Why The Wiring Of Our Brains Makes It Hard To Stop Climate Change

Los Angeles Times - David G. Victor* | Nick Obradovich* | Dillon Amaya*

Pedestrians walk in a flooded street as Tropical Storm Irma hits Charleston, S.C. on Sept. 11. (Mic Smith / Associated Press)

Houston has barely begun to dry out from Hurricane Harvey, and Florida faces a massive rebuilding effort after the Irma catastrophe. These two storms, among the most powerful in American history, are typical of the extreme weather events that are likely to become more common as the planet warms. A third hurricane, Jose, waits offshore and the storm season is far from done.
So why isn’t the public heeding scientists and demanding climate action by politicians that could help deal with these destructive extremes? You can point fingers at the influence of fossil fuel companies, at misinformation from climate deniers and at political obstructionism, notably from a fragmented Republican party. But a much deeper force is also at work: the way our brains function.
Humans aren’t well wired to act on complex statistical risks. We care a lot more about the tangible present than the distant future. Many of us do that to the extreme — what behavioral scientists call hyperbolic discounting — which makes it particularly hard to grapple with something like climate change, where the biggest dangers are yet to come.

Humans aren’t wired to act on complex statistical risks very well. We care a lot more about the tangible present than the distant future.

Our mental space is limited and we aren’t primed to focus on abstruse topics. Except for a small fraction that are highly motivated, most voters know little about the ins and outs of climate change, or the policy options relating to it. Instead, voters’ opinions about such things derive from heuristics such as political party affiliation and basic ideology.
It isn’t surprising, then, that most people don’t process information about extreme events the way scientists do. And they don’t do a good job of holding politicians accountable when the effects of political inaction are far removed from the policy failures that cause them.
The arrival of extreme events — hurricanes, wildfires, drought and torrential deluges — is not proof to many people that scientists are right and that a complete rethinking of climate policy is overdue. Instead, voters see these shocks more as evidence that things are out of whack. Change is needed, and voters deliver that verdict not by reevaluating policy but by casting politicians out of office.
Political scientists call such decision-making retrospective voting, and it too is rooted in how the brain deals with complex topics. It seems less than rational, but for busy voters, focusing on immediate, visible results and situations is a practical way to assess politicians, even if those results and situations are many steps removed from elected leaders’ actual responsibilities.
When it comes to climate change, this sort of brain-driven behavior tends to create churn in political leadership rather than the continuity needed for long-term planning. It ejects whoever happens to be in office, rather than the real culprits. It doesn’t help that when politicians know they are at risk of losing office due to disasters, they may pursue quick payoffs, neglecting longer-term policies like those needed for emissions mitigation and climate adaptation.
California’s climate actions prove there can be exceptions to these rules. But what matters for global warming is ultimately what happens across the nation and the planet. Overall, the politics of controlling emissions, especially given the time horizons we face, will continue to bring out the worst in how we make important policy decisions.
Quick, deep cuts in emissions would impose high costs on existing well-organized interest groups for benefits that will be diffused across all nations and that will accrue mainly in the distant future. Failing at emissions control, we will have to grapple with the politics of adaptation — abandoning vulnerable regions and subsidizing the construction of various forms of protection, like sea walls to deal with worsening storm surges.
Voters consistently report being worried about climate change. But asked to rank their priorities, they rarely put climate policy high on the list. Nor does the public indicate that it is willing to spend what is needed to address the problem. What voters know is mixed, muddled and sparse.
This grim analysis explains why political systems will always be playing catch-up. Even with the conspicuous signals of regular extreme events, public support for the policies needed to stop global warming will be fleeting. But that realization can also inspire new policy strategies that are better wired for our political brains.
First, investments in technology can help immensely because they lower the cost of reducing emissions, making change appear less costly and easier to adopt. New energy technologies also create new interest groups that can help keep policy makers focused on controlling emissions when voters’ minds drift.
Second, we’re likely to do better with policies that generate immediate and tangible benefits. A good example is efforts to control soot — a potent warming pollutant and also a central ingredient in noxious local air pollution. Even countries and societies that care little about global goals find it in their self-interest to protect the air their citizens breathe.
Third, our political institutions can help people focus on the long view by surveying climate impacts on a regular basis, so that each extreme storm is less a novel event and more a part of a pattern that needs sustained policy attention. One model is California’s program of localized climate assessments that inform decisions about land-use planning and development. Another is the Obama administration’s regular, nationwide assessments, which are at risk of termination under President Trump.
Our brains are unfortunately not wired to tackle problems like climate change. With some help we can build policies that enable us to do better. What the storms in the Gulf and Atlantic are reminding the public — for now, if not for long— is that the consequences of failure are big.

*David G. Victor is a professor at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy & Strategy and codirector of the Initiative on Energy and Climate at the Brookings Institution.
*Nick Obradovich is a research scientist at MIT’s Media Laboratory.
*Dillon J. Amaya is a PhD student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Links

• Fires, droughts and hurricanes: What's the link between climate change and natural disasters?
• Humans have solved both man-made and natural threats. We can do the same on climate change.
• Climate deniers play politics with looming natural disasters
• Catastrophic storms, once rare, are almost routine. Is climate change to blame?
• What should you say to a climate change skeptic?
• Nature isn't on a rampage. That would be us.

The Window Is Closing to Avoid Dangerous Global Warming

Scientific American - Jean Chemnick (ClimateWire)

There's a 50 percent chance that temperatures will rise 4 degrees Celsius under a business-as-usual scenario

Credit: David McNew Getty Images

Deadly climate change could threaten most of the world's human population by the end of this century without efforts well beyond those captured in the Paris Agreement.
That's the finding of a pair of related reports released yesterday by an international group of climate science and policy luminaries who warned that the window is closing to avert dangerous warming. They say carbon dioxide might have to be removed from the atmosphere.
Scientists Yangyang Xu and Veerabhadran Ramanathan found in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that there already exists a 1 in 20 chance that the 2.2 trillion tons of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere could cause an existential warming threat. This "fat tail" scenario would mean the world experiences "existential/unknown" warming by 2100 — defined in the report as more than 5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Temperatures haven't been that high since the Miocene warming period. That low-probability but very extreme scenario could expose most of the world's people to deadly heat stress, with 2.5 billion facing viruses linked to warming and 20 percent of the world's species becoming extinct.
"To put in perspective, how many of us would choose to buckle our grandchildren to an airplane seat if we knew there was as much as a 1 in 20 chance of the plane crashing?" said Ramanathan in a statement. "With climate change that can pose existential threats, we have already put them in that plane."
The report also found a 50 percent chance that temperatures would rise to 4 C under a business-as-usual scenario, a less extreme but still highly dangerous level. The long-term goal of the Paris accord was to maintain warming well below 2 C.
To avoid this fate, Xu and Ramanathan recommend that nations pull three mitigation "levers" in the very near future. The world must achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, they write, with greenhouse gas emissions peaking by 2020 — a rate that is not in line with the voluntary commitments made by countries in Paris. For contrast, the United States under President Obama pledged to cut emissions 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050 — a promise that the Trump administration has said it will cancel.
The researchers say that countries must also tackle short-lived climate pollutants like hydrofluorocarbons that accelerate warming greatly in the near term, and take some of the carbon that is currently in the atmosphere out. If the turnaround is sufficiently swift on CO₂ and other greenhouse gas reductions, fewer carbon sinks will be needed, they write. But the more carbon that is emitted, the more carbon extraction will be needed in the form of reforestation, sequestration and technologies.
Xu and Ramanathan handed their findings off to a cadre of 33 policy and science experts, who compiled a related report considering some of the steps countries could take to contain warming. These ranged from greater reliance on subnational government action to a sharp pivot to wind and solar energy and electric cars.
"We are quickly running out of time to prevent hugely dangerous, expensive, and perhaps unmanageable climate change," wrote the report's authors, who include former U.N. Environment Programme chief Achim Steiner and Mexican chemist Mario Molina, who won the Nobel Prize for his role in discovering the threat that chlorofluorocarbon gases pose to the Earth's ozone layer.
Paul Bledsoe, a co-author of the policy report, described the findings as "pretty disturbing."
"These studies are a wake-up call ahead of U.N. Climate Week — we must not only zero out CO₂ emissions by 2050, but also rapidly limit superpollutants like HFCs and methane, and even undertake atmospheric carbon removal," said Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser.

Links

• Earth Flirts with a 1.5-Degree Celsius Global Warming Threshold
• Why Global Warming Will Cross a Dangerous Threshold in 2036
• The Most Important Number in Climate Change
• The World May Have Less Time to Address Climate Change Than Scientists Thought
• Major Companies Set Carbon-Slashing Goals
• Asia's Pollution Is Miles above the U.S.--Could It Cool Earth?
• How States Will Hit 100 Percent Clean Energy
• Warming Waters Could Mean Smaller Fish
• People Furthest Apart on Climate Views Are Often the Most Educated
• Will the U.S. Ever Build Another Big Coal Plant?
• Carbon Offsets Really Do Help Lower Emissions
• China Is Preparing to Launch the World's Biggest Carbon Market

'Weird Winter': Climate Change Behind Australia's Record Hot And Dry Weather

Fairfax - Marika Dobbin Thomas

Australia had its hottest winter on record with temperatures up by two degrees celsius on average and it is related to worsening climate change, according to a leading scientific group.
Winter warm spells are lasting longer, occurring more often and becoming more intense, a report by not-for-profit group the Climate Council found.

Australia has posted a record warm winter - even if it didn't always feel that way. Photo: Nick Moir

In addition to the warmth, the nation experienced its second driest June on record and the driest winter since 2002, the Hot & Dry: Australia's Weird Winter report found.
Ecologist Professor Lesley Hughes said there were more than 260 heat and low rainfall records set throughout the season.
"Without any meaningful action to tackle climate change, we will continue to see many more hot winters, just like this, as global temperatures rise," Ms Hughes said.
"We must take meaningful action to strongly reduce Australia's emissions from fossil fuels.
"The current situation in which the government continues to not only delay real action to reduce emissions, but is actively supporting further development of coal-fired power is simply nonsensical."
The unseasonable weather has led to an earlier start to the bushfire season in many parts of Australia, especially Victoria and other southern states, she said.
Professor Hughes urged the federal government to get on with tackling climate change.
"The solution remains the same - clean, efficient and affordable renewable energy and storage technology."
Australia's average winter temperatures have increased by about one degree celsius since 1910, driven by climate change as a direct result of burning fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas, the council said.
The council was formed by Australia's biggest crowd-funding campaign after the Tony Abbott government abolished the Climate Commission in 2013.

Climate Council - Lesley Hughes

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

Climate Change made Australia’s warmest winter on record an astounding 60 times more likely, our new report highlights.
The “Hot & Dry: Australia’s Weird Winter,” report shows the nation experienced its warmest winter on record (for average maximum temperatures), while more than 260 heat and low rainfall records were also broken throughout the season.
Climate Councillor and ecologist, Professor Lesley Hughes said Australia’s hottest winter in history was related to worsening climate change.
“Without any meaningful action to tackle climate change, we will continue to see many more hot winters, just like this, as global temperatures rise,” she said.

“We must take meaningful action to strongly reduce Australia’s emissions from fossil fuels."

Key findings include:

• Australia had its warmest winter on record, in terms of average maximum temperatures, reaching nearly 2ºC above average.
• More than 260 heat and low rainfall records were broken during the winter months.
• The nation experienced its second driest June on record and the driest winter since 2002.
• The exceptionally warm and dry winter was made 60 times more likely by climate change.
• Australia’s average winter temperatures have increased by around 1ºC since 1910, driven by climate change, as a direct result of burning fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas.
• Winter warm spells are lasting longer, occurring more often and becoming more intense.

Links

• Hot and Dry: Australia's Weird Winter
• Australia’s Renewables Race: Who’s Leading the Charge?
• Transport Emissions: Driving Down Car Pollution in Cities
• Millions of children at risk under intensifying climate change
• Coal a major risk to our power supply: Energy Market Operator

Global Ocean Circulation Appears To Be Collapsing Due To A Warming Planet

Forbes - Trevor Nace

Global ocean circulation appears to be slowing. NASA

Scientists have long known about the anomalous "warming hole" in the North Atlantic Ocean, an area immune to warming of Earth's oceans. This cool zone in the North Atlantic Ocean appears to be associated with a slowdown in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), one of the key drivers in global ocean circulation.
A recent study published in Nature outlines research by a team of Yale University and University of Southhampton scientists. The team found evidence that Arctic ice loss is potentially negatively impacting the planet's largest ocean circulation system. While scientists do have some analogs as to how this may impact the world, we will be largely in uncharted territory.
AMOC is one of the largest current systems in the Atlantic Ocean and the world. Generally speaking, it transports warm and salty water northward from the tropics to South and East of Greenland. This warm water cools to ambient water temperature then sinks as it is saltier and thus denser than the relatively more fresh surrounding water. The dense mass of water sinks to the base of the North Atlantic Ocean and is pushed south along the abyss of the Atlantic Ocean.

Schematic of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Wikipedia

This process whereby water is transported into the Northern Atlantic Ocean acts to distribute ocean water globally. What's more important, and the basis for concern of many scientists is this mechanism is one of the most efficient ways Earth transports heat from the tropics to the northern latitudes. The warm water transported from the tropics to the North Atlantic releases heat to the atmosphere, playing a key role in warming of western Europe. You likely have heard of one of the more popular components of the AMOC, the Gulf Stream which brings warm tropical water to the western coasts of Europe.
Evidence is growing that the comparatively cold zone within the Northern Atlantic could be due to a slowdown of this global ocean water circulation. Hence, a slowdown in the planet's ability to transfer heat from the tropics to the northern latitudes. The cold zone could be due to melting of ice in the Arctic and Greenland. This would cause a cold fresh water cap over the North Atlantic, inhibiting sinking of salty tropical waters. This would in effect slow down the global circulation and hinder the transport of warm tropical waters north.

Measured trend in temperature variations from 1900 to 2012. NOAA

Melting of the Arctic sea ice has rapidly increased in the recent decades. Satellite image records indicate that September Arctic sea ice is 30% less today than it was in 1979. This trend of increased sea ice melting during summer months does not appear to be slowing. Hence, indications are that we will see a continued weakening of the global ocean circulation system.
This scenario of a collapse in AMOC and global ocean circulation is the premise for the movie "The Day After Tomorrow." As a disclaimer, the plot line in which much of New England and Western Europe gets plunged into an ice age is significantly over exaggerated and unrealistic on human time scales.
While geologists have studied events in the past similar to what appears to be happening today, scientists are largely unsure of what lies ahead.

Links

• Sinkhole Forms In Front Of Trump's Mar-a-Lago; Twitter Response Is Huge
• Arctic sea-ice decline weakens the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation
• Humanity Has Officially Consumed More Than Earth Can Produce This Year
• Atlantic meridional overturning circulation
• Climate Model Suggests Collapse of Atlantic Circulation is Possible

Asia's Glaciers To Shrink By A Third By 2100, Threatening Water Supply Of Millions

The Guardian - Agence France-Presse

High mountains of Asia hold biggest store of frozen water outside the poles and feed many of the world’s great rivers, including the Ganges

The Asian high mountains are already warming more rapidly than the global average. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Asia’s mountain glaciers will lose at least a third of their mass through global warming by the century’s end, with dire consequences for millions of people who rely on them for fresh water, researchers have said.
This is a best-case scenario, based on the assumption that the world manages to limit average global warming to 1.5C (2.7F) over pre-industrial levels, a team wrote in the journal Nature.
“To meet the 1.5C target will be a task of unprecedented difficulty,” the researchers said, “and even then, 36% (give or take 7%) of the ice mass in the high mountains of Asia is projected to be lost” by 2100.
With warming of 3.5C, 4C and 6C respectively, Asian glacier losses could amount to 49%, 51% or 65% by the end of the century, according to the team’s modelling study.
The high mountains of Asia comprise a geographical region surrounding the Tibetan plateau, holding the biggest store of frozen water outside the poles.
It feeds many of the world’s great rivers, including the Ganges, the Indus and the Brahmaputra, on which hundreds of millions of people depend.
Nearly 200 nations adopted the Paris agreement in 2015, which sets the goal of limiting warming to a level “well below” 2C, while “pursuing efforts” to achieve a lower ceiling of 1.5C.
Earth’s surface has already warmed by about 1C, according to scientists.
For high warming scenarios, experts predict land-gobbling sea-level rise, worsening storms, more frequent droughts and floods, species loss and disease spread.
The Asian high mountains, the new study said, were already warming more rapidly than the global average.
A global temperature rise of 1.5C would mean an average increase in the region of about 2.1C, with differences between mountain ranges – all of which will warm by more than 1.5C.
The Hindu Kush mountain range would warm by about 2.3C and the eastern Himalayas by 1.9C, the study forecast.
“Even if temperatures stabilise at their current level, [glacier] mass loss will continue for decades to come,” the researchers added.
For the high mountain glaciers to survive, “it is essential to minimise the global temperature increase”.
Swaths of south Asia and China depend on meltwater from Himalayan glaciers for drinking water, electricity generation and irrigation.
At the same time, the regions are also vulnerable to more intense flooding from accelerated glacier melt, combined with heavier rains and superstorms boosted by global warming.
A study in July in the journal Nature Climate Change said there was only a 5% chance of holding global warming under 2C. For 1.5C, the odds were about 1%.
On current trends, some experts project Earth is on track to warm by about 3C.

Links

• Tibet's fragile ecosystem is in danger. China must change its flawed environmental policy
• Planet has just 5% chance of reaching Paris climate goal, study says
• Canada glaciers to shrink 70% by 2100
• The Melt: climate change and the disappearing Himalayan glaciers
• China plans 59 reservoirs to collect meltwater from its shrinking glaciers
• Water for millions at risk as glaciers melt away

How Did We Get Into This Energy Mess, And How Do We Get Out Of It?

Fairfax - Tony Walker

Let's start with the smelly, dead chicken the Turnbull government is seeking to hang around the Shorten opposition's neck.
In a variation of the children's party game, pass the parcel, or, should we say, pass the chicken, Malcolm Turnbull and his Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg, are seeking to impose on their political opponents responsibility for an energy mess, including crippling power bills.

The public could care less about the source of power as long as the lights remain on. Photo: Liam Driver

This is self-serving politics.
Culpability for two decades of policy paralysis going back to the Howard government's failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol – setting the tone for an aimless debate on climate and energy – rests with the political class of all stripes, including the hapless Greens.
In their failure back in 2009 to support reasonable proposals for an emissions trading scheme known as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), the Greens scarred the Rudd prime ministership, contributed to Turnbull's demise as opposition leader and helped prolong a lost decade in energy policy.
Our purpose is not to argue the merits, or otherwise, of the case for sustaining AGL's Liddell power station in the Hunter Valley beyond a five-year shelf life, but to ask a simple question.
How did we get into this mess, and how do we get out of it?
In answering this question, history is important.
As far back as the 1990's the Coalition debated in its internal processes the merits of an emissions trading scheme as a means of setting a price on carbon, thereby constructing a rational energy policy for the 21st century. Several proposals were discussed in cabinet, one in 2000 and the other in 2003.
Neither made it past the opposition of cabinet climate sceptics, including then prime minister John Howard himself.
However, by 2007 with defeat in prospect, Howard capitulated.
On July 17, 2007 he said: "Implementing an emissions trading scheme and setting a long-term goal for reducing emissions will be the most momentous decision Australia will take in the next decade."
More than a decade later, Howard's forecast remains stillborn, ensnared by rancid politics in which Kevin Rudd squibbed an opportunity for a double dissolution election on the Senate's rejection of his CPRS.
To her great cost, Julia Gillard introduced a carbon tax after having pledged not do so. Then Tony Abbott replaced it with a Direct Action plan to compensate emitters who reduced their carbon footprint, or got out of the emitting business altogether.
In one of politics' ironies, the problematical Direct Action plan – described by Turnbull in 2009 as "bullshit" – is subject to an internal review by the government with a result due by the end of the year.
Perhaps nothing has confused Turnbull's credentials more as an environmentally-responsible small 'l' liberal centrist than his positions on energy and climate policy under a Coalition agreement struck with the Nationals after he deposed Abbott.
Basically, Turnbull fell into line with his predecessor's policies on climate change, carbon taxes and emissions reduction targets.
Implicit in all of this was support for the coal industry.
On occasions, Turnbull has sought to edge away from these commitments such as when his energy minister talked about an emissions intensity target.
Under fire from his right flank over this heresy, Turnbull quickly disavowed any such idea.
In this latest period, we are witnessing an intense bout of blame-shifting in light of the most politically sensitive of cost of living issues – power prices.
The Turnbull government is also seeking to shield itself from the fury that would surely follow a summer of power outages due to insufficient baseload power.
In the debate about baseload power provided by coal-fired power stations versus renewables, the public could care less about the source of power, as long as the lights remain on.
What all this points to is a failure by successive Federal governments, Labor and conservative, to develop a national energy policy that provides a reasonable balance between conventional coal and gas-fired sources and renewables within a framework that satisfies Australia's international emissions-reduction obligations.
Speaking of gas, one of the more surprising aspects of the current debate is the lack of focus on gas as a cleaner energy alternative to coal. According to chief scientist Alan Finkel's National Electricity Market report, gas accounts for just 10 per cent of the country's power generation.
That could be increased significantly using existing modified infrastructure at a much lower emissions cost than coal: gas emits around 400kg/MWh compared with 1272kg/MWh for the highest emitting coal-fired plants.
One might have thought the country's secure energy future lies in a mix of gas and renewables, with Australia's ageing coal-fired plants being phased out over time, leaving aside the government vacillation on a Clean Energy Target recommended by Finkel.
Turnbull might serve the national interest more effectively by putting aside politics for a moment and listening to expert advice – from Finkel and the power generation industry itself – about the best energy mix.
Bullying corporate representatives in the manner of an early NSW governor named Bligh may serve a political purpose, but it hardly solves the problem.

Links

• Energy market operator says Liddell doesn't have to stay open
• Claims Australia won't meet Paris climate commitment if it keeps coal in CET
• Trust neither the generators nor the Prime Minister
• Carbon price the key to ending energy woes

The US, Climate Change And The Farmers Of Nepal

Al Jazeera - Gregory Reck* | Dinesh Paudel*

As climate change makes their lives increasingly precarious, Nepalis reflect on the US withdrawal from the Paris Accord.

Significant changes in weather patterns are affecting farming communities across Nepal [Gregory Reck/Al Jazeera]

Saipu, Nepal - Three weeks after US President Donald Trump announced that "as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the… Paris Accord," Shiva, a subsistence farmer in the Nepali village of Saipu, says: "It's like God is mad and has disappeared and something evil is taking over the sky."
"Look at my corn. It's thirsty, but there is no water any more." He pauses and then quietly adds, "climate change. The people who are causing this are killing us."
Trump promised to end the "draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country" because "we don't want other countries laughing at us any more". But Shiva and his fellow farmers aren't laughing as they speak about how climate change is threatening them all.
We were in Saipu to research the politics of reconstruction in post-earthquake Nepal. More than 80 percent of the structures in Saipu were rendered uninhabitable by the earthquakes of April and May 2015. Only about 20 percent have been repaired or rebuilt with the aid of government grants and loans that have burdened many with excessive debt.

'The whole cycle of life is changing'
Despite the suffering that they have endured for more than two years, Shiva and the other subsistence farmers who have gathered know that climate change is the real danger.
"The earthquakes destroyed our homes, school and health clinic, but those we will eventually rebuild," a man named Gopal interjects. "But erratic weather with little rain is already bringing the final disaster."


Scientists link Hurricane Harvey to climate change

Anguished expressions settle on their faces as the conversation escalates. "It rained heavily in March when we needed dry weather to plant corn," a woman named Kalpana adds.
"And then it was dry in April and May when planted corn needed water. It's never been this way. The corn is small. We should be harvesting it now and getting ready to plant rice, but everything is running behind. The whole cycle of life is changing."
She looks up at the cloudless sky, which should be dark and full of life-giving rain at the beginning of the monsoon season. She knows that the rhythm of subsistence farming that has evolved over the centuries is not some arbitrary human choice, but is dependent upon reasonably predictable natural cycles.
Her observations about climate change are not made causally. They are the result of traditional knowledge of a topic that has always been a matter of survival.
Farmer after farmer tells the same story: it rains when it's supposed to be dry, and it's dry when it's supposed to rain; rotating crops of corn, millet, rice and vegetables requires weather predictability which is no more; mountain streams that make agriculture possible on the steep slopes and which provide drinking water are drying up; days are warmer, making mosquitoes flourish and goats and cattle sick.

Climate change: A catastrophic reality
In this village with no electricity, where the basic fuel is wood, and there are no vehicles aside from a couple of tractors and four-wheel drives to ferry people and supplies up and down the landslide-prone road, residents know they contribute nothing to the factors creating climate change and, yet, are on the receiving end of its consequences.
According to the World Bank, Nepal's entire CO2 output in 2013 was only 0.2 of a metric tonne. Before 1995, it was less than 0.1 of a metric tonne per year. Despite Trump's claim that the United States is the world's leader in environmental policy, the World Bank says that in 2013 the US contributed 16.4 metric tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere.
According to Statista, a website that compiles statistics on a variety of topics, in 2016 the US produced 15.99 percent of global CO2 emissions, second only to China.
The Berkeley Energy and Resource Collaborative in 2014 concluded that the US had contributed more than 20 percent of all global warming since pre-industrial times.
The subsistence farmers of Nepal, like billions of vulnerable people across the globe, are the victims of the excesses of a bloated global economy that fattens the few at the expense of the many. For these people, climate change is not some abstract, debatable idea that a country like the US can wish out of existence. For them, it is a catastrophic reality.

Floods in the US, floods in South Asia
The August 2017 floods in Nepal, India and Bangladesh are a case in point. While the US - and much of the global - news media focused on the floods in Houston, Texas, the human cost of the flooding in South Asia was largely overlooked.
Although the calculation of the damage is still mounting, at least 200 people died as a result of the floods in Nepal, and 1.7 million have been severely affected, as 65,000 homes were damaged or destroyed.
As many as 40 million people have been directly impacted across Nepal, India and Bangladesh. While monsoon rains are part of the normal climatic cycle in the region, there is little doubt that the ferocity of the rain increased dramatically as a result of climate change.
The farmers of Saipu do what they can. They protect their forests with the razor-thin hope that this might mitigate the fury of climate change. They conserve as much water as possible hoping that the rain will fall normally once again. They plant seeds hoping that, against all the odds, the crops will produce enough to sustain them. But they know that it is the decisions made in distant places that truly determine their fate.
Shiva finally exhibits the satirical humour for which Nepali farmers are famous. "Now that the US has decided not to cooperate in stopping climate change," he smiles, alluding to Trump's announcement, "they have only two choices: reverse the decision and stop putting pollution into the sky, or move everything and everybody from Nepal to the US."
Everyone around him laughs. For a moment, the anger and frustration they feel disappear. But then the laughter fades, and a momentary quiet takes over.
We recall the statement US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt made at the Paris Accord withdrawal ceremony: "We owe no apologies to other nations for our environmental stewardship."
We wonder whether Pruitt could bring himself to tell these Nepali farmers that.
Then an elderly man named Devi, who has so far remained silent, speaks softly. "I used to think the USA was smart, but now I know that they are just selfish and irresponsible," he says.
Everyone nods in agreement.

*Gregory Reck is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Appalachian State University in the US.
*Dinesh Paudel is an assistant professor in the Department of Sustainable Development at Appalachian State University.

Links

• European heatwave deaths could skyrocket - climate study
• Sudanese scientist battles climate change in Africa
• Argentina's flooding crisis affects ranching community
• World reacts to Trump's Paris climate accord withdrawal
• Pope Francis slams 'stupid' climate change deniers