Much has been said about climate change remedial action but little progress has been made. Climate change deniers still point to much bigger changes long before the advent of Man and while that is true there are still, nevertheless, uniquely new conditions today, in particular a huge number of people totally dependent on global logistics for survival through trade.
The threat to humanity from climate change is, perhaps, greater than most people imagine. There are basically two kinds of threats: the destruction of the means of production and the damage to infrastructure that facilitates the distribution of that production. Droughts, floods, heat, typhoons and hurricanes can all damage food production as well as destabilise society through mass migrations and conflicts over resources, like water.
The second threat, namely damage to the infrastructure like roads and railways, is no less worrying. Extreme heat can buckle train rails, melt roads and close airports, making them unusable while extreme floods can wash away roads, bridges and railways. Rising temperatures will also raise the risks of forest fires while melting permafrost would release methane gas far more harmful than CO2 emissions.
There is one other uncomfortable problem which is almost taboo to discuss. We cannot deny that growing population numbers is part of the climate change problems and if we do not address that properly Nature's insouciant ways may do it for us savagely.
The effect of heat-buckled rails
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