Mirror | rorriM

The reality of climate change isn’t necessarily an unusually fierce summer heat wave. More likely, we may just notice people wearing fewer layers of clothes on a winter’s evening. (p.12)

On planet Earth, a major study in Nature found that if we fail to take strong action to reduce emissions soon, the brutal European heat wave that killed 35,000 people will become the typical summer within the next four decades. By the end of the century, “2003 would be classed as an anomalously cold summer relative to the new climate.”

Lomborg’s entire book takes place in a kind of fantasy-land or Bizarro world. Aptly, on the last page is “A Note on the Type” that begins

This book was set in Utopia….

Irony can be so ironic. Utopia is from the Greek for “no place” or “place that does not exist.” Lomborg is the nowhere man!

On Earth, if we listen to Lomborg and take no action anytime soon, then the amplifying feedbacks kick in, and the planet, including America, is going to hell — as a major 2005 study found:

In the second half of this century (from 2071 to 2095) a vast swath of the country would see average summer temperature rise by a blistering 9°F. Houston and Washington, DC would experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year. Oklahoma would see temperatures above 110°F some 60 to 80 days a year. Much of Arizona would be subjected to temperatures of 105°F or more for 98 days out of the year-14 full weeks. We won’t call these heat waves anymore. As the lead author, Noah Diffenbaugh, of Purdue University said to me, “We will call them normal summers.”

With global warming, the Southwest is projected to enter a permanent drought after 2050, and the entire West to experience two to five times the wildfire devastation.

Extreme drought, in which agriculture is in effect impossible, will affect about a third of the planet, according to the study from the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.

It is one of the most dire forecasts so far of the potential effects of rising temperatures around the world – yet it may be an underestimation, the scientists involved said yesterday.

The findings, released at the Climate Clinic at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth, drew astonished and dismayed reactions from aid agencies and development specialists, who fear that the poor of developing countries will be worst hit.

“This is genuinely terrifying,” said Andrew Pendleton of Christian Aid. “It is a death sentence for many millions of people. It will mean migration off the land at levels we have not seen before, and at levels poor countries cannot cope with.”