http://www.nature.com/ ngeo/ journal/ v2/ n4/ abs/ ngeo462.html

News stories about climate refugees, fighting over water (sometimes legally, sometimes with weapons), infectious disease outbreaks, plus all the climate impacts mentioned in the MSN story, could be disturbing enough to make the needed conceptual breakthrough.

I’m completely serious about this. If anyone here has the right connections to start such a project, I would very gladly work on it. I can be contacted through the About page on my web site (click my name).

I can’t see even Europe viewing the US as a leader until its emissions halve down to European levels. As for China and India, the gulf in per-capita emissions is unbridgable…!

Logical conclusion – the US (and other countries) must be prepared to hand over political power from their own government to the UN. Countries in the EU have been through the same pain in handing power to Brussels so it can be done. You just have to overcome the US’s apparent superiority complex and disdain of all things non-American!

Gail, that’s not strictly true about USA being highest per capita for CO2 – http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita – although the countries that are higher are sparsely populated and mostly located in deserts. A pertinent comparison is that the USA produces two or three times more CO2 per capita than comparable (climate, wealth) countries in Europe. So, yes, USA has a moral obligation to be most pro-active in climate mitigation. However, I think this train of discussion is irrelevant – it’s like a bunch of people sat on a sinking boat arguing over who should start bailing out first.

The effects of climate change are undoubtedly going to be dire for all of the planet. It is the areas that are much less able to afford adaptation (i.e. everywhere other than the USA and Europe) that will feel the most extreme pain.

US citizens (such as Charlie above) may read this article and think “oh, that doesn’t sound to bad” and think that they can personally adapt themselves quite easily to the new climate.

Such a naive understanding of the situation belies the true danger of climate change. America will remain inhabitable, while elsewhere, crop failure, disease, sea level rise, etc will have a much large impact. This will lead to *very* significant social and economic costs to Americans (and the developed world in general).

So perhaps instead of telling someone from Iowa that climate change means more days wearing shorts, what might be more effective is to tell them that food prices will skyrocket, water will be valued higher than, and that the USA will be perhaps relied upon to keep the whole planet from becoming a “failed state”.

What we desperately need is a US version of the Stern report! A cost needs to be associated with climate change. People (myself included) can barely understand the sheer size of the current deficit, let alone the cost of climate change. Perhaps if people are told “by 2050, climate change will cost every America $xxx,xxx (?) per year” then the scale will be better understood, and real action can be taken sooner.