Climate Change And The Middle Class

How climate change will impact the global middle class

John Elkington, May 9, 2016 (GreenBiz)

The evidence suggests that global politics are shifting, driven by climate change and an ‘environmental credit crunch’ that will reach a tipping point when the general population is affected and realizes it is being affected and decide to move on from scapegoat politics, according to UBS Investment Bank economist Paul Donavan. A UBS study of the impact of climate change on the world’s middle class, currently estimated to number around 1 billion people, shows they are far more likely than the world’s poor to take defensive action against any threat to their relative economic and social status. UBS found that by 2050 the average American is likely to experience 27 to 50 days over of over 95 degrees F. temps, a major concern] for an increasingly aging population. Infrastructure will also be stressed: planes cannot take off, rail lines buckle and asphalt melts. Food availability, pricing and quality are potentially huge concerns that will likely lead the global middle class to turn away from Donald Trump’s denial of reality and exert its political muscle. click here for more

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