Author: Brandon A. Weber / Source: Big Think
- It’s statistically possible to make enough changes to stave it off, but politically it looks unlikely if attitudes at the top do not change.
- We’re already seeing effects from a 1-degree (C) change.
- What can we do? There are a few things…
The problem, as I see it, is that there isn’t the political will to make the serious changes we need to in order to stave this off.
Stave what off, you ask?
It’s the point—an increase of 1.5 degrees C or 2.7 degrees F—at which the things that we take for granted, like arctic ice and even the ability to live anywhere near the equator, disappear. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just issued a report on this that is, well, terrifying.
The report is written by 91 authors and 40 review editors, and it features 133 contributing authors, 6,000 scientific references, and was subject to over 42,000 expert and government review comments before publication.
Photo: JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images
Members of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meet in South Korea in October 2018.
If we don’t reverse the current trends in a huge way, then extreme drought, floods, wildfires, food shortages for millions of people across the globe will be the norm for everybody. Well, except, perhaps, for those living at one of the poles.
“One of the key messages that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the consequences of 1 degree C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes,” said Panmao Zhai, co-chair of IPCC Working Group I.
The report tells us we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent below 2010 levels by 2030 and net zero—that is, NO increase in greenhouse…
The post UN warning: We have 12 years left until the point of no return on climate change appeared first on FeedBox.