I realize I’m as likely to suffer as much as the typical middle-class+ American as the planet warms in the coming century and we’re hit by sea levels rising, devastating storms, and the like. But occasionally I wonder – what countries or regions might do better as things get hotter?
“If Alaska turned temperate, it would drive conservationists to distraction, but it would also open for development an area more than twice the size of Texas. Rising world temperatures might throw Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and other low-latitude nations into generations of misery, while causing Canada, Greenland, and Scandinavia to experience a rip-roarin’ economic boom…. And Russia! For generations poets have bemoaned this realm as cursed by enormous, foreboding, harsh Siberia. What if the region in question were instead enormous, temperate, inviting Siberia?”[The Atlantic, 2007]
“Britain is likely to benefit most; its 96 per cent increase in suitability [agricultural suitability?] is approached only by Germany at 71 per cent, then Canada at 61 per cent, Peru at 60 per cent and Russia at 40 per cent.
In terms of future water stress, no country approaches Egypt’s 98 per cent of the population being affected. Spain comes next with 58, Turkey with 45.” [New Zealand Herald News, 2011]
“According to the International Panel on Climate Change, global warming could improve agricultural productivity in northern Europe.
The region might see as much as a 30 percent increase in wheat production, for example, by 2080. Some countries will become hospitable to foods they can’t grow in 2012. There may be a 50 percent increase in the areas of Sweden and Finland that are suitable for growing corn.” [Washington Post, 2012]
Blame Octavia Butler for making me consider land ownership as an apocalypse-survival strategy.