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Thursday, July 2, 2015

Judith Curry suggests poor folks should buy air conditioners

Let them eat curry

by tamino, Open Mind blog, July 2, 2015
It has often been rumored that when Marie Antoinette was told that the people of France faced starvation because they had no bread, she replied “Let them eat cake.”
The story isn’t true, but it does encapsulate the kind of cavalier, thoughtless, arrogant thinking that makes people want to cut your head off.
If the people of India and Pakistan were facing starvation, what would we recommend? “Let them eat curry”? Fortunately, they aren’t presently facing terrible food shortages. But thousands of those people — human beings — died as a result of recent killer heat waves. What advice does Judith Curry offer? This:
Looks like they need more air conditioning in Spain and France and also South Asia.
Does it make more sense to provide air conditioning or to limit CO2 emissions. I vote for more air conditioning in these susceptible regions.
Let them buy air conditioners! Never mind that they’re poor and can’t afford it. Ignore the fact that the energy use would make global warming worse. And be sure to paint it as an “either/or” proposition whether it is or not. Just don’t make us do anything like limit CO2 emissions.

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