climate change - expect the worst [snipped from "The Queen worries about a Bush"]

Since roughly half the world's 6.5 billion people live near
coastlines, a three-foot sea-level rise would be [even more] punishing
[overseas]. Amsterdam, Venice, Cairo, Shanghai, Manila, and Calcutta
are some of the cities most threatened. In many places the people and
governments are too poor to erect adequate barriers-think of
low-lying Bangladesh, where an estimated 18 million people are at
risk-so experts fear that they will migrate to neighboring lands,
raising the prospect of armed conflict. A Pentagon-commissioned study
warned in 2003 that climate change could bring mega-droughts, mass
starvation, and even nuclear war as countries such as China, India,
and Pakistan battle over scarce food and water.

These are just some of the reasons why David King wrote in Science in
2004, "Climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing
today-more serious even than the threat of terrorism."

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