A few years back, I submitted a term paper proposal on the subject of the impact of climate change on the insurance industry, as a result of the increases in extreme weather phenomena that had been widely predicted to accompany global temperature increases. The course subject was a modern variation of torture called econometrics, the application of statistical analysis to the dismal “science” of economics.

To my surprise, the proposed subject matter was rejected, as my professor informed me that global warming was but an “unproven myth” propagated by environmentalists. A quick check of the good econometrics doctor’s website revealed a resume boasting of consulting work for Shell Oil, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and something called the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Today, the scientific consensus that humans are contributing to global warming has been buttressed by further statistical evidence, while the segment of the political spectrum willing to deny outright that there is a problem has narrowed significantly. This month’s issue of National Geographic features 74 pages on the subject. William L. Allen, the publication’s editor in chief, describes climate change as the “biggest story in geography today.”

There is, though, still a great deficit in terms of discussing the scope and potential consequences of the changes to the environment that have been unleashed. What’s more, the discourse around climate change tends too often to ignore the political and economic context in which it is taking place.

Hurricane season is an appropriate time to bring some of these issues to the forefront; a time to look more closely at the science and politics behind Charley, Frances and Ivan, and the devastation that they have unleashed. The storm season has brought renewed focus to the issue, coinciding with and perhaps even prompting Britain’s Tony Blair to criticize his “shoulder-to-shoulder” war ally president Bush. Blair recently chastised the United States government’s decision to disregard world public opinion and ignore the Kyoto accords designed as at least an initial step in addressing the problem.

Whatever the motives for Blair’s timing, — likely a transparent effort to rehabilitate a “progressive” image for the right-wing Labour prime minister — the notion of global warming being linked to more extreme weather events such as hurricanes is serious science, backed up by limited but growing research and computer modeling. Even minor increases in ocean temperatures have been shown to correspond to stronger and more frequent hurricanes, for instance.

Recent studies conducted by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Geophysical lab, say “a five-12 per cent increase in wind speeds for the strongest hurricanes (typhoons) in the northwest tropical Pacific is projected if tropical sea surfaces warm by a little over 2 degrees C.” The ramifications of this correlation go far beyond just making viable disaster insurance schemes more difficult, the preoccupation of more than a few economists (and at least one rejected term paper).

Even more neglected than an in-depth analysis of global warming, and a rational plan for halting or at least slowing the process, is a class analysis of the impact of environmental phenomenon. Page 73 of the National Geographic special issue, with two juxtaposed photos and the caption “Contrasting Impacts,” scratches the surface of the issues at play. In the first picture, a salesman grins in front of shelves of Frigidaire air conditioners, anticipating greater sales in the years ahead. The second photo shows desperate, malnourished Ethiopian children, whose drought-plagued country faces a “rainfall decline by 10 per cent over the next fifty years.”

The people already living on the margins, overwhelmingly inhabitants of the so-called Third World, will clearly bear the brunt of climate change, though it has been the first world countries that have been the main culprits in creating the problem through their use of fossil fuels. Over 100 million people live within a metre of sea level, the majority in underdeveloped countries least able to respond to rising tides.

Island nations, and large areas of low-lying countries like the heavily populated Bangladesh — already victims of deadly annual flooding — could be rendered uninhabitable. The tiny South Pacific country Tuvalu, for instance, is already considering permanent evacuation scenarios, should sea level increases overwhelm them. A similar fate may await a host of other low-lying, small island nations.

Internationally, then, global warming is accentuating the cruel divide between rich and poor nations, the North and the South. Within countries, climate and extreme weather hit the poor hardest, so that “natural” disasters have a social and political content as well. Those who live in the lowest quality housing — such as trailer parks, poorly maintained or hastily built apartment complexes — are inevitably the most victimized, and the least likely to have been able to afford insurance.

It is to be hoped then, that this particularly brutal hurricane season will refocus the discussion around climate change — beyond opportunistic and demagogical appeals like Blairâe(TM)s. This is a problem that is not merely a looming, theoretical danger, but a reality that is, today, impacting the oppressed and the poor disproportionately. The bought “scientists” who specialize in denying global warming — or in fear-mongering about the supposed economic impact of addressing it — should no longer be debated as if they were making serious, objective assertions. The debate, now, needs to move towards creating the political and economic basis for dealing with the accelerated environmental changes that have been unleashed.

The political will for this effort, not surprisingly, is strongest in the progressive, anti-imperialist movements of the Third World. It is from these quarters, the leaders of all those victims of the “unproven” myths unleashed from the North, that we should seek to make alliances in fighting for environmental, economic and social justice.

Derrick O'Keefe

Derrick O'Keefe

Derrick O'Keefe is a writer in Vancouver, B.C. He served as rabble.ca's editor from 2012 to 2013 and from 2008 to 2009.