The reasons are far simpler than that – any politician who brought about the kinds of changes we need to make in order to handle these problems would be lucky to go down in history as the most hated man in his country. Since he will be up for reelection long before any benefits are brought about by his new policy, he’ll be replaced by someone who will immediately cancel everything he did. His political career will be over, and he will have accomplished nothing…

No democracy will ever do anything positive about global warming unless they have no choice (because they have no access to fossil fuels at a remotely affordable price.)

Plus, of course, even if the US completely stopped burning fossil fuels, they’d just get burned in China or India instead.

It sounds like semantics, but it isn’t. Desertification is caused by climate change, and is nigh irrevesrible (Israel have reversed some, but at huge expense). Land degradation results from poor land use, often from commercial farming. More of a dustbowl type scenario. Traditional farming methods are increasingly being seen as ways to combat this land degradation, which is thankfully much easier to deal with than land degradation.

(In way of references: H.E. Dregne, J.A. Binns, Ridley Nelson (UN Envorinment Department))

We’ve been feeling severe changes since long before I was born; we’re in the middle of a mass extinction event already.

I believe the “big five” known mass extinction events all lasted longer than the human species has existed.  It used to take a significant amount of time to modify the Earth’s biosphere to the point that more than 50% of all animal species could no longer survive.  But humans are setting a new record this time around…

I agree with you that other parts of the world are certainly getting the brunt of climate change’s disastrous effects as I mentioned previously here at DM:

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/and_now_the_thrilling_aftermath_of_sandy_crane_dangle_2012#comment-698458918

But, my point to you was that we shouldn’t downplay how bad it’s going to affect ALL of us. Can you imagine the death toll in NYC if this had been a category 4 or 5 hurricane of Sandy’s trajectory and immense size? It would’ve very likely wiped many of those other death tolls off the map with NYC being under 20+ feet of water. So while we are doing relative comparisons… that would have made Katrina look like a field day.

As the oceans continue to warm, there’s no reason not to believe this isn’t possible in the relatively near future. These “100 year storms” are happening around every 7 years nowadays on the East Coast.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/troyonink/2012/10/28/7-year-storm-cycle-katrina-isaac-sandy-and-the-prefect-storm/

Also, all those fires out here in the West haven’t been a thrillfest either. I got to see blood-red skies and breathe toxic air this summer in the United States.

Look, we’re ALL in for a hell ride. I just wish the conservative climate change deniers were the first to go instead of taking the rest of us down with them.

I feel bad for the American victims of climate change, but what we’re going through is a faint shadow of what the world’s poor have been living for years now.

The grim fact is that those of us in the first world – especially the US – will always be the last to suffer.

Tell that to the East Coast.

Likewise global warming says that we will have more extreme weather; larger storms, hotter summers, colder winters, perhaps wetter or drier, depending on location.  No individual event directly caused by warming, but the statistics are affected.

One interesting thing, plant hardiness zones are moving north.  This is a longer term average type thing.  Again, no particular event directly caused by warming, but there’s a trend.

http://blog.nwf.org/2012/01/new-plant-hardiness-zones-confirm-what-gardeners-already-know-about-global-warming/plant-hardiness-comparison/
And of course it depends on what you mean by “severe”.  Some folks thought Sandy was pretty severe, others may hold out for a storm of Hollywood special effects magnitude.