Romney mocks President Obama with his sickening, smirking face, then biting his lip while he waits for the RNC convention to laugh:
President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans — and to heal the planet. MY promise is to help you and your family.
Romney does not get that he can't help you and your family unless he firmly accepts the reality of climate change and has a plan to address climate change impacts happening now and that will continue in our future.
A new study reports on some of the impacts of climate change today that Mitt missed:
Climate change and a carbon-intensive economy considered a leading global cause of death today, responsible for 5 million deaths each year – 400,000 due to hunger and communicable diseases aggravated by climate change and 4.5 million carbon economy deaths due mainly to air pollution
Failure to act on climate change already costs the world economy 1.6% of global GDP amounting to 1.2 trillion dollars in forgone prosperity a year.
Mitt might not care about people dying or becoming sick, but how did the dollar signs in his eyes miss the part about losing trillions of dollars?
If our governments continue to ignore climate change, the study commissioned by 20 governments finds for the next two decades that over 100 million people might die and world economies could sustain economic losses in the trillions of dollars:
A shocking new analysis warns that if the danger of climate change continues to be ignored by the world's governments, the encroaching disaster could claim the lives of 100 million people in the next two decades and lost economic prosperity to in world economies would be measured in the trillions of dollars.
…The study estimates human and economic impacts for 184 countries in 2010 and 2030 across a wide range of separate effects. Indicators of impact range from issues such as hunger and skin cancer, to permafrost thawing and sea-level rise, indoor and outdoor air pollution, and fisheries, biodiversity and forest deterioration.
Responding to the report, Oxfam International executive director Jeremy Hobbs told Reuters that the costs of political inaction on climate were "staggering".
"The losses to agriculture and fisheries alone could amount to more than $500 billion per year by 2030, heavily focussed in the poorest countries where millions depend on these sectors to make a living," he said.
In the U.S., by 2030, the impacts of weather extremes of droughts, floods and severe storms
"could wipe 2% of the GDP. This
map shows the annual GDP loss by country by 2030.
When Romney was governor in 2004, climate change was real enough to prepare a "detailed plan to curtail the state's carbon pollution." Even in June 2011, Romney told voters that humans contribute to global warming so "it's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases."
Enter political ambitions with no moral compass other than appeasing right-wingers and teabaggers, Mitt announces in 2012 that he will approve the monster Keystone XL tar sands pipeline his first day as President even though NASA Goddard Institute scientist James Hansen says the Canadian tar sands will make it "game over for the climate."
Romney is making deadly decisions about climate change even though he admits he is climate change illiterate:
“I don’t know if [rising temperatures are] mostly caused by humans,” he told another New Hampshire crowd last summer. “What I’m not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don’t know the answer to.”
Scientists know the answer. President Obama knows we must take action.
Mitt's buddy Paul Ryan, a "favorite of the Koch brothers," is fixated on climate change conspiracies, and has voted against government efforts to address climate change or even study climate change:
Ryan has consistently voted against government efforts to tackle climate change. Like many House Republicans, he has voted to block efforts by the EPA to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions. He approved an amendment that would bar the Department of Agriculture from studying how best to adapt to a warmer planet. Ryan voted to defund various climate-advisory positions within the White House. He also voted for an amendment, proposed by Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), to cut $50 million from funding for ARPA-E, which funds long-shot energy research and development.
The Romney-Ryan team is also aided by press secretary Andrea Saul, who has her own
climate-denier rap sheet, including working for a "lobbying firm that worked to undermine climate science on behalf of corporations like ExxonMobil, according to adetailed new report from Greenpeace's Polluter Watch project."
Who do you trust with your life and the well-being of your family, loved ones, friends, and community as well as our precious natural resources, wildlife, and culture? That's the key question for this election and the answer is as obvious as who would you trust with the care of your cats and dogs.