Climate Change and global warming will (not eventually) affect our costs of living. Many comon expenses like drinking water bills and insurance fees will raise. Just how bad things will get is beeing looked at in this article.

Higher costs for city water, rising home-insurance rates as sea levels rise, and programs to encourage people to leave their fossil-fuel-burning cars at home were cited Tuesday as ways that climate change is, or soon will be, hitting home for B.C. residents.

That was the message from a panel at the opening session of BC Hydro’s 2011 Power Smart Forum speaking on how a changing climate is affecting the business environment. Business, government and residents need to begin adapting so that the province will be more resilient as climate-change effects become more obvious, panelists said.

Research and talk about climate change are no longer enough, said Deborah Harford, executive director of Adaptation to Climate Change (ACT) at Simon Fraser University. She said costs that business and service providers will face include increased effects on health, energy production, food services and population movements due to rising sea levels.

And as the effects increase, she said, insurance companies will probably start raising rates if infrastructure has not been planned and developed to adapt to climate change.

Bob Purdy of the Fraser Basin Council said issues such as climate change are complex but actions can be taken, such as reducing emissions on transportation fleets, which also saves costs.

Harford said most British Columbians probably do not understand adaptation to climate change.

“They would say, ‘Do we need this?’” she said of expenditures that would meet impending changes.

Local governments are already adapting by undertaking long-term measures, she said, citing some of the initiatives at the City of Vancouver.

Peter Judd, general manager of Vancouver’s engineering services, said the city has already implemented programs, like the downtown bicycle lanes, that are responses to climate change. Strategies are also underway to adapt to climateinduced changes to the city’s water supply, which will likely be affected by drier summers.

Judd said drinking water will be more expensive. In a later interview, he expanded on the water issue, saying the city is prepared to require new residential housing to have water meters installed beginning Jan. 1, 2012. All that’s needed is city council’s final approval.

There will also be a rate structure to encourage residents to reduce their water use, he said, but added that ultimately, the need to conserve will mean water rates are going to go up.

“The thing that we have an opportunity to do here is to actually reduce the long-term costs. If we can reduce the amount of water we are using, we can put off or eliminate major expenses like raising the dams in the region,” he said.

“One of the challenges that we have is that we expect to be facing hotter, drier summers and more intense storms in the winter. The response to some of those things, like water conservation and droughtresistant plants, are the kinds of responses that you need to address,” said Judd.

He said the prospect of rising sea levels is one of the biggest challenges the city is struggling with now.

And the city’s controversial downtown bike lanes, he said, are part of the city’s climatechange strategy. They are aimed not only at today’s bike commuters, but also at the next generation.

“We have to make sure there are alternatives for people who haven’t started driving yet.”

Judd said the city is adapting to more severe and more frequent storms by increasing the size of the storm-sewer pipes.

The primary need is to replace the old system where storm drains and sewage were combined in a single pipe, but at the same time the city is installing wider pipes dedicated solely to storm run-off, he said.

Already, the city has recorded an increase in rainfall along with more severe rainstorms.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Wallets+will+soon+feel+effect+climate+change/5572296/story.html#ixzz1bJEyl3Q9

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Floods, droughts and storms are incrasing in frequency and brutality. Fleeing people can get trapped in disaster areas if they aren’t warned early enough. In the following article you can find out what kind of problems humanity is facing in the near future, related to climate change and global disasters caused by floodds, droughts and storms.

Hundreds of millions of people may be trapped in inhospitable environments as they attempt to flee from the effects of global warming, worsening the likely death toll from severe changes to the climate, a UK government committee has found.

Refugees forced to leave their homes because of floods, droughts, storms, heatwaves and other effects of climate change are likely to be one of the biggest visible effects of the warming that scientists warn will result from the untrammelled use of fossil fuels, according to the UK government’s Foresight group, part of the Office for Science.

But many of those people are likely to move from areas affected by global warming into areas even worse afflicted – for instance, by moving into coastal cities in the developing world that are at risk of flood from storms and rising sea levels.

“Millions will migrate into, rather than away from, areas of environmental vulnerability,” said Sir John Beddington, chief scientific advisor to the UK government, and head of the Foresight programme. “An even bigger policy challenge will be the millions who are trapped in dangerous conditions and unable to move to safety.”

The scientists, in a report entitled Migration and Global Environmental Change, found that between 114 million and 192 million more people were likely to be living in floodplains in urban areas of Africa and Asia by 2060, partly as a result of climate change.

People who are trapped by warming – either because they cannot move from their homes, or because they have moved but are unable to find better places to live – will represent “just as important a policy concern as those who do migrate”, the report concluded. “Environmental change is equally likely to make migration less possible, as more probable.”

Last year, according to the United Nations, 210 million people – about 3% of the global population – migrated between countries, and in 2009 about 740 million people moved within countries.

But the scientists also said that migration should not be seen simply as a problem – in many cases, it is a sensible solution to the environmental changes caused by a warming climate, and can be managed if governments make adequate preparations. “Migration can be a good option – it is a way of adapting to climate change,” said Neil Adger, professor of environmental economics at the University of East Anglia. “We should be planning for migration pro-actively, to ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place for people.”

He said that equipping cities in developing countries with adequate infrastructure, including access to clean water, sanitation and energy, was a key concern. Funds devoted to helping countries cope with the effects of climate change should also be spent with this in mind, he said.

Although the scientists who wrote the report declined to put an estimate on the number of people likely to be displaced, they said it was “undeniable” that migration would be a major factor, and one that would be potentially destabilising to established governments.

Previous attempts to put an estimate on the number displaced have met with controversy – a prediction by the United Nations Environment Programme that 50 million people would be forced to migrate by climate change by 2010 was attacked by climate change sceptics, who said there was no proof of how many of the 210 million people who moved across borders in that year had been forced to flee by environmental conditions.

The Foresight programme scientists said there were many factors influencing migration, but that climate change was likely to become a much more significant factor in the next 20 to 30 years.

Trying to stop migration from global warming may be the wrong approach, the scientists warned. Andre Geddes, professor of politics at the University of Sheffield, said: “Policies that just seek to prevent migration are risky.”

Instead, governments should attempt to anticipate movement and find ways to improve conditions, both in the places people are likely to move to, and those they are likely to move from.

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The 2012 election is heating up, and the issues at stake are more relevant than ever. A number of them are incredibly important to our generation- youth unemployment, deficits, education, student loan debt, foreign policy, and more. We’re breaking them down, giving them context, discussing possible solutions, interviewing experts, and- above all- showcasing the takes of students nationwide. Welcome to ‘NextGen Policy’- a NGJ special series. In the arena today: climate change.

More than depressed, or frustrated, or anxious, I am shocked. Jaw-droppingly, nauseatingly, disquietingly shocked. What turns me to my thesaurus now, on the eve of the 2012 election season? The complete and utter unraveling of the environmental movement that has occurred in less than 24 months.

Less than 24 months ago, climate activists awaited eagerly the introduction of just-passed House climate and energy legislation. Less than 24 months ago, Copenhagen and the international climate negotiations were household terms; Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes From A Catastrophe were bestsellers. Less than 24 months ago, the Supreme Court’s defense of the Clean Air Act as a viable legislative option for regulating greenhouse gas emissions stood strong; protections for public lands, coasts, the Clean Water Act, clean energy initiatives, the National Environmental Protection Act, and pollution prevention persisted, despite the occasional attack from the radical right.

And yet today, somehow, the 112th Congress, in only its 11th month in session, has taken a total of 168 votes to dismantle, undermine, de-fund, override, and block both existing and proposed environmental legislation: 92 votes targeted at the Environmental Protection Agency; 71 votes to block various forms of pollution prevention; 61 votes to dismantle the Clean Air Act; 34 votes to undermine protection for public lands and coasts; 25 votes to de-fund clean energy initiatives; 25 votes targeted at the Department of Energy and 26 at the Department of the Interior; 20 votes to block climate change research, mitigation and adaptation; 16 votes to undermine the Clean Water Act; ; 11 votes to override the National Environmental Policy Act.

Less than 24 months ago we were talking about action; we were playing offense on what is potentially the most catastrophic, diffuse, and unpredictable environmental problem we have ever faced. The liberal media championed the cause to the point where environmental lip service from conservative publications and pundits alike was expected fare. Today, we are playing defense; defending the most obvious ideals of universal access to pollution-free air, water, and ecosystems. Progressive media has all but abandoned the cause; greens are lucky if the right wing even takes the time to attack environmental initiatives.

Climate change will not be an issue in the 2012 election cycle. The existence of the EPA, the need to protect public lands and coastlines, the logic of building a toxic pipeline through 6 states with limited job creation potential and the survival of historic legislative and environmental victories like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act will be. They will be taunted and threatened; paraded around as examples of unfettered socialist spending; crucified in the name of cheap political points by individuals with no semblance of the public interest at heart.

And in the process we will relegate the issues that need to define the 21st century – environmental justice, global warming, and resource constraints – to a place behind corporate greed and incomprehensible inequality. We will subject our poorest communities and the world’s poorest countries to dangerous levels of pollution, and undo decades of work combating the anti-prosperity paradigm surrounding environmental action. And ultimately, we will further see the extent to which our system is broken, in its inability to represent the daily needs of its constituents and to internalize all that makes us human.

Climate Change and Our Generation: Reassembling the Environmental Movement – NextGen Journal.

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