Bill Clinton told an audience of corporate executives and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, this weekend that climate change is the world’s biggest problem. But a researcher who studies global warming here said the former president overstates the case.
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” said Stephen Vavrus, an associate scientist at the UW-Madison Center for Climatic Research. “There are so many problems that exist and will exist regardless of climate change.”
….Vavrus, 38, meanwhile, calls global climate change an “overarching environmental issue” of the century. “It ranks among the top few, if not the most important one,” Vavrus said, noting that problems of disease, economic inequality and toxic waste also loom large.