Hello everybody,
thank you very much for following my blog during this fall term. I will leave UCL at the end of this term to go back to Germany. Even though I didn't have months or years to show you different effects which the global environmental change will have on the human population, I still hope to have given you some interesting examples from different perspectives.
I knew from the beginning that my chosen topic would to big to handle it in a depth that would be adequate to its global importance. And especially this was the reason why I tried to provide different ways to get even deeper into some topics. This was also a main reason why I went through all blogs of the GEOG3057 course and provided you a selection in two posts (Link to first post / Link to second post), as well as my recommendation to go to the LSE Public Lecture - where I actually met a few of my course-mates (Link to post).
But I still wanted to try, and hopefully that worked, to give you an idea of the various effects that the global environmental change will have on us: from food insecurity in africa to a look into the potential spreading of infectious disease, a new distribution of happiness (including some nice music!) and the potential economical damage in general. To not only give you more informations about one isolated effect I also wrote a general post about the perspectives of the Maldives as a country and geographical unit. In another post I focused on one certain type of geographical units: developing countries and the difficult future that some of them face. For my last post before the end of the term (excluding this one here) I chose to write about nonlinear impacts of global environmental change. I chose this topic because the uncertainty of the used scenarios and the still hugh gap of understanding is a very important fact that I wanted to point out in the context of all the provided informations.
Thank you again for following my work and have a look here again in the future. I might continue my work on this blog whenever I come across something interesting.
December 13, 2012
December 10, 2012
Nonlinear Impacts of Global Environmental Change
In this post I would like to put the focus on nonlinear impacts of the global environmental change. In my previous posts I have (hopefully) already pointed out, that the described and predicted effect on the human population are based on a wide range of scenarios.
But even this wide range of scenarios is not something to rely on too much. In most cases the scenarios do give a good idea about what could happen, but in many cases these scenarios are not very informative in terms of nonlinear impacts.
I came to this topic through a recently published article by the world bank about climate change impacts (Link). In this short article it was state that especially at an increase of more than 2 degrees, "there is a risk to trigger nonlinear tipping elements". Examples are also given: disintegration of West Antarctic ice sheet leading to a even faster sea-level rise, or large-scale Amazon dieback (with effects on the ecosystem, rivers, agriculture, energy production and livelihoods). All the named factors that could occur out of a Amazon dieback or the processes at the Antarctic ice shield show the wide range of effects not only on biodiversity and nature, but also directly on humans.
While digging through articles and publications about this topic I found a very interesting article by Stephen Schneider, which was published already in 2004 in Global Environmental Change (Link to article).
Schneider states that a nonlinear outcome, therefore a surprising outcome is a "climate change-induced phenomenon with a very low probability of happening became reality or if an event never before imagined took place". Such nonlinear outcomes are possible due to the current situation, that many of the global systems and connections between the different systems are simply unknown or not yet understood. Examples for these systems are the oceanic-, the atmospheric- and the terrestrial-system.
Schneider writes that most climate change models rarely consider high-consequence extreme events with a low probability. And even the fact that these events are happening with a low probability is not certain, because to the lack of understanding and knowledge about the systems and effects.
Some other quite popular examples (gladly picked up by media all around the world) of nonlinear effects that some people predict to maybe happen are a change of the Gulf Stream or a change to the so called El-Nino phenomena.
This was one of my shorter articles, but I think it was about one of the most important things that always has to be kept in mind when talking about global environmental change and the effects of it.
If your are interested in further reading I highly recommend you the linked article by Stephen Schneider.
But even this wide range of scenarios is not something to rely on too much. In most cases the scenarios do give a good idea about what could happen, but in many cases these scenarios are not very informative in terms of nonlinear impacts.
I came to this topic through a recently published article by the world bank about climate change impacts (Link). In this short article it was state that especially at an increase of more than 2 degrees, "there is a risk to trigger nonlinear tipping elements". Examples are also given: disintegration of West Antarctic ice sheet leading to a even faster sea-level rise, or large-scale Amazon dieback (with effects on the ecosystem, rivers, agriculture, energy production and livelihoods). All the named factors that could occur out of a Amazon dieback or the processes at the Antarctic ice shield show the wide range of effects not only on biodiversity and nature, but also directly on humans.
While digging through articles and publications about this topic I found a very interesting article by Stephen Schneider, which was published already in 2004 in Global Environmental Change (Link to article).
Schneider states that a nonlinear outcome, therefore a surprising outcome is a "climate change-induced phenomenon with a very low probability of happening became reality or if an event never before imagined took place". Such nonlinear outcomes are possible due to the current situation, that many of the global systems and connections between the different systems are simply unknown or not yet understood. Examples for these systems are the oceanic-, the atmospheric- and the terrestrial-system.
Schneider writes that most climate change models rarely consider high-consequence extreme events with a low probability. And even the fact that these events are happening with a low probability is not certain, because to the lack of understanding and knowledge about the systems and effects.
Some other quite popular examples (gladly picked up by media all around the world) of nonlinear effects that some people predict to maybe happen are a change of the Gulf Stream or a change to the so called El-Nino phenomena.
This was one of my shorter articles, but I think it was about one of the most important things that always has to be kept in mind when talking about global environmental change and the effects of it.
If your are interested in further reading I highly recommend you the linked article by Stephen Schneider.
December 7, 2012
Impact of Sea Level Rise on Developing Countries
After my last post about the Maldives in particular I would like to take a look at a wider perspective in this post. The focus will be on the Impact of sea level rise in developing countries.
The current sea level rise is estimated to be 3.2 millimeters per year. This is a 60% higher value that estimated in the IPPC report in 2007 and has a huge impact of predictions of all effect. (Link to source) Non-the-less I will need to use data that has been publish before this new data came out, as their is newer data available yet.
A big issue in international politics is the question if developing countries will be able to catch up to the established industrialized countries in the future. Therefore it is very interesting to have a look at the effects of the global environmental change on these countries.
In this post the particular focus lies on the question, which countries are most affected, based on data from a World Bank report, which has been published in 2007 (Link to the report).
The most impacted developing country in view of the land area are the Bahamas. Close to 12 % of the total land area will be affected by a 1 Meter SLR (see figure 1 below). Out of all developing countries The Bahamas are by far the most effected country when a look at only this parameter is taken.
The current sea level rise is estimated to be 3.2 millimeters per year. This is a 60% higher value that estimated in the IPPC report in 2007 and has a huge impact of predictions of all effect. (Link to source) Non-the-less I will need to use data that has been publish before this new data came out, as their is newer data available yet.
A big issue in international politics is the question if developing countries will be able to catch up to the established industrialized countries in the future. Therefore it is very interesting to have a look at the effects of the global environmental change on these countries.
In this post the particular focus lies on the question, which countries are most affected, based on data from a World Bank report, which has been published in 2007 (Link to the report).
The most impacted developing country in view of the land area are the Bahamas. Close to 12 % of the total land area will be affected by a 1 Meter SLR (see figure 1 below). Out of all developing countries The Bahamas are by far the most effected country when a look at only this parameter is taken.
Figure 1.
The data is figure 1 leads directly to the presented data in figure 2. The Bahamas may be a highly affected country in terms of the area, but which countries society will be most affected? To estimate this figure 2 shows the percentage of affected population. The Bahamas are still one of the most affected countries (about 5% of the total population), but Vietnam has by far the highest percentage of affected population with about 10.5%. Second is Egypt with about 9%. With an estimated population of about 91,5 million people in Vietnam (Source), this means that more than 9 Million people would be affected by a 1 meter sea level rise.
Figure 2.
Considering the large proportion of affected people in Vietnam it is not surprising that a sea level rise of 1 meter would also have the largest impact on Vietnam's GDP (as seen in figure 3). The impact is estimated to be as high as about 10%.
Figure 3.
This look at the effects of a global sea level rise, as part of the global environmental change, shows the high impact and threat that some developing countries face on their path to catch up with the industrialized world. But it also shows the different magnitude of impact of different parameters.
The presented data is only a small outtake out of the World Bank report. In the full report a closer look at different regions of the world is taken and more detailed data is provided.
December 2, 2012
The Maldives
In this post I will not only take a close look at one isolated effect of the Global Environmental Change, but on a whole country: the Maldives.
The Maldives are one of the most popular examples of how a global environmental change could effect a certain country and society. One of the reasons for this popular status are the very effective publicity campaigns by the local government: an example is a cabinet meeting in 2009, which was held underwater to create awareness for their situation (Link to a BBC article about the conference).
To give a short overview to the situation of the maldives I recommend you to watch this short video from the BBC (less than 3 minutes): Link to the Video.
I was encouraged to write a blog post about this particular case by two different factors. One is the popularity of Maldives examples, and the second is a newly published pear-reviewed article which shows that the sea level rises about 60% faster than it was predicted in the IPCCC report in 2007. The report found that an annual sea level rise of 3.2 millimeters takes place - to some that might not seem like a lot, but it is (Link to source).
But are the Maldives actually so vulnerable?
Khan et al. described the Maldives, in an article already published in 2002, as "extremely vulnerable" to climate change and as the "flattest country on earth" (Link). They estimate under extreme projections, that up to 85% of the Maldives' geographical area could be under water by 2100. Just by these predictions I see no reason that anyone can doubt the vulnerability of the Maldives to the effects of Global Environmental Change.
They many reasons for these dramatic outlooks are: the small size of the islands, the narrow width, their low elevation, and the vulnerable natural structure of coral reefs and atolls.
The conditions that actually place the Maldives at groom risk are, according to the United Nations Development Program, the precipitation, the sea surface temperature, storm acitvities, swell waves and ocean acidification (Link to source).
But what can they do?
The people living on the Maldives themselves don't have any significant influence on the world politics. So their only way to deal with this situation at the moment is to adapt to the changing environment.
This table by Benjamin Sovacool (published in 2012 in Climate Change) provides a good overview over potential adaptation methods (I encourage anyone who is interested in the different adaptation methods to read this very good article - Link blow):
The Maldives are one of the most popular examples of how a global environmental change could effect a certain country and society. One of the reasons for this popular status are the very effective publicity campaigns by the local government: an example is a cabinet meeting in 2009, which was held underwater to create awareness for their situation (Link to a BBC article about the conference).
To give a short overview to the situation of the maldives I recommend you to watch this short video from the BBC (less than 3 minutes): Link to the Video.
I was encouraged to write a blog post about this particular case by two different factors. One is the popularity of Maldives examples, and the second is a newly published pear-reviewed article which shows that the sea level rises about 60% faster than it was predicted in the IPCCC report in 2007. The report found that an annual sea level rise of 3.2 millimeters takes place - to some that might not seem like a lot, but it is (Link to source).
But are the Maldives actually so vulnerable?
Khan et al. described the Maldives, in an article already published in 2002, as "extremely vulnerable" to climate change and as the "flattest country on earth" (Link). They estimate under extreme projections, that up to 85% of the Maldives' geographical area could be under water by 2100. Just by these predictions I see no reason that anyone can doubt the vulnerability of the Maldives to the effects of Global Environmental Change.
They many reasons for these dramatic outlooks are: the small size of the islands, the narrow width, their low elevation, and the vulnerable natural structure of coral reefs and atolls.
The conditions that actually place the Maldives at groom risk are, according to the United Nations Development Program, the precipitation, the sea surface temperature, storm acitvities, swell waves and ocean acidification (Link to source).
But what can they do?
The people living on the Maldives themselves don't have any significant influence on the world politics. So their only way to deal with this situation at the moment is to adapt to the changing environment.
This table by Benjamin Sovacool (published in 2012 in Climate Change) provides a good overview over potential adaptation methods (I encourage anyone who is interested in the different adaptation methods to read this very good article - Link blow):
By looking at the current situation and the estimated situation in the future (already before the newly published numbers of sea level rise speed) there is not much time to react. The only option for the people of the Maldives is at the moment to adapt to the upcoming situations or to prepare to leave their country. Rumors about plans of the government to buy land in India for the worst case situation are wide spread but not approved. But without major changes this might be their only long time adaptation method...
November 23, 2012
Economical Damage = Unknown Factor.
The uncertainty in calculations and predictions of the economical impact caused by the Global Environmental Change is high. Of course no one knows what will or might happen, but there are some publications out there about this topic.
In this post I will take a look at a report by the German Institute of Economic Research and the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (published by Nicholas Stern for the British government) to give examples for estimated impacts.
After a look at these two reports I will also talk about the views of Richard Tol. Richard Tol is an economist who criticized especially the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.
The German Institute of Economic Research published this paper in 2005. In this paper it is estimated that damages up to 200 billion US-Dollars could be caused until 2050 if no programs are introduced to reduce the global greenhouse gas emissions immediately.
In the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (Link) it is estimated that currently and in the future total costs and risks are about 5% of the world gross national product. But this figure could go up to about 20%.
Richard Tol criticizes especially the numbers given by the Stern Review (Link). He claims that for this report only the worst scenario cases were used. Tol also criticizes that the Stern Report is based on a stagnating economical growth in especially african countries, which he expects to be grow until 2100.
As stated above: No one knows what will happen... What do you think about these views?
In this post I will take a look at a report by the German Institute of Economic Research and the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (published by Nicholas Stern for the British government) to give examples for estimated impacts.
After a look at these two reports I will also talk about the views of Richard Tol. Richard Tol is an economist who criticized especially the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.
The German Institute of Economic Research published this paper in 2005. In this paper it is estimated that damages up to 200 billion US-Dollars could be caused until 2050 if no programs are introduced to reduce the global greenhouse gas emissions immediately.
In the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (Link) it is estimated that currently and in the future total costs and risks are about 5% of the world gross national product. But this figure could go up to about 20%.
Richard Tol criticizes especially the numbers given by the Stern Review (Link). He claims that for this report only the worst scenario cases were used. Tol also criticizes that the Stern Report is based on a stagnating economical growth in especially african countries, which he expects to be grow until 2100.
As stated above: No one knows what will happen... What do you think about these views?
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