What happened with the earthquake in Haiti is horrible. And yet, I and others are worried that Climate Change will lead to much worse.

If temperature rises even just a small number of degrees, the effects on the world will be severe, to include possible extinction. On top of that, I'm also very concerned that it will happen sooner than most people expect, even sooner than most scientists presently predict.

There's an interesting blog entry in The Economist that says out loud something that has been running through the back of my mind while watching TV, seeing the Haiti incident unfold—that there are opportunities to learn something about the inevitable crowd control we'll need to practice when Climate Change sets in.

As I sit and watch the events in Haiti, I find myself thinking, “This is what it could be like all over the world when the sea level rises to flood the major cities. Many of our most densely inhabited areas are built on the water. That means flooding could displace a lot of people. And where all those people go? How will life begin again for them, and how will such new beginnings affect others? What societal rules will evolve for reclaiming any bit of order from such a shattered world as these people are living?

It's an awful thing, what happened to Haiti. And many probably want to believe it's something unique, something that couldn't happen again. To think we might have to endure more of these, especially soon, is almost unbearable. But if we feel that way, we should be doing a lot more active things about Climate Change than we presently are. Because as things are going, this is going to recur.

And Climate Change doesn't just bring flooding. Flooding means a lot of people not working, but mouths still to feed. It means lost productivity. The heat itself and the changes in weather patterns generally mean a risk of crop failures and disease, and that can lead to famine. It means some areas may be uninhabitable and that in turn means some places in the world may prefer different areas to live. That may lead to war, or perhaps just skirmishes, but fighting of one kind or another in any case. All in all, it can quickly get messy if we don't understand how it plays out and how to avoid the worst of it.

Rush Limbaugh has criticized the US military for being “meals on wheels.” In fact, I'd much rather see them doing this kind of thing than worrying about Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, this is the kind of thing that is really going to matter. If we've squandered all our resources playing with wars we can't win, we won't have anything left to use on situations in the future, even situations in our own country.

I worry that soon we'll just feel we've spent enough and will move our collective consciousness on. That will be bad for Haiti, but—and importantly—it will be bad for us, too. What would be worse than something like Haiti happening again would be for us not have used this opportunity to learn.

We should think of money spent on helping not just as charity, but as an investment. It builds global goodwill, and that's already good. But also, and this is my point, we might learn by experimenting with different paradigms for how to help.

There are a lot of people hurting and we could be scientific about it. Try a variety of things and measure the effectiveness. They're hurting pretty badly and I think they'd be up for it. Think of it like NASA—but perhaps even more relevant—having a direct goal, in this case helping people, but also bringing side benefits that will enrich us in the future. When next would we get the chance to do this kind of research, planning, and preparing but when it's too late, when we're knee-deep in yet another such a crisis?

It could matter to us some day directly, perhaps sooner than people think. And we shouldn't waste the chance to be prepared.