Actually, the simple statistic that perfectly captures what climate change means is this: The West has more money, how can we get it fast?
After everything is said and done, apparently money will cure Climate Change. Money as in transfers of wealth on historical scale to other countries.
For example, the latest "statistics" from the AGW brain trust:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2774.html
​The US Owes the World $4 Trillion for Trashing the Climate | Motherboard
That, in super-basic terms, is the concept of climate debt, which guides current emissions negotiations and efforts to distribute funds for adaptation to nations most affected by climate change. If you acknowledge, as the UN does, that there’s a carbon budget—an amount of greenhouse gas pollution the world can collectively churn out before we land in dangerous warming territory, currently figured at a 2˚C threshold—then it follows that nations that have overstepped theirs should pay back those who haven’t.
But it’s a good way to envision the scale of the climate damage done by industrial nations, mostly the US, compared to the vast majority of countries coping with warming around the globe. Even China, “the world’s factory,” has nothing on the US’s past penchant for whipping up carbon pollution. That's good to remember, as many continue to point to the developing world as a source of rampant pollution: The US is the historic cause of this problem, and has done very little to make amends for it.
So for those who attend regular Mass at the Church of AGW, get honest, it isn't the science, it's the money. Undeniable.
