Eco-Terrorists?, Ctd.

by Patrick Appel

A reader counters Avent:

I think far more worrisome is the geopolitical unrest we will see in countries that do not have the money -- the GDP per captia -- to aggressively adapt their societies to climate change. Think of the desert communities plagued with little to no rainfall now without the means to acquire more secure water supplies. Or coastal communities with shores at or below sea level, similar to the Netherlands, but without the means to develop complex levee infrastructures to mitigate a rising sea levels.

A warming planet is far too slow, and the effects of carbon emissions much to decentralized and diffuse, where negative consequences of fossil combustion happen far from the fuel burning itself. No, eco-terrorism won't happen under this scenario, at least not in any widespread way. Rather, it will be the billions people living in areas where negative effects of climate change will push them to more desperate brinks. That's the real problem. And that's why climate change is a moral issue, and not just a scientific, political, and economic concern.