Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

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20 politics and governance
hundreds of thousands, or more likely millions, of refugees—like
Katrina but on a much larger scale. Unless we choose to build
dikes and can afford to do so, many coastal cities will be fl ooded,
possibly within decades or by the end of the century. A majority
of the millions of people who live along the Gulf Coast and eastern
seaboard will have to move inland to higher ground. But we
have neither the money necessary to relocate millions of people
nor the infrastructure to accommodate them once moved.
The warming of the northern latitudes and oceans means
many things, among which is the possibility of triggering positive
feedbacks that will cause the release of large amounts of methane
from permafrost and the ocean fl oor. As with other possible tipping
points, a large release of methane to the atmosphere is a wild
card in the deck that hopefully will never be brought into play.
But again the scientifi c evidence does not permit us to predict
accurately. It is clear, however, that the government is ill prepared
to handle the social, economic, and political disruption to which
we are now committed, to say nothing of the effects of more rapid
changes.
It is especially diffi cult for Americans to imagine empty supermarket
shelves and the possibility of famine. But with each increment
of temperature increase, heat waves and drought in the U.S.
mid-continent become more likely, jeopardizing much of our
food system. A forecast by the Consultative Group on Agricultural
Research (news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6200114.
stm; see also Battisti and Naylor, 2009) indicates the likelihood
that climate change–driven heat waves, drought, and fl oods will
render much of the Midwest unsuitable for agriculture by 2050.
At the very least, recurring droughts and heat waves of longer
duration combined with larger and more frequent storms, fl oods,
and changing crop diseases will make farming even more precarious
than it already is. 9
Tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever could spread
into areas that once had temperate weather. People exposed to