . .
1
The article makes some good points, but leaves unsaid that stern reality that Bangladesh is hardly blameless. It is grossly, perhaps grotesquely, overpopulated, with the population growing by leaps and bounds on a piece of land the size of Iowa that is fit for delta farming culture but hardly a place to house 166 million people (20 million more than Russia)!
15
Overpopulation is rarely addressed because it's a political third rail that nobody wants to touch but it's a major contributor to our environmental degradation.
10
An irony: Trump does not want Africans and Haitians but withdraws from climate change agreements (Paris). Where is the logic? The means of survival of poor people in Africa, Haiti, Bangladesh etc. are undermined by the activities of the developed world. This Darwinian notion of survival of the fittest will result in a collective suicide.
Some Africans are adapting their diet to drought-tolerant crops such as cassava, sweet potatoes, sorghum and millet and using supplementary irrigation in order to cope with potential prolonged dry spells.
The venerable Archbishop Desmond Tutu advises us to stop our addiction to fossil fuel and to invest in clean energy.
Some African environmentalists to remember were the great Wangari Maathai of the Green Belt movement’s tree-planting activities in Kenya, and the principled Ogoni environmentalist Ken Saro Wiwa who paid the ultimate price fighting for environmental justice.
The narrative of development needs rethinking and replaced with environmental sustainability.
The key to helping Africa is not pouring money into unaccountable governments but empowering grassroots environmentalists.
Some Helpful Activities:
Practicing a Circular Economy that is restorative and regenerative by design, implementation of green technology, investing in geothermal (in East Africa), promoting gas flaring reduction (in West Africa), supporting off-grid renewable energy, small scale solar to power remote villages, wind energy and better public transit.
5
Discussing all the details of the catastrophe to come (and the impacts already felt) is yet another example of how we continue to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The reality is that we're doomed. We're all doomed. This catastrophe is happening, and will continue to happen, regardless of what we do now. It is not only too late, we also have a clown car of a government that under the Great Leader Agent Orange is working as hard as they can to make it worse.
Doomed. We're all doomed.
Naught left to do but Billy on . . . .
4
"He observed that a drier climate is widely believed to have caused agricultural failures, tensions and migrations that played a role in the Syrian civil war, the Darfur genocide and the civil war in northeastern Nigeria."
Exploding population and declining resources are bad enough on their own; throw in the climate chaos wild card and np matter where you live preparation and adaptation are needed. Sustainability and true stewardship should be our flagship...
8
You do not have to go this far across the to see the effects of climate change.
One could just go to places domestically that are getting swallowed up by the sea. Villages in Alaska, coastal towns in MA including Cape Cod and Nantucket, southern parts of Louisiana, Miami, on and on.
Heat, flooding, storms, record weather reports are already happening all over.
When it all starts to hit the fan harder, there will be the movement of people searching for better conditions that will make the current human migrations look like a mere trickle. Water is going to be scarce.
7
Although the Republicans claim to deny climate change, what they really deny is that it is anthropogenic. That the climate is changing is hard to avoid noticing. That something we are doing is the major cause of the change sounds harder to prove to the average listener, yet it is exactly what science has demonstrated. Pity Bangla Desh, not the mention the Rohingya refugees crowded onto one of those coastal island strips.
2
I am sure Trump's policies don't help but Bangladesh has far more things working against it than Trump, including and especially the corruption of its own government.
3
Climate change is also reducing oxygen concentrations in coastal and benthic waters. This is reported in a review summary printed in the 5 January 2018 issue of "Science", on page 46.
It really is amazing how many people have convinced themselves that God won't let humans break the Earth.
4
This is a sad commentary on the ravages of climate change. A poor country like Bangladesh is likely to have trouble setting up a program to move people who are losing their land, their homes and their livelihood.
Instead of helping, Mr. Trump is making things worse with his support of coal, oil drilling and other fossil fuels.
2
One problem with sea level rise is that the closer sea levels approach the top of a coastal defense, the greater the risk of a storm surge breaching the defense, as in New Orleans when Katrina killed 1,836 people.
So the slow, gradual sea level rise will have more abrupt impacts than might be assumed.
We're already on pace for a meter by 2100. At the current acceleration of mass loss from the ice sheets of 44Gt/y2 we get 78cm from there alone. Throw in 20-30cm from mountain glaciers and thermal expansion.
With the planet's energy imbalance practically guaranteeing significant further warming this century that rate likely won't decrease or remain the same.
2
I had thought that when"an inconvenient truth" came out that we might finally listen to the scientists who have been warning us since the 70's about climate change but unfortunately those who have much to lose financially went out of their way to stop the discussion before it went anywhere. Anyone who has been paying attention can see that even here in the states things are changing. Doing something about climate change will require a collective effort with the wealthiest countries needing to make the most changes.
We're a selfish people too foolish to realize that climate change is going to happen whether we believe in it or not. The Earth will be fine, it always heals itself. Sadly mankind will respond as it always does by dying off either through war or famine. What's happening in these poorer countries will eventually happen here as well.
3
Ironically, many northern lands, where ghg are generated, are still rising from the absence of ice weight 10,000 or so years ago.
4
Vehicles in the US now account for the largest chunk of CO2 emissions. Check your mpg, all. If you care, do something about your vehicle’s contribution.
2
The Trump administration's actions on global warming are deplorable yet average people can do much to reduce their own carbon footprint. It won't stop warming but it is something for concerned people. I advocate washing clothes without tap water for saving CO2 emissions. This can be done with regular laundry detergent but different manufacturers sell cold water detergents anymore. In general they cost a little more vs. regular detergents, perhaps 25% more, but if your washer is in your home your savings in your gas bill would probably exceed the higher detergent cost.
Washing clothes without tap water? Meet you down at the river on laundry day?
3
"..nurturing feedback loops that accelerate the warming". More on this, please. A majority of Americans now know that global warming/climate change is happening, and is caused by human activity. But most don't know the hard science behind it--that global warming is caused by a series of cascading events, leading off by the release of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That is why taking action now to reverse these emissions now is so important. Zero emissions, which is possible, should be the goal. This means government action, including ours, is necessary for this to happen. Changing the grid to near zero emissions is possible by changing the public utility laws. Encourage electricity providers to profit from renewables. Long term renwables are cheaper; consumers will also profit, and everyone will also profit from not paying the external costs of burning fossil fuels. These costs are in health and devastating storms and droughts. A carbon transfer tax--all funds used as buyer incentives to switch to renewables such as a feed-in-tariff grid and hybrid/electric vehicles--would make this happen almost overnight.
Time is of the essence here. The warming that we have increases with more moisture (from evaporation) in the atmosphere; melting from polar ice caps and year round snowfields means less albedo, the reflection of sunlight and heat back into space; and melting permafrost releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The time for action is now.
1
Ok, great - we can bicker about the actual drivers of sea level rise and the variability from one region to the next.
But this is a secondary argument.
What is ineluctable is that growth-based economies (eg - just about everybody) - are aggravating climate change, and will amplify all that comes with it.
We had a good run.
6
"We had a good run." What does that mean? Not if you are a Bangladeshi. Their faces break my heart.
2
It's not just in Bangladesh. Waves were washing over parts of Revere, MA, during the last winter storm, and there are plenty of other examples of people in our own United States (including Puerto Rico!) suffering from extreme storms being generated by the planet warming up and the gradual sea level rise. Islands such as Kiribati in the south Pacific are being submerged under rising seas as well. Sad for the Bangladeshis, but also sad for increasing numbers of people around the globe.
Too rarely mentioned in these discussions is the major role of continuing rapid population increases in these countries. Bangladesh, though it has made substantial progress in lowering fertility, is still growing unsustainably. Most of the other suggested solutions are helpful but totally inadequate bandaids if population growth is not reduced in all these areas, with help where appropriate from those regions that have already come a long way to resolving this problem.
24
Good point; however, Japan and the U.S. have birth rates that cannot support their elderly populations. Perhaps we could trade our needy populations?
1
What a novel idea. May I point out that while our elderly population does draw Social Security checks and use Medicare, it might be cheaper to support our elderly population when you consider the per capita costs than to support so many of our young population.
Many and really far too many of our young population do not work, use drugs both legal and illegal, and swing in and out the revolving doors of substance abuse treatment centers. In fact, a number of the people who come through the doors of substance abuse treatment centers ask, "Sign me up for a SSI check", as soon as they begin the paperwork admission process.
Let's get more of our own 'needy population', young to middle-aged, off the dole and working. They speak English, have had an education (of sorts), know about flush toilets, traffic lights, etc.
So let's stop paying $80K per year to maintain our own dependent young/youngish population. It's far cheaper than paying $150K per year to maintain a Third World immigrant. And after all, charity does begin at home.
1
What happened to being able to walk and chew gum at the same time, as it were.
Sure, there's subsidence and industry handicaps us by concreting up channels and building in what should be coastal wetlands, which exacerbates the problem.
Sure, sea level rise, as measured, has only increased a bit, but it is just getting started. It hasn't stopped in its tracks, and its rising faster now, in a measurable and visible way to those who haven't put on blinders to the trends going from decade to decade.
Sure, there have been individual floods that are exceptional (the recent one in Boston matched closely one in 1978 and another in 1921).
The combination of increasing and inexorable sea level rise is being met in many places - New Orleans being a prime example - with industrial solutions that make the problem worse, being part of the same blindness to the systemic problem. We need more wetlands, not less.
Too many in power treat the symptoms of the disease and wish to ignore the bigger picture. It works in the short term, but not in the long term. This "winning" is a global failure.
Nature is powerful, it bats 1000, and it bats last. Put another way, it has the only seat at the table.
Our lack of compassion for our victims and search for victims to blame does not speak well to our humanity.
We humans have one chance, and only one, to recognize that we are in this together and work together to solve problems.
"Experts" who find nits to pick are not helping.
7
For Bangladesh, sea level rise isn't the problem, I have lived and still live on a island, I have for 15 years, and here are my thoughts.
I live on a Florida beach in Pensacola,FL, and here sea level rise isn't the problem.
Are beaches are naturally forming sand barrier islands, and they are very fragile ecosystems and when man interferes, are when all problems are created.
Are sand barrier islands move naturally on there own, with the help of natural erotion, waves crashing on to our beaches, and strong winds from the Gulf of Mexico.
With that said, these islands erode very quickly and naturally, but because of man made infrastructure, housing, and asphalt roads, these islands and natural land barriers can not move as expected naturally.
So more erosion is occurring, and with infrastructure in the way, our sand barrier islands cannot move naturally like there suppose too.
Before infrastructure was ever added to these islands we never had this problem.
2
Sea levels are rising. Maybe not as much on the Gulf Coast of Florida, but maybe you should go check out Miami Beach during a king tide.
2
Good points. A few centuries back, we were too smart to build on beaches.
Then we became stupid enough to think we could overcome the tides.
Then came taxpayer-subsidized insurance and taxpayer-paid 'beach renourishment'.
Pogo was right: We have met the enemy and he is us.
1
One must do what one can to alleviate suffering wherever one finds it. That being said, the climate is changing - has changed - and all humans on the planet will feel the repercussions. It is as inevitable the sun coming up in the morning and setting at night, for as long as our sun exists.
5
Americans will only pay attention to devastating climate events when they happen to them (e.g., Houston, New Orleans, Boston, Miami, NYC). The hue and cry will rise once there is a proven track record of recurring flooding in vulnerable parts of the U.S. coastal system. Unhappily, this is likely to occur sooner rather than later - and then, it will likely be too late for any remedies save the most expensive and disruptive ones.
4
It's important to show the suffering of people in other parts of the world, and Kristof should be applauded for this. But to imply that Trump's pulling us from the Paris accord means nothing can be done is simply silly and assumes way too much influence of the gov't. We the people have the power to make a difference- lifestyle choices and the adoption of new technology can be retarded but not stopped by gov't. You want to make a difference (like I have): install a heat pump, make your next vehicle more efficient, replace the fiberglass insulation in your attic with foam, install some LEDs, buy a bicycle and actually use it. These are simple, affordable steps that collectively will help the US economy while cutting our CO2 emissions greatly.
9
Can we recognize that all of your listed ways to make a difference, with the exception of using a bicycle instead of other means of transportation, are consumptive actions that create major impacts in their development, manufacture, distribution, sale, installation, and maintenance? We can all do better, and we should accept that our new technologies are not here to save us from the crises that we are creating for ourselves with our technology.
1
I’m having a hard time mining my depths for sympathy toward a culture that uses prostituting their vulnerable female CHILDREN as a solution to poverty. Much of that poverty can be attributed to excessive population, traceable to treating females as unconscious, powerless breeding stock.
33
Yup, it's all their fault. If only 'they' were like you, 'they' would be just fine.
2
Let's meet our new neighbors.
2
Americans and their large behinds sitting in pick up trucks rejoice, your desire for comfort will never be hindered by President Drumpf. However let us look at the real culprit for human suffering, overpopulation. In my lifetime Bangladesh’s population has tripled, from 50 million to over 160 mil. It’s the same throughout the world. You want sustainable human life, human procreation should be halved immediately. Mother Nature will do it for us and it won’t be pretty.
34
The Religious Right is constantly blaming major hurricanes on America's wickedness, primarily its support for LBGT rights.
Maybe God sees a bigger picture than individual's bedrooms. Maybe God is punishing America for using a disproportionate share of the world's resources, hoarding a disproportionate share of the world's wealth, and creating a disproportionate share of the world's pollution, including global warming.
Maybe God is telling America to stop acting like a selfish, spoiled child and be a humble and responsible member of the world community.
8
The indulgence of projection of a human personality onto nature is one of the most irritating aspects of life in this infantile nation.
2
I beg your pardon: a few - very few - of the Religious Right have blamed hurricanes etc. on America's wickedness. The reason it seems that there are more than a few who have made these statements is that the news media publishes these few statements again and again and again and again.
But would it help to reduce America's pollution while increasing the pollution created by Third World countries? This is the goal of the UN Climate Change group:
Read the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:
"One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole," said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group from 2008 to 2015.
So what is the goal?
"We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy," said Edenhofer.
For those who want to believe that maybe Edenhofer doesn't really mean that, consider that a little more than five years ago he also said that "the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated."
Google the quotes for yourself.......if you are curious enough to do so.
The problem is that God isn't punishing us so much punishing the poor who are innocent of our sins.
1
The one they call Christ once said: "and the Lord shall destroy the destroyers of the Earth" - Revelations 11:18
5
We are waiting . . . .
So tell me, what are the farmers going to do when they run out of young daughters to sell to sexual predators?
Sell their wives? Their blood? Their internal organs?
16
We won't do anything till downtown is underwater, till then hey the Dow is up!!!
4
Speaking of underwater downtowns, Jakarta is another heavily populated place where subsidence and sea level rise combine to displace everyone.
The only possible solution to this is birth control for all, everywhere. 1 child per couple world wide would reduce the global population very quickly.
29
climate change isn't in the Bible! It is not in "Atlas Shrugged"! It can't be true!
4
The immediate concern for me is the fate of 13-year-old Munni Akter.
12
Have you heard of Plan International? It is a NGO that supports children all over the world, and helps to provide them with an education. A lot of girls in Africa and Asia are saved from an early marriage thanks to them . In my family, we have been supporting them for 3 generations, and my daughter is now the "godmother" of a Laotian girl, while I have been helping Maureen, from Malawi, for the past 10 years. It costs 37$ per month, a sum that most Westerners can afford. Just do it! Please. www.plan-international.org
Have you heard of Plan International? It is a NGO that supports children all over the world, and helps to provide them with an education. A lot of girls in Africa and Asia are saved from an early marriage thanks to them . In my family, we have been supporting them for 3 generations, and my daughter is now the "godmother" of a Laotian girl, while I have been helping Maureen, from Malawi, for the past 10 years. It costs 37$ per month, a sum that most Westerners can afford. Just do it! Please. www.plan-international.org
Who writes the headlines? This island’s primary problem is that it is sinking, which not driven by climate change.
7
Um, no, actually, it's not that the island is sinking; it's that the seas are rising, because all that water locked up in ice at the polar ice caps is melting. This is a known and predicted effect of climate change. Perhaps you should actually learn something about climate change and its effects before commenting?
1
Ha, they changed the headline!
Too bad this wasn't written for Fox and friends, then maybe the president of the USA might see it.
6
Science is real. Climate change is real. That Trump denies both is the most frightening aspect of his administration. He is the poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger effect. He is so ignorant that he does not know how little he knows.
9
One can say that about every pretentious fool who claims to know what a hypothetical all knowing, all powerful, and immortal being responsible for creating the whole universe prescribes for humans to do with their lives.
1
I’m paraphrasing Sarah Silverman, but if the victims of climate change were labradoodles this would have been fixed already. Unfortunately we’ve been shown starving children photos since Ethiopia in the 80s and the cynical [racist] American public is inured to suffering. We have to take a different approach.
6
The swimmingly excellent city of Miami could become the "sister city" for this place.
5
Oh, and don't forget Houston, Baton Rouge, Boston and New York!
2
And, the very "best" thing any of these men can think to do, is to SELL their daughters!
17
The commentariat’s display of heartless privilege, (“just move”) is overwhelming.
1
Doubt? I'm sure there are enough people, and certainly corporations, who have no doubt but simply don't care enough. Selfish greed has always brought damage our environment. The left always thinks getting to people's conscience will win the day, such as the endless cycle of shaming Trump, which is absurd.
1
The earth's systems are fighting back against the overpopulation of the planet by humans. We will continue to see massive die off of that animal species.
9
"One of the paradoxes of climate change is that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people — who contribute almost nothing to warming the planet — end up being most harmed by it."
With their very high birth rates they contribute plenty to global warming. Second or third wife???
10
Wherever people migrate, they quickly adopt the local energy consumption practices.
The Trump administration is the biggest offender at encouraging extreme climate change. Removing all of the sound regulations that President Obama put in place to save our earth was a big step in increasing this type of problem. Trump cares nothing for poor or non-white countries (I wont go down to his level to describe) so could care less. Maybe when Mar-a-lago goes under will they finally think that climate change isn't a hoax. Or just blame it on Obama.
5
Please tell us how we can send the money (no doubt a small amount) to sponsor Munni Akter, and the other girls, to pay their school fees!
3
Have you heard of Plan International? It is a NGO that supports children all over the world, and helps to provide them with an education. A lot of girls in Africa and Asia are saved from an early marriage thanks to them . In my family, we have been supporting them for 3 generations, and my daughter is now the "godmother" of a Laotian girl, while I have been helping Maureen, from Malawi, for the past 10 years. It costs 37$ per month, a sum that most Westerners can afford. Just do it! Please. www.plan-international.org
Who will tell the Donald...that he has no clothes?
4
Nicholas, I note here as I also did at a Times OpEd on the Montecito CA disaster that anyone who writes about an event or situation believed to be related to climate change should take extra care in getting the scientific facts about event/situation correct.
The first comment by a professional, Dr. Philip Orton illustrates my point. Submergence of low lying coastal land, whether in Bangladesh, the Mississippi delta, or many other places has been occurring for many decades as explained by him in his comment appearing at 07:05 EST.
Yes, poor people bear the brunt of changes created by climate change. A Swedish author H. Mankell, who spent a good part of his life living in Africa and supporting foundations to help Africans tried in a book written when he knew he had but a year to live to help Swedes understand what those poor people face.
The book Kvicksand (Swedish only) contains sections in which he pictures a Norden on which the ice sheet reappears. As that ice sheet advances, where can Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns go? Only one choice - south.
Can southern Europe accomodate them? If not where shall they go? Back to the Africa whose tired and poor were welcomed here in limited numbers but not beyond that.
As countless commentators note next to every such article, the only solution is restricting population growth, but not a one can suggest a means.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
4
Trump will welcome the Scandinavians with open arms. He even said so.
It is amazing how climate change has turned political. Just amazing. Our very survival has become a right wing conspiracy theory.
4
It is not about "our very survival." The planet and the species will survive just fine. A large portion of the US and Canada will benefit economically from longer growing seasons and milder winters. The vast majority of the world is in no danger from sea level change simply because of elevation. Characterizing global warming as an "end of mankind" crisis is part of the problem - it's not. It is, in fact, a political issue because it requires us to balance different priorities for different people. A billion people on the planet live without electricity (stop and think about that), and they could really benefit from very cheap carbon-based power. Those people are dirt poor and have life spans that are 20 years shorter than yours; and telling them to use expensive, high-tech solar energy is a bad joke. Balancing the needs and interests that favor cheap power against a very slow, and probably unavoidable (at this point) climate shift over the next 100-500 years is entirely a political calculus.
1
"tens of millions of children are at risk
well, someone has to ask: with such bleak conditions, why are you having tens of millions of children?
16
New Yorkers should study this carefully. Manhattan and Long Island also are islands with most of the current land surface not far above current sea level. Trump Tower may soon be reachable only by gondola with docking at the second floor. Functions at the winter White House in Palm Beach may be accessible only by those wearing diving gear.
3
Farmers who cannot support their families are not selling their male children into arranged marriages--just their daughters. A misyogynist culture is to blame for this practice, not climate change or poverty.
14
To be fair, that isn't an option for these people. Men provide the dowries, women receive them. I'd offer that we refrain from blaming the egregiously poor for actions which are largely predetermined by systems they have no influence over.
2
The history of mankind is based on its struggles against nature. At least mankind now has plenty to look forward to in keeping itself busy. I would really hate living in a world of nothing but couch potatoes, such sloth would be sickening to have to endure every day.
1
Hi, it's tough to read the impact of climate change on farming communities that live by the sea. While nature will take its own course, is there a way to help out girls like Munni Akter to continue with their education and not get married off until they are ready to do so and not be forced for financial reasons?
2
"It turns out that 99 percent of green sea turtles hatched in the northern Great Barrier Reef are now female, because their sex is determined by temperature."
Compelling. You can't really build your way out of impending disaster either. Remember Sandy?
3
This is the second piece in two days from the Times that mentioned drought and/or water as another cause of the Syrian Civil War. Unless someone can prove otherwise, the biggest cause of Middle East mess, was U.S. mis-adventures in Iraq.
3
The link between climate change and poverty & social unrest is overstated. The latter two would and do exist in the absence of climate change. Climate change does not result in 10 year old girls being married off. Socio-cultural mores are responsible. Articles like this give science reporting a bad name and feed the notion that climate change is a political belief.
9
I really dislike any implication that 'climate change' is the reason why young girls are being married off. My quotation marks are not to imply that climate change doesn't exist, but rather, that it is a complete disregard towards the value of females, that would make a family consider their daughter as a form of currency more or less. It's disgusting.
10
I am not surprised to find climate change at the root of the world’s troubles and President Trump responsible for it. It is no wonder that people scoff at the notion of climate change and laugh at the liberal media who promote this nonsense. Reality is bad enough without having to hype it.
Yes, this delta is a poor choice for a climate change example - but there are many other valid sites to choose from where drought or sea level rise flooding will cause a massive exodus.
Big picture - Republicans who refuse to combat climate change yet screech about immigration, are as illogical as Republicans who refuse to fund sex education in schools and contraception yet screech about abortion, and as illogical as Republicans who hate funding public schools but refuse to raise the minimum wage for undereducated workers and refuse to fund healthcare for poor children (fund CHIPS now!)
Let's take the GOP back to school in the 70s era - when computer flow charting was taught in school starting with IF...THEN..., to remind the GOP what we all know: actions, and lack of actions, have consequences.
6
The massive displacements of hordes of humans caused by rising seas is just one of the many reasons that the Pentagon has listed Climate Change as the #1 Threat to our National Security for over a decade now.
100,000 people is just the tip of that melting iceberg.
6
Bangladesh has been suffering with poverty for many years with stories of girls being married off at young ages and other poverty related issues. So it is really hard for me to read your column and connect it to climate change and mentioning Trump really made no sense. He has nothing to do with climate change even though he doesn’t believe in it and the fact is a good chunk of the world know not of Trump. The world has been cruel to the environment for years. Please enough of the stories of 13 yr old girls being married to 50 year olds which you have linked to many issues. We know them well.
You know, at this point I am weary of your stories and I have become deadened. I just about didn’t read your column when I saw 13 year old .....it’s like “who cares...we have enough problems here in America,
How about a column on updating us
“Everything you can do regarding climate change and the environment”
Or tell us what HAS been done. Eg: 3 different containers for litter, paper, cans in NYC, bike lanes, bike rentals by cities
Come on Kristoff throw us a bone.
3
The basic problem in Bangladesh and the entire region is overpopulation. No amount of scolding editorials will change this fact.
16
In a market, you should pay for what you get. Dumping waste, trash, and garbage into public area forces others to pay for your waste disposal. That is immoral and anti-market.
A carbon tax on fossil fuels at the point of extraction allows the market to price those fuels at what they actually cost to use.
Pay for what you get. That's the American way. Forcing others to pay for you is socialism.
2
Don't forget that Bangladesh is also on the Indian subcontinent and it's diving under the Asian plate. Downward aim, tucking under. Hence the Himalayas, due north and still rising.
Give us a call when waterfront home prices in Malibu and Provincetown start diving at the subcontinent's same downward angle.
2
Climate change driven wars are on their way, both abroad and within the U.S.
3
Why is animal agriculture never mentioned in these sort of articles? It is the number one source of pollution that leads to climate change. The West and other meat eating nations have to move to a diet heavier in plant based foods.
3
Please. If Kristof intends to continue to stray down this ridiculous global warming path - far from his area of expertise - then someone please insist that he take a few basic earth science courses.
Start, with one that covers the topic of subsidence related to the dewatering-related compaction of sediment in an active depositional fan.
6
Does the certain existence of ground subsidence automatically negate the existence of sea-level rise? Why does one preclude the other? Might you be harboring a political agenda in your selective appeal to the "facts"?
Columns like this tend to ignore the root cause of these and other problems: overpopulation! We have too many people on this planet already, and the trend is for it to worsen. It would be nice to see the nations of the world come together and put a moratorium on new births, using the free and wide distribution of birth control measures of all sorts. Zero or negative population growth should be the goal. Then, people like Munni will not be trapped into the wretched lifestyle that includes forced marriage at age 13. Alternatively, we can do nothing and a pandemic virus (natural or manmade) will come along and reduce the population for us, albeit with a lot more suffering than would be necessary if humans took a little control over their destiny.
14
Nick, appreciate your intent, but I've been a working scientist for too long to keep from being a little annoyed by the analysis.
4
Wow, what a story. Bangladesh will be added to the list of countries I don’t want to go.
What's that joke I heard - - who are the biggest climate change deniers? Miami real estate agents .
Surveys have show that most Americans agree that climate change is real BUT they don't think it will impact them. Stories of international suffering don't phase them, and certainly not the current administration. They don't even care about the local impact like worsening of storms, islands long the US coast shrinking.... they have their fingers in their ears, singing la la la la
2
Yet as of my writing a mere 78 comments have been made. Either people don't care about an island being swallowed up by the sea or the people and the real consequences affected by climate change.
1
Do you understand the difference between rising sea levels and land subsidence?
3
The deniers will never read this story, and even if they did, they would find a way to explain it away. Cognitive dissonance will wash this island and others away.
Whatever. Look, I see the US coastline every day. It has not moved! Cheers. May peace be with you.
2
Climate change deniers are anarchists. If their motivations were science based they would still support forest policies, efficiency, and new forms of energy production. These policies have no downside other than they might staunch the anarchists flames.
2
From the 2007 national security report by CNA Military Advisory Board:
"...the greatest concern will be
movement of asylum seekers and refugees who due to ecological devastation become settlers:
•By 2025, 40% of the world’s population
will be living in countries experiencing
significant water shortages.
•Over the course of this century, sea level
rise could potentially cause the displacement of tens of millions of people from low-lying areas such as Bangladesh"
”RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE
MILITARY ADVISORY BOARD:
1.The national security consequences of
climate change should be fully integrated
into national security and national
defense strategies.
2. The U.S. should commit to a stronger
national and international role to help
stabilize climate change at levels that will
avoid significant disruption to global
security and stability.
3. The U.S. should commit to global
partnerships that help less developed
nations build the capacity and resiliency
to better manage climate impacts.
4.The Department of Defense should
enhance its operational capability by
accelerating the adoption of improved
business processes and innovative technologies that result in improved U.S.
combat power through energy efficiency.
5. The Department of Defense should
conduct an assessment of the impact on
U.S. military installations worldwide..."
10 years later, the Trump administration ignores the impact of climate change as a threat to national security.
2
Like all of these stories in the Times, "rising seas" is referred to imprecisely. The actual rise in true sea level around the island is not specified. Other factors such as subsidence, natural erosion, and effect of manmade manipulation of shore are not discussed. We've seen this in articles about Louisiana and Virginia--where the "rising waters" are actually the "sinking land" or the erosion away of it. Yes, global warming is real; sea levels are rising--slowly, often more slowly than the dire predictions. Give us the actual facts if you want us all to accept your "science."
4
The example of Bangladesh is heart wrenching but unfortunately the damage done there and on other low lying land and islands is irreversible and now we must get serious about helping thousands of people.This should be on the United Nations agenda.Some nations have the option of moving population inland but islands like the Marshalls will have inhabitants stranded and will have to be evacuated.These areas where the ocean is reclaiming the land are remote and it is easy to ignore it, much less take responsibility for half hearted efforts to make climate change a number one priority.
I believe people reflexively deny climate change because they are mortally afraid of the solutions. If they admit to the problem, then the liberals will come take their cars. Until the fear is dealt with, the denials will continue.
1
Most Americans do not take climate change seriously. Yesterday, I used my cellphone to show two people the graph of historic temperature increase, which appeared in the Times. Their reactions were to smile and change the subject. One commented that we could use a little warming (the day's temp was in the 30's).
The reality is that Americans won't take climate change seriously and feel compelled to act until the Atlantic Ocean tides are washing the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, winter temperatures are in the triple digits from Maine to Washington, and hurricanes and tornadoes are part of the daily weather forecast.
2
Atlantic Ocean tides once covered the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains! Fossils of ocean creatures have been found buried in the soil. Can't find an article about that.
But this stunning NYT article with amazing pix and sketches of the USA's distant past shows the Pliocene epoch, roughly three million years ago.
"A scruffy crew of scientists barreled down a dirt road, their two-car caravan kicking up dust. After searching all day for ancient beaches miles inland from the modern shoreline, they were about to give up.
"Suddenly, the lead car screeched to a halt. Paul J. Hearty, a geologist from North Carolina, leapt out and seized a white object on the side of the road: a fossilized seashell. He beamed. In minutes, the team had collected dozens more.
"Using satellite gear, they determined they were seven miles inland and 64 feet above South Africa’s modern coastline."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/science/earth/seeking-clues-about-sea-...
As even these few comments show, nobody really knows the most important things about "climate change." It certainly provides an excellent platform for the political blowhards and the lunatic fringe. Even the most well-meaning of the "scientific" crowd add only glancing information about the future of this issue. It is clear that the virtually no progress is being made in the attempt to abate or reverse the perceived trend despite the many attempt to turn this issue into a moral battleground.
Not sure that Kristof knows this but the so called "scientific consensus" began to collapse in 2017 with 485 scientific papers published that cast doubt on the position that anthropogenic CO2 emissions function as the climate’s fundamental control knob…or that otherwise question the efficacy of climate models or the related “consensus” positions commonly endorsed by policymakers and mainstream media.
2
There is no sharing of polar bear photos after a sighting of one on video in the NYT, and there was quite an uproar when 'Pizza', a young cub was discovered at a shopping mall in China. I nearly got arrested for suggesting that he was being well looked after, and just wanted to make mince meat out his excited young audience. Whether he is lonely is another matter for bears to discuss.
It was not until working for WES (The Department of Water, Environment and Sanitation at UNICEF) that I started to realize that we take some life essentials for granted, and here is a link to a radio interview in Milwaukee in 2016 that you may not have heard; an acquaintance who travels the world on humanitarian assignments. http://wuwm.com/post/thursday-lake-effect-water-sanitation-sauvignon-bla...
Dr. Tobin, addressing global water resources and hygiene, may be on the mark when mentioning that we are being bombarded by so many messages at once, some conflicting ones, others confusing, that it was when President Obama, on leaving his term in office, told us to watch out for 'Fake News', pay attention to 'Climate Change' and waved 'Good Luck!' to the Press that this American was filled with a dark sense of foreboding.
However, he was also right about reminding us that the sun will rise and it is bright now, as I write. Keep up the good work, Mr. Kristof, some of us are listening, and trying if possible to make a contribution by deed and faith.
Like most eco-advocacy pieces, the author fails to note that 1 billion people live without electricity in the world, including 50 million in Bangladesh and 300 million in neighboring India (World Bank numbers). The rural poor in South Asia are not going to see the benefits of solar electricity and Teslas -
they're still hoping for refrigeration. Global warming is a political issue: do the green evangelists want to eliminate cheap energy for the world's poor, in a (probably futile) effort to postpone (but not eliminate) the impact of a slowly changing climate? Given the choice between cheap carbon-powered electricity and the gradual flooding of coastal areas, which way to you think Bangladesh's population would vote?
The issue is not as stark in the US and Canada, but it is still political. Economic studies (Science, et al) show that more than half of the US and Canada will likely experience a positive economic impact from climate change. Longer growing seasons and shorter winters, combined with no low coastal areas, means that over 50% of the US and most of Canada will experience a net benefit from a warmer climate.
6
You describe this as a "slowly changing climate"?!
Are you kidding?! Even if it were a choice between land and electricity, what good would electricity do Bangladeshis if there is no land for them to live on? And despite your flip attitude, solar electrical cost has come down in price to rival coal, and is already going into use in India.
And as for the US benefiting overall from global warming, tell that to the residents of Houston. Tell it to Miami residents who are already dealing with flooding, and will quite possibly see their city (and indeed much of their state) disappear within the next few decades. Not so much of LA will likely be flooded, but the whole place may dry up and blow away from lack of rain, along with much of the Southwest.
But yeah, the benefits of global warming far outweigh the losses, and we should welcome our slow destruction. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
SRM,
You betcha lack of electricity is political. Ask the 1.5 million Puerto Rico American citizens who still are being ignored and are without power 5 months after a hurricane!!
Shame on this administration.
Climate change is one of the reasons we have more conflicts in the world. We all need clean water to drink, shelter on land that is livable, food, clean air to breathe, and so on. Countries that are larger or located where climate change isn't as visible as it is on islands are lucky. Those countries can ignore it or claim that the science is wrong. If we wait long enough we'll find out that the science is right but it will be too late to change anything or to help.
We can help with some of the issues by not stopping people in all countries from receiving family planning services. It's that or the planet becomes more overpopulated and we ourselves cause a cataclysm that eliminates our species. And we can have our cake and eat it too if we enforce environmental regulations, keep on researching new ways to fuel our electronics and our machines because all of this will create jobs. That we, in America, don't want to do this is to our discredit and ignorance. We will pay the price at some point.
57
The changes the US and other developed nations need to make to slow climate change are sensible even if you don't think the problem is man-made.
Fossil fuels WILL run out. Extracting them, whether as gas or coal or petroleum is getting more expensive and destructive. Air contaminants from fossil fuels, beyond carbon, are damaging to health.
Meanwhile, solar and wind power are getting better and more competitive. (ask the Chinese, who are leading with these technologies) Battery technology is moving ahead quickly.
Energy efficiency — in vehicles, in lighting, heating and cooling — is given short shrift, but it has a big impact on usage, and can go much further.
Stubbornly insisting that combating climate change is costly or ineffective makes no sense.
4
Liz, you are making the assumption that our politicians are more concerned with public welfare and a clean environment than their personal wealth and staying in power. It's very simple, the fossil fuel lobby is in their back pocket and your dealing with spineless greedy nihilists in pursuit of the vile maxim.
They know what they are doing is going to kill the planet and cause famine and suffering for billions of people. They know it's better for American to use clean energy and create a clean energy economy.
Mr. Kristof, there are plenty of more compelling examples that illustrate the devastating impact of climate change and rising seas -- like the island in Chesapeake Bay that's slowly going under the waves and is NOT sinking (yet most of the residents stubbornly refuse to believe that it has anything to do with climate, despite overwhelming evidence -- kind of like a lot of commenters here). What your article does highlight is overpopulation, which to me is the world's greatest threat. It's at the root of many of our dire problems, and climate change is just one of them.
25
One cause of climate change gets little coverage, population growth. Folks in third world countries may lack cars and air conditioners, but not lots of children. So are all part of the problem.
23
Right on man! Now I won't waste a single moment feeling guilty for using three times or more the energy and resources (and therefore carbon emissions) than an entire VILLAGE of people in third world countries! It's all their fault those selfish little people.
1
How? Just because there are more children does not change the carbon footprint. It just means there is less of everything for each member of the family, most particularly the girls. I am not arguing against population control, but your comment reeks of spoiled entitlement.
1
Having more children does change the carbon footprint. When we humans breathe, we inhale oxygen (along with other gases) and exhale carbon dioxide. Same for cattle, sheep, dogs, cats......all creatures with lungs.
1
The 3-year Bangladesh study about an increase of girls forced into marriage young is alarming and sad, and yet another facet of climate change that most of us don't consider. Our Department of Defense has recognized and is preparing for the climate changes and the political disruption they might cause. I hope the DOD will continue to see climate change as a threat and a risk to national security in spite of its current Commander-in-Chief.
2
But paying carbon offsets will fix this problem, right?
How many Times readers have curtailed their air travel?
You like to wring your hands but very few people make any personal sacrifices. And if you did, would you see any result from it?
Probably the gigantic population in this fragile state has something to do with their predicament.
9
Right on. Everybody who gripes but makes no attempt on a personal level to curtail their own CO2 contribution is at least partially complicit. This is a battle that we can ALL fight on a micro level and flying less -- or not at all -- is a great start.
1
Stories like this will only become more common in the coming days. But we won't really care until it's Manhattan, or Boston, or one of ours.
We in the US are mostly responsible for this catastrophe, and yet we in the US just continue on as if nothing is happening...
3
So true, Mr. Freeman, and yet these life stories and panoramas need to be written and displayed. Mr. Kristof, among his other work, represents The Voice of Humanity among others, and perhaps reading of these, it makes us more humane. By a recent account in the NYT, food waste in America is estimated at $145 B annually, and if you mention were to mention this in passing, the reaction is much the same in 'not surprised'.
Although the sea level is slowly rising the real cause here is these islands are sinking because of land use (embankments) and local conditions:
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/embankments-are-sinking-banglad...
10
Thanks for the link. Seems that Mr. Kristof was unaware of it, or if he was aware, decided his science is better.
2
There are many oceanic islands that would be submerged when, and if, the sea level rises by another meter.
No, everyone, please do not spend a portion of our limited carbon budget to visit this island. Instead, spend your time and our carbon budget getting yourself to your elected official's office to demand action on the clean energy transition and out in the street to protest delayed action on climate. I've heard people say they want to fly (spend a piece of our carbon budget) to see the coral reef before it dies, or take a cruise int he melting arctic. We do need these stories and photographs, so a visit by a journalist makes sense. But don't feed our individualistic consumer mentality by telling people to visit. Some may take the headline in a figurative sense, but I have seen many boutique travel pieces in this publication, some written by Mr. Kristof, so the mentallity of having to see for yourself it real.
1
Thanks NYT - I learnt that farmers who lose their land due to climate change (whether sea level rise, desertification, floods or otherwise) tend to marry off their female children as young as 10 to older men. Horrifying. Please provide more portraits of international communities affected by climate change.
3
Yes, climate change is real and rising waters, combined with subsidence, will affect Bangladesh.
The exploding population of Bangladesh remains a real problem and perhaps outpaces the environmental ones. Compared to many other Asian countries, Bangladesh lags way behind in population control. The average age of women marrying has not gone up, the percentage of elderly is exploding, and the birth rate is still wat above population replacement levels.
It may be that failure to control the population growth will cause as much or more harm to Bangldesh than eroding coastlines.
13
I agree with Factoid. Population explosion is the biggest threat to the planet. It's poor, uneducated people who are causing the explosion. We need to put the spotlight on population growth and propose solutions to its control.
8
I don't see how putting cinder blocks on the beach provides any benefit.
1
Yet again, nothing from Mr Kristoff about the need to regulate our global population growth.
One thing that most climate change deniers and climate chsnge activists have in common is the resolute refusal of each group to talk about global population and global population growth. Currently, there are about 7.4 billion of us. By the mid century, there will be almost ten billion humans on this planet.
if there is climate change, which there is, and if if is caused by humans, which it is, then the more humans there are the worse will be the effects of human production and consumption on global warming.
The refusal of both sides to talk about population numbers is significant. It epitomises the narrow political discourse on so many major issues that most mainstream, middle of the road voters in every country care about.
On the one hand, we have barking mad right wingers, like Trump reborn, and his angry base. Plus all the Republican fellow travellers eager to retain their sinecures as Senators and Congressmen and Congresswomen.
On the other, we have the well meaning and noisy handwringers, arching and contorting to try to avoid offending any one of the countless groups waiting in gleeful anticipation to be offended.
Most of us are sick of this state of affairs — but we don’t have a voice. Neither the NYT nor Breitbart represents us, recognises us, or is willing to listen to us.
14
There are only two possible outcomes, in very general terms.
1) global warming, its consequences, and its complications leave the human population much smaller, at levels too low to generate additional warming. This means many of us either die early or fail to reproduce (or theoretically we could leave the planet by other means). Civilization contracts, and we go back to pre-industrial population sizes.
2) We find a way to maintain human growth while actively REVERSING the causes of global warming. Just slowing down the process would be inadequate, if the population still grows. This would mean we break the causal connection between human societies and net CO2 expulsion. Plant way more trees in or near populated areas, built photolysis of water and photosynthesis of energy substrates into everything we make, develop computers powered by light, that produce oxygen.
And then stop burning black crystals and goop to power civilization.
2
I am not a scientist. I have no independent knowledge or expertise regarding climate change. I am not an economist nor am I a military expert. What qualifies me to be president is that I am willing to listen and learn.
It is hard to believe that anything short of disaster of epic proportions will convince GOP "leaders" that there is more to learn than what we knew in 1952. Until I see a GOP "leader" willing to open his or her mind and learn it is hard to imagine voting for one.
Tax cuts have failed for 35 years. A good guy with a gun is not better than bad guys without them. Gay people marrying do not harm my 37 year marriage. Removing 9 million children from health care is not a good thing. Environmental protections gave done enormous good in this country. I live on the Hudson River. I see that good every day.
None are so blind......
2
Within 50 years, the dominant source of power worldwide will be solar. Relax.
1
indeed and probably sooner, i saw (bbc?) a video that was showing farmers in afghanistan using solar panels powered pumps to irrigate their fields (including poppy fields!) and texas is already using a lot of wind turbines to produce its electricity.
Nobody doubts climate change. Some doubt the cause. If scientists can't even produce an accurate forecast of tomorrow's weather, how can they be so sure about the cause of climate change?
1
How about if we let actual scientists weigh in on this one? You are suggesting that all of our research into climate over the last 4 decades is as good as nothing. It actually is much harder to forecast day-to-day fluctuations in weather than it is to track long-term trends, and the science says the long-term trends are unmistakable.
1
Want to know more about sea level rise in the United States? Check out this book, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore (https://milkweed.org/book/rising)
Harvey. Maria. Irma. Sandy. Katrina. We live in a time of unprecedented hurricanes and catastrophic weather events, a time when it is increasingly clear that climate change is neither imagined nor distant—and that rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways.
In this highly original work of lyrical reportage, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place. Weaving firsthand accounts from those facing this choice—a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago—with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of the communities both currently at risk and already displaced, Rising privileges the voices of those usually kept at the margins.
At once polyphonic and precise, Rising is a shimmering meditation on vulnerability and on vulnerable communities, both human and more than human, and on how to let go of the places we love.
climate change is increasingly horrible. we all need to make more 'sacrifices' in our dependance on material possessions. the little things like bring your own bag, bring your own container, buy in bulk, use vinegar and water to clean, turn off the tap when you do the dishes, park once and walk...of course we need the governments involvement but if each one of us really considers our actions we can make a difference. don't eat junk food. make your own private mission, with family or friends, to reduce, reuse and recycle. to take action. our economy needs to shift. if our wants change then a new economy will arise. we have to go for it, we have to change. its scary but not bad at all, actually it is good.
While these smaller measures are good, action also needs to be taken on a national level by electing people to government who will take climate change seriously and promote research, development, manufacture and use of alternative forms of energy. Our nation is falling way behind other nations in this regard and we will be the poorer for it.
No evidence - at all - that this is rising sea levels and not sinking land. The first is a global problem; the second decisively local, caused by pumping, dams, construction and other factors. The land is also sinking in Venice, and the east coast of the US, e.g. Miami. In all these places, climate change may slightly exacerbate existing problems but it is not the primary cause of these difficulties. In other places, the land is rising - most notably the south coast of England and the Swedish/Danish archipelago in the Baltic. There, rising sea levels slow the apparent retreat of the seas, but again, only slightly. Better fact checking please!
1
Climate change only matters in wealthy industrialized countries. The 1% rule the world and this also is the case when it comes to countries. Out of sight, out of mind only lasts so long before it affects everyone on a massive scale. We are heading full speed ahead into this abyss as money and greed still rules our lives over everything else.
1
Sadly, I do not think that anyone other than the most die-hard Trump voter or hack environmentalist seriously denies climate change. That is not the issue, I fear. The fact is that there is incredible wealth to be extracted under that melting ice cap, plus the possibility of increasingly available low-cost northern sea routes, with Murmansk poised to become a leading port of the world. Who profits? As always, follow the money.
37
There are a number of issues that are not addressed here and need badly to be addressed.
1.) Yes, one of the contributing factors is indeed a rise of ocean levels due to climate change, but in this case it is a minor factor.
2.) Most of the inhabited areas of Bangladesh are swampland and areas that have been created by sand that comes from rivers. These island are, for their very reason of existence, temporary at best, an issue that has been known for centuries. There is no stable land in the coastal regions of Bangladesh and still everyone is trying to settle in these regions.
3.) One of the reasons for island sinking into the ocean is massive overuse of ground water as there are no water pipelines anywhere. So people simply pump their own ground empty and are thus lowering the foundation of their own islands.
4.) The Bangladeshi government does not do anything to stabilize the coast lines or prevent loss of land. Nearly 100% of the projects are done by foreign NGOs and governments, nearly none from Muslim brother countries.
5.) The local government has an "Allah willing" or "Inshallah" approach to planning, meaning that there is no plan whatsoever for this country. The only thing that works is corruption.
So, while we learn that the climate change is one small factor in the problem, most of the reasons for these problems are locally made by people who have no plan whatsoever.
Selling one's daughters into marriage also is a well established and accepted local custom.
62
As my father often said, the answer to every question is money. Do you really believe that educated republican office holders don't believe in the connection between fossil fuel use and climate change?
Do you really believe that these same politicians don't believe in evolution?
They are willing to endanger the health and wellbeing of their children for financial contributions or votes from the uninformed.
5
One part of this equation that Nicholas misses is shrimp farming. Shrimp to feed the wealthy in rich countries, such as the USA. Shrimp farming needs brackish water which hurts the land for growing crops. Shrimp farming also pollutes the water. And there is less water because India is diverting more of it and less is reaching Bangladesh.
So, there are many factors hurting the poor of Bangladesh...climate change forcing rising seas and more powerful cyclones are only part of the problem. That doesn't mean we should ignore climate change...as the prediction for 2100 is a 3 ft increases in sea level which would be devastating around the world.
1
I, for one, have great confidence that we're not going to have to rely on President Trump and other political leaders across the world to help reduce carbon emissions. Mass adoption of the electric car plus an increase in nuclear power will have a far greater impact than any political action.
1
Once again, thank you Nicholas Kristof for an excellent example of this ongoing global crisis. Having worked on climate change problems for 20 years as a scientist/engineer, the one overwhelming tragic fact I have observed about society's response to climate change is that we will do nothing until the water is up to our neck. Then we will begin to blame everyone around us and expect an immediate solution. There are individual and group exceptions but they are few and far between.
45
A quick survey of literature on sea levels impact on Bangladesh coastal regions reveals that the rise in mean sea level, by itself, is a minor factor. More significant is tidal range amplification, caused mostly by construction of river embankments. So even though there have been minor increases in mean sea level, the increase in high tide levels has been more dramatic.
7
Please don't confuse the evangelists with data. The proper form of evidentiary proof is "anecdote." Get with the program.
Not a word in the article about the impact of living without electricity, which the World Bank estimates is true for 35% of the people in Bangladesh (and 20% of the population in India). Would the people of south Asia prefer a lifetime without electricity, or a shoreline that rises 1000 yards in 50 years?
But why should we care? It's America first. Everyone else be damned,
Besides global warming is a Chinese hoax. China must be digging underneath the island to sink it, to perpetuate the hoax.
10
Sadly, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. There are many people, including prominent politicians (an obvious one comes to mind), who would have no issue proclaiming this as truth.
2
Hey, what do we care? All those folks live in holes or houses, depending on which lame explanation you want to believe.
And in all likelihood, we have advanced too far to preserve much of anything for people who live a foot above sea level. But we will not do anything to face the reality that a person displaced is one who will emigrate, legally or not, to countries that have food and water available. People are like that.
If we are going to solve the problem globally, look to China or Europe, because for a generation, America has been run by people who are hell bent at mining the wealth out of the system, in 90 day cycles, with no concept of long term sustainability. They will never be the ones - with the exception of our fearless leader and his beloved Mar-a-Lago - with fish swimming at their feet.
You have to want to look at the future and conserve the present to care enough to act now. We are looking at finding ways to mine our National Parks, and cut off health care to children if we don't get our won way. The future doesn't matter here.
14
Global climate change is real, but we need to point out what the keyword "global" means. Too often, we have the lazy, uninformed, and downright malicious who use snowballs to say it ain't so. The USA is not the globe. The southern hemisphere is largely oceanic, so we won't hear to many complaints from the waves, but in Australia, whole colonies of some animals are dying of the heat. However, we can always depend on Kristoff to find sad stories--many of them far away. I'm not saying charity begins at home, but I am saying that if anything is to touch the hard hearts of the McConnells and Ryans it won't be tales from Bangladesh. Hit them with facts from home. We've just had record rainfall in the South. Now we have record cold. It's all connected. And it costs a bundle. Do they care? Not so long as they can divert money from the poor and the middle class!
5
The denialists, armed with talking points from the fossil fuel industry, have already moved the goalposts to "it's not anthropogenic."
When that fails, it will be "We just have to adapt." Which they think is just fine, because - as Mr. Kristof details here - it's other people who will have to do the adapting.
We can expect action - maybe - when the millionaires and billionaires start losing their beachfront properties. Until then, they think it's not their problem.
9
I don’t deny climate change. In fact, climate change has been occurring as long as we have had a climate, for over 4 billion years. Anyone who thinks climate change is something new is denying the science behind billions of years of climate change. Nor do I deny that global warming is a significant driver of current climate change. Earth has been getting warmer and the ice caps and glaciers have been melting for over 20,000 years when the last glacial maximum occurred. Because the ice is melting the oceans are rising. I also have no doubt that human beings are impacting the atmosphere and having some effect on climate change—there are over 7 billion us--of course we are impacting our environment. None of that, however, means that CO2 admissions are a thermostat by which we can adjust the Earth’s temperature. What is the precise mathematical relationship between CO2 admissions and temperature? We don’t really know. The entire alarmist theory is based on the idea that even though CO2 has a limited and decreasing impact on temperatures, they will trigger forcing mechanism. The models that employ these forcing mechanism have consistently been wrong--because of the forcing mechanisms. Most importantly, nothing Donald Trump has said or done has any correlation with rising sea levels in Bangladesh. Despite hysterics to the contrary, nobody would be saved by Trump suddenly confessing faith in Climate Change orthodoxy.
8
@Charles: ""The entire alarmist theory is based on the idea that even though CO2 has a limited and decreasing impact on temperatures, they will trigger forcing mechanism." That is totally wrong: "alarmist" is wrong by comparing predictions with actual changes; "limited and decreasing" is wrong by elementary physics; "based on ... forcing" is wrong by paying attention to descriptions of the models.
4
@Thomas Z.: You can read the paper admitting that forcing mechanisms were overstated in the models in a paper authored by "climate science" royalty, including the notorious Michael Mann, here: http://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2973. Here is the key quote: "We conclude that model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations." Contrary to your naïve view the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and temperature is not "elementary" physics. The relationship is not a one for one ratio. CO2 is a relatively weak greenhouse gas, and at a given point each additional unit of CO2 has a weaker effect on the greenhouse effect than the previous unit. Of course, if I am wrong, you can just tell me the precise mathematical relationship between tropospheric temperatures and atmospheric CO2 content. You can make the formula as complex as you like, but please state something quantitative, and maybe even present evidence that the formula has proven predictive.
3
"Nobody would be saved by Trump suddenly confessing faith in Climate Change orthodoxy."
Not true. A big part of leadership is simply acknowledging that a problem exists and, as a more general matter, being willing to deal with reality. Trump is not. Instead, Trump indulges in and encourages the adoption of realities that fit his personal whims and goals at any given time. Case in point, his "wall." At a rally, the wall is decidedly physical, very great and large and Mexico pays for it. On the other hand, in a public meeting of Congress, the U.S. taxpayer pays for the wall. Furthermore, in a smaller meeting between Trump and lawmakers, the wall may not even be physical, but is a general term for sensors and border security.
Right now, an acknowledgement of Climate Change orthodoxy is in conflict with Trump's love for the coal industry, and on that basis, "climate change is a Chinese hoax." Off-shore drilling for oil is also perfectly acceptable, until it might impact Trump's Florida properties, which is why a tailor-made whole in that little reality had to be made. A leader needs to be at least partially grounded in some objective reality and understanding of the world around them. Trump simply is not.
1
They say that God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland. I would imagine that, using existing techniques, the Dutch could push the sea back several miles from the Bangladeshi shorelines and, at the same time, could increase the amount of farmland. Maybe someone should give them a call.
3
Nature is going to take its course. Human beings cannot prevent encroachment of the ocean by artificial, manmade means and structures. Nature is the most powerful force on earth.
The people who are filling these sandbags and making these concrete blocks are wasting their time, money and other resources. Nature has already adapted to humankind by creating climate change, etc. In the short and longer term, humankind cannot adapt to Nature.
Populations will gradually withdraw and withdraw to whatever solid ground and land remains on the earth. Life will be quite congested and packed like sardines. There will be no "elbow room." Except for folks to try to elbow one another out of the way. Life is a diminishing process.
7
Every year there is a new "beach replenishment" program going on along various communities up and down Fire Island. Every winter a lot of the replenishment -- sand, beach grass, plastic covering, fencing -- gets washed away and the process starts over, to who knows how many hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Clearly this is going to continue until the cost outweighs the benefit, but it's already seeming pretty pointless.
1
That's the American spirit! Resign ourselves to life diminished. Sit back and wait for the inevitable. Give up, do nothing, just let the rising seas wash over us.
Right? Or wrong?
Bangladesh is about the size of the state of Wisconsin. Yet the Bangladesh population has grown by over 100 million people since 1970. If Bangladesh had adopted a one-chile policy similar to China's, Bangladesh would have been in a much better position to adapt to a warming world.
24
Easy for you to say. How about we adopt a one-child policy here in the US?
No, you say?
Why them, then? What's good for the goose...
But, maybe they're the "other," so, even though they did nothing to cause climate change, they have to sacrifice having children to it, while we feed our addiction to greed and fossil fuels?
Heads up, anti-abortion activists, your opposition to freedom of choice might very well pave the way for such a policy in the US... That *would* be ironic, wouldn't it?
The US population growth is largely migrant driven. That being said adopting such a policy in the US would be a great sign of leadership in the world. One child per family would do a lot more than raving about SUVs.
2
Yes, but will shutting down U.S. coal mines make up for the 3 billion people in East Asia burning coal for heat and American factories that were moved to East Asia to escape American pollution control efforts?
And, Mr. Kristoff, when you reduce your carbon footprint to the size of mine or that of a W. Virginia coal miner's family let us know.
6
The carbon products in the ground were once in the atmosphere.
China’s coal consumption has continued to decline over the last several years despite increasing energy consumption.
As we said back in the day - this is a cop-out.
Justifying inaction when you know action is necessary because someone else isn't taking action is as foolish as it is irresponsible.
We know that action on climate change is necessary; instead of sitting on our duffs complaining because others aren't acting, we should be leading the way as a country united, not just as isolated individuals, finding ways to help those others to contribute as best they can.
And we were, as best as we could in the face of Republicans in the thrall of clinate change deniers, under President Obama.
Now those very same Republicans, with the addition of Donald Trump, are making our country weak again and the effects of climate change more inevitable and dangerous.
Now the only thing that the US leads in is folly and irresponsibility.
1
"In contrast, the United States accounts for more than one-quarter of cumulative carbon emissions since 1850, more than twice as much as any other country."
Are we living in the last, or the previous to last century? How disingenuous to cherry pick facts & pass them off to the casual reader as the current situation.
What about England, the British Empire its current offshoots like Bangladesh during the same period of time?
1
It's shocking to see how many of these comments still -- however obliquely -- question the certainty of climate change and/or the principal role played by fossil fuels. Or the parsing of selective data to poke holes in a phenomenon that is indubitable when the data is viewed in its entirety. Also the myopic obsession with discrediting THIS particular potential symptom of it...as if that lessens the portent of the larger crisis. Of course people should move if their very existence is in jeopardy. And of course civilizations must adapt if their habitats are, too. But unless we address the root cause with a massive shift away from a carbon-fueled lifestyle and economy, the impacts will overwhelm humanity's ability to respond. The Citizen's Climate Lobby's proposal of a broad carbon fee on fossil fuel extraction with ALL of the proceeds returned to the populace in order to fund their own personal adaptations is the best and only market-based proposal on the table. Every year that we squander dickering about the details and the politics instead of bringing concrete measures like it to bear moves us closer to a post-Apocalyptic climate for our heirs that will be unrecognizably miserable.
11
Look guys, I believe in climate change and support all the efforts to limit emissions. But why do articles keep appearing about land lost to geological subsidence?? That has nothing to do with climate change.
I come from Norfolk Virginia where the sea has been gradually overtaking the land ever since a great meteorite impact fractured the bedrock millennia ago. This has nothing to do with climate change, and yet the articles appear. Please recognize the existence of geology.
7
Thanks for highlighting these issues - this is an important early perspective on what's going to be happening to millions upon millions of people. I must add that it's frustrating that this article doesn't contain basic facts, like how much the sea level has risen, how much the island has sunk (and why that's happening), and (given the title) how much longer the remaining land on the island is projected to remain above sea level.
1
Over just the next 25 years, the total amount of fossil fuel CO2 emitted since about 1800 will increase by 50%, just to meet demand that is already locked in.
2
@Steve Bolger: Unless we (the U.S.) follow China's lead (sad to say) and hurry the adoption of non-carbon energy sources, which are now available at a reasonable price.
Sinking land and higher water levels are causing problems worldwide and they are not phenomena that can be changed. They are happening right now. Witness the coastal states around America. Witness the inland flooding in the Houston area after the hurricane. Delta areas are no longer safe places to build.
No one wants to see people's homes and livelihoods destroyed but sandbagging against nature is futile in the long-term. The people of Kutubdia have no options but to move to higher ground and the same can be sain for the people in Houston. Cruel necessity, yes, but what other options exist?
4
We need a way to keep this devastation on people's minds unremittingly. We need to be aware of our responsibility in this world and the many ways we can work to help these people's and fight against climate change.
Climate change deniers: "It was cold today; therefore climate change is false."
Climate change enthusiasts: "It was hot today; therefore climate change is real."
I thought climate change was something that occurred slowly and gradually over a long period of time. No educated person is denying that the planet is warming due to human intervention, but pointing to an isolated occurrence that took place in a relatively very short span of modern human history is not going to convince any naysayers to change their opinions.
2
You're right - seemingly, they won't even believe the evidence of their own eyes.
The truth needs to be told, nevertheless.
All those words, and not one factual syllable devoted to the premise. How much has sea level risen there? At what rate? Over what period?
7
The problem is that climate change "skeptics" now have a hard time to dispute the fact, so they position themselves with "climate change is real, but human contribution is small", "climate change is real, but actually not a bad thing, because the positives will outweigh the negatives", or "climate change is real, but there's really nothing we can do about it".
1
The root cause of all global environmental problems, including any effect of humans on the climate of the planet, is overpopulation, but as this article illustrates there is no leadership to address it. As the global population increases from 7.4 to some 10 billion carbon-generating human heaters this century, the inevitable results include toxic pollution, birth and genetic defects, disease, warfare, and massive social upheaval.
35
Absolutely agree. I'm not sure why these consequences are surprising or negative. This is the natural result of too many people and not enough resources, along with other outcomes such as war and famine. These events will lead to an eventual equilibrium for the planet, which we haven't reached yet. Global population may have to grow by billions more before people everywhere begin to self-impose reproductive limits.
6
OK, so how do YOU propose to solve the over population problem? C'mon, tell us!
1
MNS,
Simply wait and do nothing. The over population problem will solve itself. You may not like “nature’s solution” however.
1
This paragraph compares two different metrics. The per capita emission rate for Bangladesh is compared to the historical market share of the United States. While the underlying point is valid, the power of the argument is diminished by the innumeracy in the statement. In fact, I would wager that referencing the per capita emission rate of the United States would make just a strong base for the argument while tying impacts to current behavior.
"Forsyth said the average Bangladeshi produces just one-tenth of the global average in annual per-capita carbon emissions. In contrast, the United States accounts for more than one-quarter of cumulative carbon emissions since 1850, more than twice as much as any other country."
3
12 words: "The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain", the 1995 Hugh Grant vehicle.
2
Sea level is rising at a rate of about 16 inches per century. It is likely that most of the problem in BanglaDesh is the result of subsidence.
It's a river delta. Deltas are renewed, and the land rises, as a result of the deposition of river sediment. That requires annual flooding, which people prevent with levees. Don't blame everything on climate change, which is only a minor contributor.
There is no evidence a drought in Madagascar has anything to do with climate change. Droughts occurred before anthropogenic climate change, and there is no evidence that their rate has increased. Where abundant data exist (in the U.S.), research (of which I am a co-author) has shown no trend in their frequency over the last 50 or more years.
Jonathan Katz
Professor of Physics
Washington University
St. Louis, Mo.
59
Hilarious -- and from a physics professor. However, some here will argue that you're not specifically a climatology PhD working as a weatherman on WINS news, despite having written on this subject. Besides, St. Louis has racist pockets, so anything coming from that venue is suspect.
12
Katz does not deny that Anthropogenic Climate Change exists. And Katz does not deny that rising oceans are the result of Climate Change. And while his research may not have identified a connection with increasing occurrences of drought in the US, there is plenty of research that shows increasing occurrences of flooding. So...article mentions a problem with flooding in Bangladesh...and that will be exacerbated by climate change.
Katz sticks his neck out when he claims that subsidence is a bigger issue than rising seas. Or that levees are preventing deposition on the land from flooding to a significant extent. Point to research that backs that up, otherwise it is speculation.
There are island nations in the South Pacific that are doomed by rising oceans...those islands are definitely not sinking. The combination of rising temperatures and sea levels will prevent building coral reefs from holding off the ocean.
8
Speaking of data, the 4 hottest years in the history of the world were 2014,15,16, and 17. What makes you think "16 inches per century", perhaps a historic fact ( I don't have time to check), is going to continue into a warming future? For most of the last century, icecaps were mostly stable, and glaciers were reliable sources of melt water each year for millions of people. Now the ice caps and glaciers are rapidly receding. Picking one piece of data, and mindlessly using it to cast doubt on the worldwide consensus of science is a tired and cynical tactic of defenders of the fossil fuel economy.
8
Blaming every change to which human harm can be seen is one of the major reasons many pay less attention to the alarms of climate change advocates. Here subsidence is more likely than sea level rise. Bangladesh is notrious for problems with too much water and so many people living in areas often flooded with monsoonal flows. It is well known and preceded the alarms over clobal cooling in the late 60's and 70's.
Yes we have climate change; yes, some of it is most likely due to carbon emissions. But using stories like this to shame those who think more carefully about is a turn off.
45
The Nile Delta is another highly populated region where subsidence caused by water wells is exacerbated by sea level rise.
There are about a billion people who are certain to be affected this century just based on current trends. Then there is another billion where desertification and temperature elevation threaten to make them uninhabitable.
9
The amount of global warming due to human causes is over 100%, because without our carbon emissions the world would be in a cooling trend, and our own particulate pollution partially cools us as well. As shown here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/
To gain some perspective, since the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago, sea levels have risen about 140 meters, roughly the length of one and a half football fields. The rise was steep until about 7,000 years ago, then leveled off. Over the last 120 years, sea levels have risen about 20 cm or 8 inches. The rise over this last period seems to have been fairly steady, some years up and some down, but overall an upward trend. Generally speaking, the sea on earth appears to be too big for the height to undergo drastic changes over short (100 years) periods of time.
But if people are worried about rising sea levels in certain places, they should move. Or they should use technology to lessen or eliminate any adverse effects, if that's possible. No one orders anyone to settle in a delta, or a flood plain or on a shore or island, and though in the past humans did not understand fully what was going on, today they more or less do.
So deal with it. That's what adults do. And if it's too difficult for us to correct climate change that we believe to be negative for us, we have to do something else: adapt.
28
Poor people tend to live on river deltas (low lying land) because that is where the soil tends to be the most fertile, and are reluctant to move because they are doing subsistence farming. IOW, they grow enough to feed themselves and their families, but not much more.
Saying these people should just move is heartless, and shows no understanding of the situation. Where do you propose they move to? Other areas of their country don't have land that is as fertile, and areas that are fertile are most likely owned by other people. What exactly do you suggest?
1
What are we living for? To stuff the Earth with people like a telephone booth packed with fraternity pledges?
1
Yes! I mean, obviously the people in this story are well off and can do such a thing. And, the whole world is excited to accept immigrants! And, so many people are really super happy to leave the only home they have ever known. No problem. I don't know why we didn't think of this before.
2
How much carbon did Nick spend to visit this little island and then misreport on the reason for losing land. There is a big difference between subsidence and sea rise. Subsidence occurs many major coastal or near coastal cities and accounts for much more land loss than sea level rise.
20
...and your scientific evidence that Bangladesh is subsiding and that the sea level rise does not account for the lost land is where? Citations form peer reviewed journals anxiously awaited.
2
Whining Ralphie apparently can't stand to read stories about people losing their homes and livelihoods because the ocean is coming ashore. Subsidence and sea rise produce the same results. But Ralphie draws the distinction with a difference just as ammosexuals scold anyone who can't tell, in deep technical detail, the difference between a rifle that is semi-automatic and an identical appearing rifle that is fully automatic.
2
ach -- burden of proof lies with Nick -- he says this proves CC -- and slides in an acknowledgement that the land is also sinking -- well how much of the land loss and agricultural loss is due to climate change, how much to subsidence, how much to other factors like poor land mgmt etc.
Stephen -- surely you understand that while to those who are undergoing severe weather or erosion of land etc. that the cause makes little difference to them... BUT, it does make a huge difference as to what the rest of the world does. And I would remind you that India and China are putting out more total CO2 than the US -- in fact it is emerging nations that are driving increases in carbon emissions.
It may be more productive to discuss pollution, rather than vague contentious problems like aggregate climate. India is an especially polluted LDC--like China, Russia, parts of Mexico and West Africa, for example. Air and water pollution levels can be seen, felt and measured. Focusing on pollution gets at the causal elements in climate and warming. Focusing on warming and change is focusing on the symptom, rather than the cause but it does provide much political currency). India also hosts an over-populated land mass, and population policy is inherent to its ability to recover and prosper environmentally. Moreover, the very interesting and central opportunity resides in retiring and replacing last-generation technology in energy and transportation; and in infrastructure investment such as waste water treatment. Of course, a key unresolved aggravating element remain the worlds military and para-military operations, which are exempt from any pollution controls or climate protocols.
35
China's one child policy made its transition to a modern economy possible.
6
This simply isn't true. Burning any fossil fuel releases carbon dioxide, which leads to more global warming. Air 'pollution' is caused by the release of pollutants such as particulates, hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Installation of efficient boilers and furnaces and use of standard pollution control equipment on discharge stacks can remove the bulk of all of these standard pollutants, but will not impact global warming, because they don't remove carbon dioxide. High quality piping systems and leak monitoring can substantially reduce natural gas (methane) emissions from oil/gas production and distribution and manufacturing. Since methane is a global warming gas, this will reduce the rate of global warming. As of today, removal of the carbon dioxide produced by combustion is not economically feasible, so carbon dioxide emissions march in lock-step with combustion of fossil fuels.
According to an article in the Guardian, sea level rise in the portion of Bangladesh nearest to this island has been about 6" over the past 20 years. (Interestingly, that's 3 times as much as for all of Bangladesh and 5 times the world average. Other than the impact of tides, I'm not sure how the oceans can be rising faster in some areas than others.)
The real problem here is that the land is sinking and that issue dwarfs the impact of sea level rise. In his fact-free column Mr. Kristof doesn't provide any data on the relative impact of these two factors. Between climate change and corrupt governments as the biggest risk to vulnerable people, I would argue corrupt governments are a much bigger problem.
15
The Earth's gravitational field is stronger over denser bedrock. It is a factor that concentrates sea level rise along the New England coastline.
1
"I would argue corrupt governments are a much bigger problem."
Your straw man, "corrupt government", is not what's submerging the landscape. Maybe it's just me, but the evidence in this "fact free" column seems to suggest that it's seawater.
Great points, and thanks for the 6” figure- useful. The Guardian article is presumably referring to “relative sea level rise”. The term “sea level rise” can be oversimplified in the media. They loosely use it to refer to either “relative sea level rise” which includes both the rise of the ocean plus the sinking of the land, or to refer to global sea level rise, which is averaged over all the oceans and omits the land vertical motions. The latter is the direct problem with climate change.
The history of industrial world is replete with stories of communities that have become abandoned due to the effects of technological change and globalization. There is little heartrending discourse when this result is found in middle America, so why the tears of woe shed by Mr. Kristof about a few islands in the Bay of Biscay - or even in the mid-Pacific?
The people involved contribute almost nothing to the warming of the planet, but they also contribute almost nothing anyway as they have a subsistence existence. It should be the job of the Bangladeshi government to relocate them - with international assistance if needed, but would one claim that industrialization is destroying children's futures in this case. The reality is that the children noted in the Kristof piece have no future if they remain on islands below sea level that have been ravaged throughout history by cyclones.
The linkages that he makes with child brides, etc., have been a feature of local culture and history rather than a recent phenomenon. Here is a good example of facts that are basically true out together into a false narrative.
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Not the Bay of Biscay---that's off the coasts of France and Spain. Bay of Bengal.
Duly noted.
Dear Mr. Kristof, people who still regularly check their horoscopes aside, nobody doubts climate change. A lot of people doubt that a massive wealth transference from the First World to the Third World, as the Paris Climate Accords require, is a constructive thing to do. We doubt that giving your political friends a lot of money is a constructive thing to do.
In other words, it's not the science, it's the politics, that we doubt.
And, it is your steadfast refusal to acknowledge our true position that is the reason you, and your political friends, have lost all credibility.
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But what is your political solution? If you don't see the Paris Accords as being the answer, what is? Because "nothing" isn't going to work. I feel like I've been paying attention, without hearing an alternative solution.
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Much better to cut restrictions and hand the money to the wealthy. Scientists, climatologists and environmentalists don't have a dog in this hunt.
Huge corporations do.
And the longer we sit on our hands and debate how to approach this the richer they get and the closer we get to an extinction level event. So by all means, count your pennies and look for bogeymen under every stone except the obvious ones. The planet doesen't mind. The human race might.
Most Trumpers then regularly check their horoscopes, starting with the Oval Office. Did you see the tweets after the last snowstorm? They equated snow with proof that climate change is not real, and all the Trumpers laughed and laughed as they fell into their lemming lines.
Perhaps it's time for governments to look at ways to relocate large groups of people with as little trauma as possible. The fact is that this is increasingly necessary, let's do it well. There have been some relatively small, relatively successful relocations - the Hmong people living in California - we should learn to do this on a larger scale. Perhaps a country with a historically low unemployment rate, "hiring now" posters in windows and a large aging population leaving the workforce could lead the way. Ring any bells?
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What do you propose we do in New York, New Orleans etc.?
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But where can they be moved to? Look at the refugee crisis in Europe. I fear the upheaval created by moving these climate migrants to other places, though they surely deserve a place to live. I am glad I won't live to see this century's end, as more and more chaos comes because of global warming, overpopulation and the limits of humans to solve complex problems.
Nicholas- I agree climate change will drown islands in the future, but the scientific basis for this story seems very misguided. Global sea level rise has so far been less than one foot since the mid-1800s. Using Bangladesh as an example of the consequences is common but since it is a delta, the land is sinking at a much higher rate. I’m not certain about this specific island, but in general the problem in Bangladesh is a local problem, just like sinking delta cities like New Orleans and Jakarta - land subsidence, made much worse by activities like dam-building, flood control and groundwater pumping.
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Surely the issue is not that some places in the world are vulnerable to the effects of climate change as well as other factors. If renewable energy can minimise global warming and thereby reducing their vulnerability, regardless of any other geographic factors, wouldn't that be the way to go ?
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Comforting Dr. Orton, but by what rate is the sea rising now in the 21st century?
That is what concerns some of us more than figures dating back 200 years and to another age, when world population, fossil fuel burning, and methane producing rice paddies were far less factors globally than is true now.
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Thanks for your post, Dr. Orton. it's important to remain evidence-based in our discussion of climate change.
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