The Real Victims of Climate Change

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Climate change is the public policy problem from hell. If you were inventing a problem that would be virtually impossible to solve, you’d give it all the characteristics of climate change: it’s largely invisibile, it’s slow moving, it’s expensive to fix, it requires global coordination, and its effects will be disproportionately borne by poor countries that nobody cares about.

That last item might seem like a harsh way of putting things, but it’s pretty much the truth. And today, via Brad Plumer, we have a new OECD report that illustrates the problem starkly. It examines which cities will have the most residents vulnerable to coastal flooding due to storm surge and high winds in 2070, and as you can see on the map below, the risk is almost entirely concentrated in developing countries in Asia and Africa. New York and Tokyo have a small bit of exposure, leaving Miami as the sole rich city with a substantial exposure. The total number of vulnerable residents will increase from 40 million today to 150 million in 2070, with the vast bulk of the increase coming in developing countries. The five riskiest cities — by a large margin — are Kolkata, Mumbai, Dhaka, Guangzhou, and Ho Chi Minh City.

Can we just adapt to this? Sure, I suppose we could, if the rich world were willing to donate enormous sums of money to these cities to finance a massive campaign of preparation and amelioration. But what are the odds of that happening? After all, the rich world isn’t even doing that in its own cities.

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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