Say Anything Blog

CBS News reports on some real threats of climate change, just not of global warming.  What if the world cools and experiences a mini-ice age?  We are getting first hand experience as we go through our worst winter in decades.

A winter that saw the first snow in Baghdad in memory:

Snow fell on Baghdad on Friday for the first time in memory, and delighted residents declared it an omen of peace.

“It is the first time we’ve seen snow in Baghdad,” said 60-year-old Hassan Zahar. “We’ve seen sleet before, but never snow. I looked at the faces of all the people, they were astonished,” he said.

Leaving the UN to deal with the dim reality that despite their reports and conferences in Bali to the contrary, maybe the earth isn’t warming anymore.  Perhaps 1998 was the warmest year we will have and that the trend is downhill from here:

The United Nations is stepping in to try to rescue Tajikistan from a social catastrophe brought on by severe winter weather. But even if an emergency UN appeal for assistance generates a robust international response, it is questionable whether Tajikistan will be able to avoid entering a downward spiral, featuring pestilence and widespread hunger.

On February 18, the UN issued a “flash appeal,” calling for an immediate international infusion of $25.1 million in assistance to Tajikistan. “At least 260,000 people are in need of immediate food assistance,” the appeal stated grimly. “Moreover, the government reports that up to 2 million people may require food assistance through the end of the winter, if limited food and fuel supplies in rural areas are not replenished.” In all, almost one-third of the country’s population of just over 7 million is in need of some form of assistance.

But the bigger threat is in China:

China’s inflation accelerated in January to 7.1 percent - its rate highest in more than a decade - amid snowstorms that fueled a spike in food costs, according to data reported Tuesday.

The sharp rise in consumer prices was driven by an 18.2 percent increase in food costs from the same period a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on its Web site…

But economists have raised their inflation forecasts for the first half of 2008 after freak snowstorms battered China’s south, killing millions of farm animals and wrecking crops.

Chinese leaders are especially worried about the political impact of rapidly rising food costs, which hit the country’s poor majority hard.

Rising ocean levels?  Warmer temperatures?  We have no idea what will happen.  But we are getting a glimpse of the VERY REAL THREAT OF HALF OF THE WORLD’S PEOPLE LIVING IN NEAR FAMINE CONDITIONS BECAUSE CROP YIELDS DROP DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE. The political instability caused by starvation and famine is beyond measure.  Snow in Baghdad?  Huge food shortages in Asia?  Where is Al Gore and his gigantic CO2 Powered furnace when we need it?