It won't be long before the victims of climate change make the west pay

[MindMover]

Would you enjoy the cosiness and warmth of Christmas with your children or grandchildren just that little bit less if you knew that other people's children were dying because of it? More than four million children under five years old are now at risk of acute malnutrition in the Sahel, an area of the world that is one of the clearest victims of the rich world's addiction to fossil fuels.

About 18 million people in the Sahel – the vulnerable pan-African strip of land that runs from Senegal to Sudan along the southern edge of the Sahara – faced famine last year. Life has never been easy there. Its land is poor. Its people are often semi-nomadic, moving their animals between the grasslands. But science is increasingly pointing a hard finger at those to blame for the persistence of Sahelian drought – and it is us.

This is an ineluctable consequence of improving the computer models of climate change. Of course, there are still large uncertainties. But what has long persuaded me of the strength of the scientific case for human-induced climate change is that climate-sceptic scientists have not managed to build a model that explains global warming without human-induced effects. The human hand is indispensable in understanding what has happened.

There are legitimate doubts about the scale of the impact, and about other offsetting factors that may reduce human-induced global warming. But what should be a wake-up call is science's growing ability to highlight the blame for particular extreme events, and not just in the Sahel.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/29/poorer-countries-climate-change-case

[on point]

1. And well they should. Until the costs land on the creators of those costs the 'market' won't work

Right now the polluters are externalizing their costs and so their product seems cheap. Once they are forced to internalize their costs, then other things, like solatr, will seem so much chreaper.

[Prophet 451]

2. So what can we do?

The fact is that the science is as solid as evolution but, just like evolution, you have a certain percentage of people who are either stupid or professional contrarians and determined not to listen to teh science. We call them "deniers" (because a sceptic can be convinced by teh evidence and if you're not convinced already, nothing will convince you.

But what can we do? I pay slightly more to buy our power from a company that uses more renewables than average; in my personal life, I'm carbon-neutral (the fact that I can't drive helps a LOT on that); I can't go on marches anymore (I can only move on crutches and very slowly) but I can vote and write letters but because those deniers are loud and because politicians are essentially owned by teh corporates, I'm still going to end up drowning with the rest of you.

[MindMover]

3. One of the biggest tools we can use in the current economic environment is to ...

use the legal tools that are available and the use of these tools (class action lawsuits) will turn owners, stockholders, CEOs, etc. attention to getting and keeping there business environmentally carbon neutral ... which will turn there attention to renewable energies to reduce costs and litagation ....

[Prophet 451]

4. We don't have class action suits here

I'm British and our archaic legal system doesn't allow class action suits. Plus, our cartoonishly evil PM is a big fan of fracking and says we should embrace it wholeheartedly.

[MindMover]

5. These suits are not brought up in one countries courts ....

I am talking about World Courts ...

[Prophet 451]

6. Ah, that could be a solution n/t

[tritsofme]

7. What world court has that sort of jurisdiction?

Or the power to enforce its decisions?

[MindMover]

8. If the International Court does not have that jurisdiction or power, it will soon enough ...

because climate change is not just the responsibility of irresponsible developed nations but the world ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice

[tritsofme]

9. The ICJ has no power to enforce it rulings.

It must rely on the Security Council. If a permanent member is ruled against by the ICJ, they could use their veto to thwart action.

[MindMover]

10. If the world can convict war criminals, then surely they can convict national corporations

that kill hundreds of thousands if not millions of people thru climate change with there polluting ways ....

[tritsofme]

11. The ICJ doesn't convict individuals or corporations.

It more closely resembles arbitration between two countries.

[RobertEarl]

12. How? How will they make us pay?

We are in the best position to weather this. We can just turn up the ac, or the furnace. Have more food shipped in and stored in our freezers. We can pay for fruits from Australia!! We have it made. We are on top of the world and the rest of the world will drown before the good ol' USA.

And if they give us too much crap... well.. that's why we have the largest military ever. We are safe and protected. And if we ever go broke the rest of the world will be broker.

So, what should we do?