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Tram Town
Thursday, November 02, 2006
 
Category: Warmening
There's been a lot of carry on about the Stern report on the implications of climate change. This is a direct quote from chapter 4 of the report [Box 4.7 on page 23]:
Gender inequalities will likely worsen with climate change. Workloads and responsibilities such as collecting water, fuel and food will grow and become more time consuming in light of greater resource scarcity. This will allow less time for education or participation in market-based work. A particular burden will be imposed on those households that are short of labour, further exacerbated if the men migrate in times of extreme stress leaving women vulnerable to impoverishment, forced marriage, labour exploitation and trafficking. Women are ‘over-represented’ in agriculture and the informal economy, sectors that will be hardest hit by climate change. This exposure is coupled with a low capacity to adapt given their unequal access to resources such as credit and transport. Women are also particularly vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters with women and children accounting for more than 75% of displaced persons following natural disasters.
The first sentence made me laugh out loud and the last left me gobsmacked. Just think of the average family with two adults and two children. 75% of that family are women and children. It seems pretty lame to present this simple fact as support for vast spending on global warming.
There are lots of interesting comments over at Tim Blair's place.


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