Climate Change and Geopolitics: What's Really at Stake
By most accounts, December's international climate conference in Paris was an unexpected and landmark success. Virtually every nation on earth now understands what's at stake and all have reached common understanding about what needs to be done to slow the advance of unmitigated planetary warming.
Still, in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence that dangerous levels of planetary warming and human-induced climate change are real, hard-core resistance to well-established science remains a challenge. Particularly disconcerting is the fact that the ranks of the "climate deniers" include too many influential political and policy leaders.
That is not to say that every question about the impact of climate change is scientifically settled. For instance, how does climate change affect the intensity or frequency of coastal storms? And what is the relationship between climate change and weather patterns? Our sense is that science will soon clarify the storm question, though proving the impact on weather is considerably more difficult. Regardless of the uncertainty in answering these questions, there is a consensus that the changing climate leads can result in unprecedented extreme weather and climate events .
Jason Bachman