Some people think of issues as if each was in a separate “silo” unrelated to other issues. Actually, issues are very deeply and strongly interrelated. For example, the Climate Crisis is ALSO a SOCIAL JUSTICE issue.
This insight should not only broaden our understanding of the climate crisis, but it should also help us strategize more insightfully to reach out and connect the climate crisis with other issues. We should bring various kinds of people into the climate movement AND bring climate organizers into the movements working on other social justice issues.
This November 21, 2017, article at www.ecowatch.org urged us to consider the SOCIAL COSTS of carbon. The original article had many links to additional information, but those links are not activated here. Here is the article’s headline, followed by the article itself:
Report: Social Cost of Carbon Has Been Drastically Underestimated
Our understanding of the social cost of carbon (SCC) relied on outdated science from the 1980s, and is likely wrong.
The latest calculations based on new modeling by UCLA and Purdue University show a drastic divergence with previous results—an increase of 129 percent, which moves the figure to $19.70 per ton of carbon dioxide. This calculation rests on the Climate Framework for Uncertainty, Negotiation and Distribution, or FUND model.
“The underlying studies date back to publications in the 1990s, but it really dates back to science from the 1980s,” said Thomas Hertel, distinguished professor of agricultural economics at Purdue.
Created in the early 1980s as a response to former President Reagan’s call for cost-benefit analyses on regulatory actions, the SCC became the carbon dioxide yardstick of U.S. federal agencies. The SCC measures the economic impacts, in dollar value, for the emission of one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in a given year.
The latest calculations show that the FUND model failed to properly incorporate the damage of carbon emission-produced rising temperatures to the agriculture sector. Rather, the model treats agriculture as a carbon beneficiary.
“The very early studies tended to show that the effects of warmer temperatures were not very severe and would be more than compensated by the beneficial effects of higher carbon dioxide concentrations,” said Frances Moore, assistant professor of environmental science and policy at UC Davis and lead author of the study.
The FUND model wrongly showed that carbon’s damage to agriculture was -$2.70—that is to say, each ton of carbon gave an overall boost of $2.70 to the agriculture sector. This latest research refutes that. The new data shows carbon damages the economy by $8.50 per ton.
The FUND model is just one of three models currently used by the U.S. to calculate SCC values. Each of these models, the FUND, DICE and PAGE holds equal weight in final SCC values. When the multiple models are placed together, SCC moves into the range of $40 per ton.
“This large proportional increase in the SCC is particularly noticeable because we are only updating damages from one economic sector. The SCC in this model is determined by damages in 14 different sectors,” Moore said. “The fact that updating just one sector has such a large effect on the overall SCC is striking.”
Medical Community Warns Climate Change Is an Imminent Public Health Threat
That’s the headline for the article at this link: http://insideclimatenews.org/-cnews/09122015/medical-community-warns-climate-change-is-an-imminent-public-health-threat-paris-cop21-who?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=4a5ac59eb4-Weekly_Newsletter_12_13_201512_11_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-4a5ac59eb4-327502737
Climate migration is increasing, and it will increase further.
See this article: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/welcome-to-the-age-of-climate-migration-w516974
Jared Diamond’s new book “Upheaval” says a 49% chance the world as we know it will end by 2050.
See this article: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/jared-diamond-on-his-new-book-upheaval.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Another report warns that climate disruption could cause societal collapse within decades.
Here is information from the article I have linked below. This article’s lead sentence says, “civilization itself could be past the point of no return by 2050.”
The next paragraph says: “That’s the conclusion from Australian climate think tank Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, which released a report (pdf) May 30 claiming that unless humanity takes drastic and immediate action to stop the climate crisis, a combination of food production instability, water shortages, and extreme weather could result in a complete societal breakdown worldwide.”
The article says the lead sentence’s warning is a “worst-case scenario,” but because evidence keeps showing things are getting worse and governments keep failing to take the necessary actions, we really must seriously consider the “worst-case scenario,” because that’s where we’re heading because of governmental inaction.
Although many mainstream people say we can’t afford to take the necessary actions, a few days ago Joseph Stiglitz (who won a Nobel prize for economics) wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian in which he called on governments around the world to recognize the extreme dangers of the climate crisis and to take strong actions. His article said:
Yes, we can afford it, with the right fiscal policies and collective will. But more importantly, we must afford it. Climate change is our World War III. Our lives and civilization as we know it is at stake, just as they were in World War II.
HERE IS THE ARTICLE: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/climate-change-threatens-civilizational-collapse-within-decades-report/
Human society and our future are in serious danger:
Margaret Klein Salaman wrote, “The climate crisis threatens to set back thousands of years of human development. It has ruined the futures we had planned. It has also made the present—what we do now—almost unbearably important. Our actions now, this year and next year, have an incalculable amount of importance to all life.”
See this article: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/23/facing-climate-emergency-grieving-future-you-thought-you-had
A new climate report warns: ‘Social Breakdown and Outright Chaos’ — Civilization Headed for Collapse by 2050.
Harris and Ocasio-Cortez release climate equity bill to protect the most at-risk communities from climate change:
See this article: https://www.nationofchange.org/2019/07/30/harris-and-ocasio-cortez-release-climate-equity-bill-to-protect-the-most-at-risk-communities-from-climate-change/
When Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee was running for President, he devised an excellent plan for “climate justice.”
See this article: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/7/30/20731958/jay-inslee-for-president-climate-change-justice-plan-green-new-deal?fbclid=IwAR1A7Le0xa5UjzHVrS-E
