More on the Ethics of Climate Change


I have repeatedly said that the most serious moral issue involved in climate change is that the real burdens of the effects of climate change fall on the poorest of the poor--who did not benefit from the wealth created by the emissions of greenhouse gases in the past. There is a new study that reinforces my point:

The public health costs of global climate change are likely to be the greatest in those parts of the world that have contributed least to the problem, posing a significant ethical dilemma for the developed world, according to a new study.

In a paper to be published the week of Nov. 12, 2007, in the journal EcoHealth, a team of researchers led by environmental public health authority Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports that the health burden of climate change will rest disproportionately on the world's poor.

"Our high consumption of energy is putting a huge disease burden on places that are quite remote from us," explains Patz, a professor in the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. "There are many serious diseases that are sensitive to climate, and as earth's climate changes, so too can the range and transmission of such diseases."

. . .

The authors quantify the ethical dimension of global climate change by measuring per capita carbon emissions and comparing that data with climate-related disease burden for the most affected regions of the world. The results show a stark contrast between those populations causing global warming from those suffering the brunt of the impacts.

Americans, for example, have carbon outputs six times the global average, but a significantly lower relative risk for the health effects of climate change.

Changes in patterns of diseases and other negative outcomes of a warming world, argues Patz, suggests the developed world must begin "to pursue equitable solutions that first protect the most vulnerable population groups..."

"Many of these climate-sensitive diseases, such as malaria, malnutrition, and diarrhea, affect children," he explains.

"We in the developed world need to recognize how our way of life imposes negative impacts upon poorer nations of the world -- especially their children."



Read it all here. Read the University of Wisconsin press release here.

A Note About the Maps: The two world maps schematically represent the contribution of different nations to global warming, as measured in atmospheric carbon output (top) and the health effects of global warming as measured in mortality for diseases and other effects of a warming world climate (bottom).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Giles Fraser on Gay Marriage

Image
The Rev. Gileas Fraser offers thoughtful piece on gay marriage on BBC Radio this morning: Back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the Book of Common Prayer was being put together, marriage was said to be for three purposes: First, It was ordained for the procreation of children … Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication .. Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. How do these three concerns relate to the prospect of gay marriage? The third priority insists that marriage is designed to bring human beings into loving and supportive relationships. Surely no one can deny that homosexual men and women are in as much need of loving and supportive relationships as anybody else. And equally deserving of them too. This one seems pretty clear. The second priority relates to the encouragement of monogamy. The Archbishop of Canterbury himself has rig...
Read more

Religious Map of United States

Image
This map shows which of eight major Christian denominations has a plurality in the United States, county by county. the map obviously does not capture the full story given the rich diversity of Christian denominations in the United States, but it does show much of the regionalization of the major denominations. The map and analysis can be found here . Hat Tip to my friend Jim .
Read more

New Climate Change Study

What a coincidence. Yesterday, I blogged about the James Dobson et al "We Get It" effort to deny climate change. Yesterday, NASA scientists issued a new report showing a strong causal link between human activity and climate change. Here is the Science Daily report: A vast array of physical and biological systems across the earth are being affected by warming temperatures caused by humans, says a new analysis of information not previously assembled all in one spot. The effects on living things include earlier leafing of trees and plants over many regions; movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the northern hemisphere; changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia; and shifting of the oceans' plankton and fish from cold- to warm-adapted communities. "Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems attributable at the global scal...
Read more