The increasing devastation of climate change

There was more grim news on the impacts of climate change yesterday.  A new study from the Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF), a group headed by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, estimates that climate change now kills 315,000 people annually.  This is an increase from a previous World Health Organization estimate of 150,000 deaths per year.

The GHF study speculates that the death rate will rise to almost 500,000 annually by 2030, and that virtually all of the deaths will be in developing countries which contributed very little to the creation of the problem.  Our lifestyle and economic model are genocidal.

Nor can we count on being spared ourselves entirely for long.  The European heat wave of 2003, which was previously estimated to have caused 35,000 deaths, is now held responsible for double that number.  Deadly storms like Katrina are only going to increase in number.  And keep in mind that the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research estimates that at the rate we’re going, we’ll reduce the Earth’s carrying capacity to just 1 billion people by century’s end.  A lot of people in developed countries will have to go as well.