These are merely three examples of the devastation that sea-level rise is starting to cause to coastal regions around the world, where almost one-fourth of the world's population lives. [15]
9. Thou Shalt Not Force People to Migrate
Climate refugees, meaning people who have been forced by climate change to migrate to another country, or another part of their own country, can be produced by many features of climate change, such as heat, drought, and shortage of food or water. But the main cause is, and will increasingly be, sea-level rise.
People have already been forced to migrate from many island nations, such as Maldives, the Carteret Islands, and the Sundarbans. At least 200 people were already leaving the Sundarbans back in 2009. [16]
But sea-level rise is forcing, or soon will be forcing, people in bigger countries to move. For example, over a million Bangladeshis had already moved by 2009, and scientists expect there to be 20 million climate refugees from Bangladesh by 2030 and as many as 35 million by 2050. According to Lester Brown, moreover, "The country where rising seas threaten the most people is China, with 144 million potential climate refugees."[17]
"According to some estimates," say experts Frank Biermann and Ingrid Boas, "more than 200 million people might have to give up their homes due to climate change by 2050."[18]
10. Thou Shalt Not Lie to Justify Any Such Acts
The fact that cigarettes cause cancer was repeatedly demonstrated by scientists in the 1960s, and even the tobacco companies agreed: In 1965, the head of research at Brown and Williamson - which makes Marlboro cigarettes - stated that tobacco industry scientists were "unanimous in their opinion that tobacco smoke is carcinogenic."[19]In 1967, nevertheless, Brown and Williamson, along with the other tobacco companies, claimed: "There is no evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer."[20] In the coming decades, moreover, these companies spent many millions of dollars to publicize this claim. [21]
In 1989, a committee created to give scientific advice to the oil industry said: "The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied." The "contrarian theories," continued the committee, "do not offer convincing arguments against the conventional model of greenhouse gas emission-induced climate change."[22] Nevertheless, besides continuing to deny the truth of climate science, the oil industry has spent many millions of dollars to fund organizations to promote these contrarian theories. [23]
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