Warming up.

[DocBot]

hear, hear.

 

[Taffy]

The third world are suffering because global warming is destroying their environment.

No, it isn't. Africa has always been a poor land to draw resources from. For example, if British colonies in Africa had been plentiful in resources, then Britain wouldn't have exported slaves to America. They would have used those slaves to pick, grow and stockpile the resources in Africa. Exporting them to America would have been viewed as a needless cost by those governing at the time.

Third world countries are suffering due to poverty, famine, disease and thirst. But most of all, they are suffering because of their location, and because of their lack of resources. A lack of resources that has always, and always will be, a problem to them.

Look at any given third world country on a globe. They are all positioned in a part of the world where a lack of resources in clear. But to blame this lack of resources on global warming is just incorrect. You can't say that the 6 gigatons of CO2 that humans have pumped into the atmosphere have turned the Sahara into a desert. It's always been that way.

 

[Tetsuo_Shima]

Is it due to lack of resources, or due to lack of excavation equipment? If you look at a map of the world from, say, a century or two ago (not sure how far back you'd have to go here) the North Sea wouldn't be identified as an oil-rich sea; the Middle-East probably wouldn't have been particularly prosperous either. OK, I'm not entirely sure about the reliability of that information, but you see my point.

Also, the reason for the poverty famine disease and thirst is, funnily enough, global warming. Im sure that tens, or hundreds of thousands of years ago the Sahara desert was fairly lush - all that happened is that the rainforest has receded to such an extent that now all that's left is a big hunk of sand. Whether it's down to human interference or not is anyone's guess. Obviously, we had no part to play in the early stages of desertification, so you can take that for yourself.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Africa has always been a poor land to draw resources from.

Northern Africa and the area we now refer to as the Middle East are often referred to as the "Cradle of Civilisation". They were once lush, fertile lands, brimming with life. The Nile was a patch of incredibly fertile land for Egypt. The Sahara has been creeping outwards for years. Wikipedia has some information on the causes of desertification and its timescales.

For example, if British colonies in Africa had been plentiful in resources, then Britain wouldn't have exported slaves to America.

Surely that's simple market economics? Take a plentiful resource (people, which Africa has in spades) and take it to where it is a less plentiful and highly desirable resource (America, to work plantations there). Remember, back when the slave trade was in full boom, global trade didn't exist in any meaningful sense. People needed to be at the farms down the road to provide you food, not half way round the world.

They are all positioned in a part of the world where a lack of resources in clear.

Brazil is a third world country and sits on one of the most precious forest resources left on the planet: the Amazon rainforest. They don't lack resources, they lack (renewable?) exploitation of resources. In fact, we developed countries are quite happy to exploit/rape their resources from them in exchange for a few pennies or a handful of AK47s or forgiving small slices of the incredible debt that we've let them/forced them to run up.

It's not a simple case of "global warming caused all the problems", I agree but it does appear to be a significant contributing factor. A good number of these arid wastelands we've created through one avenue or another since the Industrial Revolution: overgrazing, pollution, rising temperatures, monsoons, etc. Global Warming is just one line we must address but we must address is none-the-less, along with all the others.