It'd be great if it'd all just go away, wouldn't it? If we could wake up tomorrow morning to headlines like "Global Warming - It's All Over", "Scientists Apologise for Taking Our Time", or "Gentlemen, Start Your Engines - The Problem Is Solved!"

If you feel global warming is messing with your plans, and want to shout "Global Warming Isn't Fair" - consider the following climate change chart. This graph illustrates just how unfair it really is, by showing how global warming will hit different parts of the world over the next century.

Predicted temperature change between now and 2100 Darkest shades indicate highest temperature rise (edie news)

You can see that many of the countries emitting the most greenhouse gases per capita - the U.S., Australia, and Europe - are on the cooler end of the scale, whereas very poor nations with few vehicles and little in the way of luxuries (let alone energy-intensive luxuries), are expected to heat up far more - particularly Africa, Central and South America and the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

Although many of our readers may be learning about global warming for the first time, the reality is the signs have been there for a very long time. Back in 1988, just short of twenty years ago, global warming was a serious topic, and on the top of political agendas. Watch this recent YouTube movie to hear David Suzuki describe the political climate at the time. It's frustrating to ponder what an improved prognosis we would have today if concrete steps were taken back then. Instead, in the last twenty years globalised economics has escalated, and with it a corresponding increase in energy consumption and regional vulnerability.

Global warming was largely swept under the mat. It was indeed a very inconvenient truth, and till today many politicians are reluctant to act due to a short-sighted fear of slowing the economy. It seems that unless the waves are lapping at our doorstep, it's just not priority - and even then we'll likely grab the jewels and take an inflatable to higher ground.

The recent IPCC report has given a "greater than 90%" likelihood that global warming is human induced. If I were to light up a cigarette in a children's playcentre, not only refusing to put it out, but also blowing my toxic secondhand smoke into the faces of the children playing at my feet - I'd likely be met with outright hostility, and justifiably so. What of the South? Will they not become hostile as the consequences of our actions weigh more heavily upon them?

injustice noun the violation or withholding of another's rights or dues; wrong; unfair or unjust treatment of somebody, or an instance of this

If we can't empathise, can we at least sympathise? And, if we can't do that - then can we at least consider that today's globalised world means there's no economic isolation from the impending troubles of the South. By trying to preserve our current globalised economy, we are assigning vulnerability to ourselves just as much as the South.

 

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