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They're talking about women as a whole, not just women in Canada or the US.

In the third world (which is where most in the world live), more women don't know how to swim than men. So, in floods, they're more likely to drown.

Also, men are more flexible in most third-world societies. If there is a problem, men are able to move about more freely than women. Take, for example, Sub-Saharan Africa. With the deserts spreading, people can no longer depend on their own farms for food, and the men go to the city and work while the women stay home and care for the children. This cultural difference; the lack of autonomy for women, makes them less able to adapt should something change.

A good example is the AIDS epidemic.

# posted by Paul 6:41 AM

This really doesn't have much to do with actual science. It's much more to do with pushing a political agenda. I suspect that if there was more actual science going on among things that are labeled science, you'd have a lot less trouble with it.

# posted by Anonymous 7:45 AM

I guess posters feel it is OK to be both ignorant and sexist, as long as it is P.C..
Even AIDS seems to be the fault of those in the "haves" column, according to that line of logic.

# posted by Anonymous 7:46 AM

Paul, I was going to comment bt it looks like our two Todds have been expressive enough. Junk Science is just junk.

# posted by Bill 8:31 AM

Give the fact that nobody's been able to prove that a) global warmins exists and b) that even if it DOES exist that man (sorry to be so sexist, ladies) has anything at all to do with it, I'll have to take a pass on the hysteria (sorry, that's a sexist word, isn't it?) and hype, and say PROVE IT. Let's don't imitate chicken little here.

# posted by Anonymous 10:47 AM

Todd! How can you be so cruel!! Don't you know that there are hundreds of researchers hard at work for grant money, trying to prove that 160 years of weather data can be reliably used to predict a weather pattern that's 4.5 billion years old! What? Have you no concern for these people? Would you have them attempt to look for honest work?

# posted by Bill 11:27 AM

You're right Bill, how could I be so insensitive? I feel so ashamed of myself right now... I think I'm going to shave my head and join a commune and only eat organic, vegan foods for the rest of my life so I minimise my impact on the environment. See ya!

# posted by Anonymous 11:43 AM

Well, never mind that a overwhelming majority of scientists (both respected and of the junk variety) agree that Global Warming is real and happening. Never mind that although we only have detailed weather records for the past couple of centuries or so, we have data for weather patterns since the formation of the earth (which was about 3000 years ago, right?). Forget completely that this report seems to be focusing on the anthropological aspects of environmental concerns.
All politics and opinions aside, as far as this story is concerned, after about one generation of females dies off, aren't both sexes from then on going to be pretty negatively affected?

# posted by super_structure 3:09 PM

Nope, women outnumber men 3:1.

# posted by Bill 5:37 PM

Man, I wished. I went to a couple of parties like that in college, though. They were great. I think the real world is more like 51-49(%). Still, I don't think it makes some of the ideas culled from the story any less goofy. I mean, why not just say flooding from global warming would be bad for anyone who can't swim, because flooding in general sucks for those who can't swim. As a matter of fact, any large amount of water really isn't a good idea if you can't swim. Alert the Joe-Science awards.

# posted by super_structure 10:47 PM

Where in the story did it say that those statements claimed to be scientific (whether they are true or not)? - a UN conference is bound to span science, politics, economics, and pure opinion.

# posted by Anonymous 5:38 AM

If you want bad science, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/

# posted by Anonymous 5:40 AM

*sees well written post*

*sees two anonymous cowards tearing down post without evidence*

*deletes Alice and Bill from Sage feeds because it's obviously not a tech blog*

# posted by Anonymous 6:21 AM

*readers rejoice from reduction in clutter*

# posted by Anonymous 6:50 AM

OK. I'm anonymous comment #2 at the top.

Are things getting warmer? Yes.

Is that because of natural change or man made change? Both.

In what ratio? Nobody knows.

We have lots of climate models that predict the next 100 years of climate change. What we do NOT have is a single climate model that can predict the past.

Show me a model that can take the data from 1904 and end up where we are in 2004 and I'll believe you might have something. Until the model can "predict" accurately, it's meaningless.

Please don't make assumptions about what I think. I think things are getting warmer. I also remember all the predictions about the coming ice age when I was growing up.

I think we need to do some real research and figure out what is going on and why. THEN we ought to decide what to do about it. Trying to solve a problem you don't understand is generally not a fruitful approach.

# posted by Anonymous 8:10 AM

The theory that the earth goes in cycles continues to gather steam, in the face of the global warming "experts."

http://www.news-about-space.org/story/2409.html

5200 years ago was a drastic global cooling. No cars. No internal combustion engines, Al Gore. No Kyoto Treaty.

-Augie, http://www.variousandsundry.com/politics

# posted by Anonymous 8:21 AM

Todd #2 above, "I also remember all the predictions about the coming ice age when I was growing up." I think we're about the same age. Keep in mind that if the polar ice cap melts the seas will not rise. That ice cap sits on water. It's already displacing its mass in the oceans. By the way, anybody see the land bridge that used to run across the Bearing Straight lately?

Things are only getting warmer if you're somewhere that they're warmer. Here in NJ we had a very cool summer, so I vote for global colding. (Or, as you've surmised, anecdotal evidence isn't worth the podium it's spouted from.)

# posted by Bill 6:48 PM

There's a whole industry dedicated to finding stories tying these different liberal agendas together. A few years ago the press had a mass rush to stories about "environmental racism," which basically boiled down to the fact that toxic wastes are stored on cheap land, (why ruin our best land?) and that poor people, often minorities, also live on cheap land nearby, since they are poor. Tying global warming and feminism together is just one more play in that sport.

I can't recall seeing three liberal causes tied together in one story, but if you could do it you might land a job at NPR.

# posted by Steve 8:15 PM

"If we had signed Kyoto, Global Warming would be over by now, women would once again have the right to chose whether to learn to swim or not, and several species now extinct would not be because their habitats would not have deteriorated as much..."

Do I have to change my name to Juan Williams...?

# posted by Bill 12:26 AM