I like Valerie Plame. I think she and her husband Joe Wilson are incredibly brave and intelligent people, who unfortunately paid the price for telling the American people and the world the truth at a time when a bunch of thugs had drained Washington's credibility reservoir far below its normal drought levels. Whenever I listen to or read one of her interviews, more often than not I learn something new, and I am always reminded how much of an engaging straight shooter she is. Now, all that may be well and good, you, dear reader, are probably thinking, but why the heck am I bringing her up here in a climate change blog post? Well, she was on The Takeaway today, and, as usual, she made some interesting, spot-on comments.
"Climate change and terrorists getting nuclear weapons, I think, are our two biggest problems...The good news is that at the height of the Cold War in 1985, there were approximately 68,000 nuclear weapons; now we're down to about 17,000 nuclear weapons, of which maybe 4,000 have active nuclear warheads. So, uh, we're down quite a bit. Still more than enough to blow up the world as we know it, uh, and I just think ultimately you have to drain the swamp, if you're going to, uh, even consider, you know, mankind continuing...Just maintaining our nuclear arsenal over the next decade is going to cost a trillion dollars. A trillion dollars. That's just the United States. I mean, I can think of a lot of other places where that money might be useful."
Well, shucks, Valerie, so can I. In fact, I can think of a way we could use that money to combat at least one of the problems you mentioned.
The National Bureau of Economic Research has published a meta-analysis of 55 studies of the relationship between climate change and conflicts worldwide (emphasis mine).
Looking across 55 studies, we find that deviations from moderate temperatures and precipitation patterns systematically increase the risk of conflict, often substantially, with average effects that are highly statistically significant.
Remember these images from the IPCC's AR4? Alright, fine, it was a silly question, since most people probably don't read IPCC assessment reports, and all of no one remembers specific passages. Still, they're pretty dramatic, nonetheless.
Whether or not you agree with the World Bank's insistence that, in order for areas facing severe shortages to receive loans, public water supplies must be privatized, the organization is highlighting an issue that might otherwise go overlooked.
If recent history is any guide, I think all of us already know the blockheaded denier response to this: THEY SHOULD MOVE WHERE THEY DON'T HAVE TO RELY ON GLACIER MELT FOR THEIR WATER SUPPLY.
Deniers...sometimes you just gotta love their infantile...uh...solutions.
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