Global Warming Costs Illustrated

If there is one thing I hope to accomplish one day with this blog, it's convincing a few people that their simplest choices can have devastating consequences for someone somewhere else in the world.

For example, the mining practices used in Africa to power our laptops and cell phones probably resulted in someone's death.  Either the minerals are used to fund wars the way West Africa diamonds once did, or the environmental protections are so lax that people are poisoned or simply driven from their homes.  If consumers agreed to pay just a little more, computer makers could pay more for the material and therefore afford more environmentally sound practices.

Instead, too many Americans put blind faith in the notion that "The Market" (praise be unto it) always makes the right choice.  Nevermind that the The Market, like flowing water, follows the path of least resistance.  It doesn't consider external costs not felt by the consumer.  In this WalMart economy cheap means good, no matter how high the cost is for someone else.

Statistical Wunderkind Nate Silver has done a wonderful job of demonstrating the immorality of this thinking with the latest Republican talking point on Climate Change.  Acknowledging that Climate Change is real and due at least in part to human activity, they now argue that the costs of doing something about it are too high given that the impact would "ONLY" be 5% of global GDP.

Sadly, the greatest impacts are in the Global South, aka Third World; nations closest to the equator and centered along the ocean.  In other words, the people that contribute the least to Climate Change are the most impacted by its concequences.

So Nate created a graphical illustration of what losing 5% of the world's GDP would look like by removing those countries from the map.

Take note Africa and Asia... according to the GOP you are expendable.