Content area
Full text
Mr. Roeder has been asked to write this article in his personal capacity as a disaster management expert He retired in 2005 as the Policy Adviser on Disaster Management for the US Department of State. During his government career, he worked on many disaster issues, including climate change and represented the United States on the Systemic Risks Project of OECD and the Department of State on the Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction, an advisory committee to the President of the United States. He was also elected Executive Director of GDIN, the Global Disaster Information Network, which focuses on providing operational information to poor and disadvantaged people. Today he serves as the United Nations Affairs Director at WSPA, the World Society for the Protection of Animal where he mainly focuses on disasters, development and diplomacy. His email is [email protected].
Diplomats are often accused of being gentle with their language. Climate Change is a topic that requires directness. This is the most important issue before the world. Our lives and those of our children are at risk. Regardless of the mix of causes for climate change, the effects will be felt for many years and harm our political and economic security, our health and welfare, possibly causing both droughts and floods, spreading disease and fostering very dangerous weather events. If the oceans rise, as they probably will, small island nations may disappear along with many continental coast lines. The UN is already seized with this issue which will cause massive movements of refugees and huge dislocations of industry, farms and cities. Who will take them? How will they be integrated? Will host societies survive in their same form? What will be the impact on human rights, on nutrition on inter-governmental harmony?
Civil Society also needs to be seized with the issue. The signs of possible doom are obvious. A clear water path is emerging in the artic and glaciers are melting around the world. This is new; but in my opinion, the signs have been with us for many years. Those of us in the disaster management business have seen them in rising planetary temperatures, melting glaciers, declines in water in some regions, changes in when trees flower in the spring and when and how birds migrate....