Scariest Current TV Commecial

That commercial encouraging people to invest in Belize amazes me. It makes me wonder how many people still do not understand the major paradigm change brought on by climate change: The fact that for the foreseeable future our world will no longer be governed by the weather and climate rules that we have been accustomed to for the past several thousand years and that this needs to be seriously considered in the equation whenever making a major life decision, especially where geography is concerned.

Certain geographic areas such as inland regions above 40 degrees latitude north will benefit from climate change whereas others such as those in tropical low elevation regions will be degraded significantly on an increasingly frequent basis by severe weather.

These commercials are encouraging people to move to and invest in the small eastern Central American country of Belize. If Belize is devastated by a climate change era hyper-cyclone where will investors assets be "backed up"; in fortress " Switzerland?

I visited the nearby island of Roatan, Honduras in the mid 1990s. This is a very beautiful region but Belize is especially plagued by very high crime while both countries have, in recent years been increasingly subject to the influence of large cartels trading between South America and North America.

Both countries also have a largely impoverished populace with a huge number of penniless people living in grass huts like their ancestors did thousands of years ago. In comparison to these impoverished souls even an American with lower middle class status is viewed as quite wealthy. I recall American fast food restaurants and even most mid-price hotels guarded by men with machine guns. I was very surprised to discover that an employee of the hotel I stayed at in San Pedro Sula who took me for an excursion "to see the river" had learned the balance on my Schwab account via the Visa card I used to rent my room; this was unsettling because, small as the account balance would be to most Americans it was a fortune to him and his associates..

Nevertheless the people in Honduras, in general were wonderful. I met one young man who was returning to his home village after picking tomatoes for a month with total payout for his labors of $20.00. At one rather isolated seaside hotel in Puerto Cortes hidden deep in marshes thick with grasses taller than a man I was asked if I was a Mormon [ my surname "Ogden" being the same as a major city in Mormon Utah. ]. I honestly advised my inquirer that I was a Buddhist which seemed to mystify him. Later I learned that several Mormons had been butchered with machetes a few years before due to their missionary efforts in Honduras. Also, I learned of an American activist who had apparently been murdered there in the same manner for attempting to fight for womens' rights.

Despite the crime, however, the major issue with Belize, and all of Central America for that matter is climate change. We know that sea level is rising. We know that hurricanes and typhoons are becoming more intense. Witness the recent typhoon catastrophe which devastated much of the Philippine archipelago with what was apparently the most powerful cyclone ever recorded.

All coastal regions, especially archipelagos in tropical, semitropical and even temperate regions are now extremely vulnerable to the ravages of climate change, especially low lying ones like eastern Belize, Honduras, the Bay Islands and the Florida keys.

This year the western hemisphere, with the exception of Mexico, was spared. But will next year's hurricane season make up for this? Any sensible person would not migrate to and invest in an increasingly vulnerable region to find out unless they are an adventurer or researcher.

If you are wise and want to move to a region that is likely to be climatically safe for the next few decades it would be best to inquire from insurance company and weather scientist statisticians as to which places have the greatest INvulnerability to the degradations of climate change.

Obviously, over the long term, unless an amazing technology is developed to remove enormous quantities of carbon from the atmosphere within the next few years it would appear that the best move in North America would be to inland, well drained parts of Canada [ not subject to wildfires ] and the northern most inland regions of the U.S.--again to well drained heights, especially the summits of hills where there is no historical potential of wildfires.

Of course for extremists planning long term it would be worthwhile to explore the feasibility of colonizing Arctic and Antarctic regions as well as the southern tip of South America. Already we are seeing much increased interest in exploring Antarctica which includes the British Royal Family--a wise family with access to the world's greatest minds--only too aware of their growing vulnerability to powerful storms lashing the British " archipelago ". Erosion to the western coasts of Great Britain is accelerating.

At the rate things are going Antarctica could well become the " refuge continent of the future " for the preservation of humankind. Moral: Move north, not south. Move inland, not to the coast. Move to the summits, even to moderate hill tops when it can be clearly determined there is absolutely no reasonable potential of flooding or runoff from higher nearby ground.