NPR’s special series, “The Undercount: The invisible death toll from climate change,” aims to answer this question. When climate and health reporter Alejandra Borunda asked doctors what important topics she should focus on, she heard the same thing over and over: Climate change is hurting a lot of people, but we aren’t doing a good job of keeping track of how many. “We’re undercounting the damage by an enormous amount,” Borunda says.
The answer to the basic question here is no; it’s impossible to provide even a good guess as to this figure, if only because there is no way to ascribe a certain catastrophic event, say a hurricane or a wildfire, to climate change. It’s really not a matter of doing a good or a bad job at keeping track.
Consider what appears to be a far more black-and-white situation, deaths from COVID-19. As discussed in this paper, it’s not a straightforward task to say that a certain victim died “with” COVID or “of” COVID.
As unsatisfying as it may be, I’m afraid that the community of climate scientists will eventually give up on the task of counting the deaths due to global warming.
NPR: Is it Possible to Know How Many People Have Died Because of Climate Change?
Ayn Rand was a “thing” in the mid-20th Century. Libertarians point out, correctly, that governments tend to be bloated and corrupt. And still today, many people advocate for small government.
What most of us have realized in the last 70 years, however, is that unbridled capitalism results in the centralization of power into the hands of a few billionaires who essentially own our lawmaking apparatus. It leaves the rest to struggle with poverty, inflation, war, racism, sexism, pollution, climate change, poor education, and limited/no access to healthcare.
With a few exceptions, the super-rich really don’t care about the wellbeing of anyone but themselves, and this is resulting in the implosion of our civilization and the slow destruction of our planet.
In a better world, the International Criminal Court would have much greater power to prosecute war crimes.
Today, winding up at The Hague requires terrible luck, and it’s virtually impossible to happen to a Donald Trump or a Pete Hegseth, given the enormous military might that the United States possesses.
Contrast this to what happened to Slobodan Milošević, who was arrested when his countries, Yugoslavia and Serbia, were overthrown.
The prediction made here is nearly certain to come true.
The question is what happens at the point. E.g., how long does it take to rebuild trade deals and relationships with allies?
Keep in mind that regardless of the manner in which Trump loses power, there will always be “news” outlets like Fox and Newsmax, trying their best to convince the idiots that Trump was hounded and persecuted by the communists who hate America.
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