http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/18/business/greencol19.php

Developing nations suffer as climate change cuts off basic access to natural resources such as water, while developed nations have infrastructure to help better mitigate these effects. As the United States and the rest of the world debate climate change solutions, ideas are being crafted without Third-World input. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature released a paper, "Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and Climate Change," that highlights the plight of poor people and how climate change and its solutions could make life worse.

Here in New York this week I faced my own little climate-related disruption: because of global grain shortages, created in part by the rush into biofuels, the price of a bagel has gone to $1.20 from 60 cents in the past year. New Yorkers are all aghast at the rise, but it pales next to these larger problems.

In Bangladesh, a rise in the sea of 1.5 meters, or 5 feet, would submerge 22,000 square kilometers of land, or 8,500 square miles, and displace 17 million desperately poor people, more than 15 percent of the population. Where are they going to go?

Leading the fight against climate change is high-investment solutions and technological innovations, which most sovereign governments and major multinational corporations embrace. We never hear how best to help the Third World.

International Herald Tribune; March 18, 2008

Submitted by B. Shapiro