Many years from now when we arrive at the conclusion of the anthropogenic climate change problem and compare unmitigated global warming with the Black Death of the 14th century, which do you believe will have impacted the human population by the greatest percentage in the affected regions?
Sorry but now that I look at it the question again it is worded wrong. The question contradicts the details. Ignore the word "deadlier" and read it as "…which will prove to have the greatest impact on population".
News and comments on global climate change, global warming and greenhouse effect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yq4zykxJNU&feature=related
A comet would have the greatest imapct.
Dana: <<Ah well the flaw in your question is that we won’t experience unmitigated climate change. As you know, Europe has already implemented a carbon cap and trade system, and although we’re way behind the curve in the USA, it’s really only a matter of time before we implement a similar system.>
How do you know a cap & trade system will prevent catastrophe? How do you know we have not already passed a tipping point, where positive feedback will drive the system forward even if no new CO2 is added by Man? (Indeed, most cap and trade proposals don’t even try to stop large amounts of new CO2 being added).
Are you just being "moderate" again?
The black death where it killed off 25% of the World population and in some areas the death rate was a lot higher.
well gwen since the black death killed over half the population in europe and climate change will kill zero people then i’m going to have to say…………….black death
Proof is not something usually associated with climate change.
With that comparison, there will be researchers saying, that climate change will cause black death.
The plague was caused by globalization of the 1300s, wtih ships carrying rats carrying plague vectoring fleas from Asia to the rest of the world.
As Mr.Derivative siad, cool moist climate is a flea paradise.
The year you are talking about in the future has already passed : it was 2000.
If you compare the life expectation of the people in developing countries (in the US around 75 plus years) and the life expectation in the developing countries you will encounter a huge difference.
Below is a summary of the situation of his planet and sustainability in our economy is one of the eight targets.
In case of percentage (dead to survival) it may not be as bad as the Black Death in Europe, in absolute numbers we have already passed this years ago and the dying continues ……
In 2000 the Millennium Goals of the United Nations have been signed by > 191 nations with 8 Goals to be achieved by 2015. This goals are monitored, see the website below and fact sheets are available for them. This is based on data provided by the nations of this world to th UN, the world bank and the International Monetary fund, so they are facts – not opinion:
- The population of his planet will grow form app. 6.5 bn people to app. 9 bn pople (2050) to 10 bn people in 2100
- today 1.4 bn people live in extreme poverty (20 %) with an income per day of $ 1.25 = 37 $/month = 450 $/year
- today 3 bn people (45 %) live in poverty with an income of $ 1.25 to $ 3/day ( $ 1000/year)
- 2 bn people are undernrourished
- 1 bn people can not cover their daily food supply and go to bed hungry -EVERY DAY !
- 140 Mio children are considered underweight
- 38 Mio children do not have the possibility for primary schooling
- 1 bn people do not have access to save drinking water
- 1.6 bn people do not have access to electricity
- 2.4 bn people have no access to heating ) cooking or heating systems
- 8 Mio hactars (that is a square of 600 miles x 600 miles) are lost every year to deforestation (after new trees are planted !)
- 22 % of all fisheries are sustainable, 78 % of all fisheries are exhausted beyond the point of replacement
- the concentration in cities is increasing and by 2050 a population of 3 bn people is expected to live in slums
Countries like Sudan, Ethopia, Sub Saharan Africa have been devastated by famines resulting civil wars for resources with Mio of dead
The demand for oil has increased sharply resulting e.g. in price hikes in 2008 of $ 150/barrel and gas prices in the US of > $ 4/gallon
The economies of the developing world (estimated 5 bn today and 8 bn in 2050) are growing at > 5 % per year, doubling the todays demand on resources by 100 % in 25 years !
Global temperature is rising, ice caps are melting, extreme weather conditions are increasing, the north passage of Canada has been ice free for the first time, Himalayan glaciers are melting beyond the replenishment and risking the water supply of appr. 1 bn people in Asia, floods in Bangla Dash (200 Mio people) are getting worth because of increasing water levels, …..
The developed world spends millions or maybe bn of $ to protect their borders against immigration (US -Mexico, border security, Europe against North Africa and the Eastern countries)
The black death was a consequence of climate change in the 14th century. Cooler and damper weather enabled fleas carrying plague to avoid dehydration and death, their rat hosts to floirish. At the same time human resistance was weakened by poor harvests.
Humanity is heading for another episode of population reduction in the 21rst century, even without the effects of climate change. Current levels of agricultural productivity depend on inputs of fertilizer and pesticides based on non-renewable mineral resources that cannot be sustained for more than 30-40 years. Supplies of fresh water are likewise limited. As aquifers are pumped dry, agricultural output will decline. Climate change will provide additional stresses to agricultural productivity, but is just one of several factors.
The human population cannot exceed the food supply for long. World grain consumption is 1781 million tonnes annually and current production is 1777 million tonnes (with near record yields), with 387 million tonnes in reserve (closing stocks). For rice production and consumption are balanced at 441 million tonnes with 90 million tonnes in reserve. Each human (6.8 billion) is fed by about 1/3 tonne of grain annually. Decrease yields by 30% when fertilizer runs out and by 20% from heat stress due to global warming. You do the math.
http://www.igc.int/downloads/gmrsummary/gmrsumme.pdf
global warming will hurt black people!
The plague killed 2/3 of the worlds population and ended serfdom in Europe .
Climate Change 0
Wow. I’m scared to go out side now. I don’t know if I can stand the sight of all the corpses rotting in the streets…… Curse this global warming…… We should of listened to Al Gore.
Ah well the flaw in your question is that we won’t experience unmitigated climate change. As you know, Europe has already implemented a carbon cap and trade system, and although we’re way behind the curve in the USA, it’s really only a matter of time before we implement a similar system.
The Black Death reduced the population of Europe by around 40%, killing around 100 million people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
In a scenario of ineffective climate change mitigation, one third of the planet may be desert by the year 2100.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-century-of-drought-418623.html
100 million deaths? In 2100, that would probably only be around 1-2% of the global population, so in a scenario where just one of the effects is that a third of the planet is uninhabitable? Yes, in terms of raw numbers, climate change will almost certainly be deadlier. In terms of percentages it’s hard to say. The Black Death killed on the order of 25% of the world population at the time. Climate change certainly has the potential for similar impacts if we get into the 5+°C warming range. Hopefully we won’t have to find out.
I’m fairly certain that an imaginative scientist with the appropriate motivation and government funding could probably use statistics, careful wording and existing climate change studies to prove that AGW has already surpassed the Black Plague in terms of damage to humanity.
The Black Death wasn’t global, so its not really a accurate comparison. Why would anyone think 85% of the worlds population is still going to receive needed medical, food, and freshwater supplies as an attribute to mitigation…is living in a unrealistic world.
Sounds like a feel good type of thing for wishful thinkers.
Where has the common sense gone?
Hi Gwen,
In percentage terms and measured regionally then I believe the black death will far surpass even the worst possible climate change scenarios.
There are few precise records for the numbers killed by the black death, various estimates put the figure at between one third and one half of the population of much of Europe. Extrapolating a global figure in today’s world this would equate to somewhere in the order of 3 billion deaths.
If you take all lesser impacts of climate change into account then it’s safe to say that just about everyone on Earth has been, and will be, affected. Not necessarily affected directly and not necessarily in a negative way.
If for example, climate change brings about a favourable growing season in the rice paddies of Asia then the cost of rice comes down and we pay less in the shops. In this respect we’ve been impacted without even realising it.
One of the many things we don’t understand about the climate of Earth is the seemingly in-built switching mechanism that throws the planet into cooling mode when it gets too hot, and visa versa.
There have been instances in the distant past when the average temperature across the surface of the planet has been between 34°C and 35°C. When this happens the Earth begins to cool down until it reaches 4°C when it switches to warming mode. This switching is loosely tied to the way our solar system orbits within the galaxy but these changes don’t appear to be tied close enough or be of significant magnitude to initiate this switching and the extreme temp swings (these phases are in the order of 125 million years so the effects upon humans are truly miniscule).
Bear in mind that this was the average temp, many places would have been much hotter. In today’s world the hottest inhabited place was Dallol in the Afar Region of Ethiopia which has a year round average temp of 34°C (it’s no longer inhabited, people lived there for a time to extract sulphur from the surrounding area, the extreme heat and chemical atmosphere forced the evacuation of the place).
Even in a world where the average temp is 35°C there will still be many parts that are quite habitable for humans, primarily the more northerly and southerly latitudes.
So even in the very worst case scenario where we have a runaway greenhouse effect for a few thousand years it appears that the majority of people would survive.