Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

ARTICLE: "Poorest Nations Will Bear Brunt As World Warms: Preparation Disparities; Wealthy Countries Spend Billions on Themselves, Millions on Others," by Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times, 1 April 2007, p. A1.

The non-surprise is--of course--that the equatorially-centric Gap will suffer far more than the temperate-heavy Core (both north and south).

Best quote:

"Like the sinking of the Titanic, catastrophes are not democratic. A much higher fraction of passengers from the cheaper decks were lost. We'll see the same phenomenon with global warming."

So says Henry I. Miller, from Hoover.

The subtitle on the jump page is too obvious for words:

Those responsible for carbon buildup are best able to adapt.

Duh! It's called development, and it beats poverty across the board: in good times, in marginal times, in bad times.

Obvious answer? Develop the Gap.

Best "flow" argument yet:

Robert O. Mendelsohn, an economist at Yale focused on climate, said that in the face of warming, it might be necessary to abandon the long-standing notion that all places might someday feed themselves. Poor regions reliant on unpredictable rainfall, he said, should be encouraged to shift people out of farming and into urban areas and import their food from northern countries.

Big trick, of course, is that urban migration typically triggered when rising ag productivity pushes people off rural lands.

One thing is for sure: our classic definitions of resilience will change.