Another slant on global warming
An interesting report out about global warming - rather than focusing on the economic or environmental issues, it’s warning Australians about the heat related deaths which a rise in temperature could produce.
I hdan’t ever really thought about it myself - I’d always imagined global warming to be a small effect on a local scale which gets amplified due to the huge area being affected. (Like, temperature goes up 0.5 degrees, and we get massive storms.)
They’re talking about things like tropical disease spreading, and just plain old heatstroke. One thing they don’t mention is exactly what temperature change is required for all this to take effect. Are we talking a 2-3 degree increase all the time, or is it more that the extremes of weather change (e.g., really hot summers)? Or perhaps a combination of the two?
Release by the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Conservation Foundation, it seems that they’re trying to press home the idea that global warming is really going to affect you, the individual, and you should be worried about it. It could kill you. I guess that in some ways, whatever works is great. But in other ways, it’s disappointing if the only way that people will sit up and take notice is if they think their own lives are at stake.
Actually, I’d be interested to see a current study on people’s attitudes towards global warming, and then break it down to academics, business people, etc. Anyone know of a report like that?
I’ve heard also that global warming would cause a large reduction in the number of deaths (mostly in the northern hemisphere) due to very cold temperatures, but I don’t know the numbers and have too many assignments to dig up any studies to this effect.