Guest rant by David Middleton

Climate change is a central issue at this year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), with multiple high-level meetings on the issue happening amid several devastating natural disasters. Hurricane Irma recently swept through the Caribbean and into Florida, only to be quickly followed by Hurricane Maria.

“Climate change casts a long shadow over the development efforts of our country,” said Darren Henfield, the minster of foreign affairs of the Bahamas, during a UNGA meeting on Hurricane Irma. “The implications of rising sea levels and atmospheric temperatures signal dire consequences for low-lying island states like the Bahamas.” Henfield said that the costs of rebuilding after Irma will be “exorbitant, in the tens of millions,” and he estimates similar damage related to Hurricane Maria.

The impact of climate change on global health is also becoming increasingly clear. At the end of last week, the United Nations released a report showing that global hunger is on the rise; 38 million more people were affected in 2016 than in 2015. Climate change and the spread of violent conflicts are responsible, the report says. Other research has linked climate change to increased respiratory problems, poor nutrition, the spread of infectious disease and even anxiety.

[…]

Time

The fact that UN bureaucrats arbitrarily insert the phrase “climate change” into every other sentence they utter doesn’t constitute one bit of evidence that “climate change is already making people sicker”… “The stupid, it burns.”

The moronic conflation of hurricanes with climate change and making people sicker, just makes the STUPID burn even brighter.

World hunger again on the rise, driven by conflict and climate change, new UN report says

815 million people now hungry – Millions of children at risk from malnutrition

News release

15 SEPTEMBER 2017 | ROME – After steadily declining for over a decade, global hunger is on the rise again, affecting 815 million people in 2016, or 11 per cent of the global population, says a new edition of the annual United Nations report on world food security and nutrition released today. At the same time, multiple forms of malnutrition are threatening the health of millions worldwide.

The increase – 38 million more people than the previous year – is largely due to the proliferation of violent conflicts and climate-related shocks, according to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017.

[…]

The report is the first UN global assessment on food security and nutrition to be released following the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which aims to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030 as a top international policy priority.

It singles out conflict – increasingly compounded by climate change – as one of the key drivers behind the resurgence of hunger and many forms of malnutrition.

“Over the past decade, conflicts have risen dramatically in number and become more complex and intractable in nature,” the heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) said in their joint foreword to the report. They stressed that some of the highest proportions of food-insecure and malnourished children in the world are now concentrated in conflict zones.

[…]

WHO

This is even more idiotic than the Time article…

“After steadily declining for over a decade, global hunger is on the rise again… The increase… is largely due to the proliferation of violent conflicts and climate-related shocks…”

WTF is a “climate-related shock”?

So… Like the 12-year hurricane drought… More than a decade of declining global hunger wasn’t caused by climate change… But a 1-year increase is caused by climate change?

The stupid, it burns…

The report is the first UN global assessment on food security and nutrition to be released following the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which aims to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030 as a top international policy priority.

Prior to the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” global hunger was declining… And suddenly started rising in the first assessment on food security after UN bureaucrats decided to stamp out world hunger by 2030?  Due to climate change?

THE STATE OF FOOD SECURITY AND NUTRITION IN THE WORLD 2017

Figure 1. Number and percentage of undernourished people in the world (UN FAO) and global temperature anomaly (UAH via Wood for Trees).

Figure 2. Cross plot of number and percentage of undernourished people in the world (UN FAO) vs. global temperature anomaly (UAH via Wood for Trees).