Unfortunately, there is increasing evidence that the world is rapidly heading toward a climate catastrophe and there is little time to make the changes that might prevent it. All of human life could be eliminated before the end of this century, unless major positive changes soon occur. An extreme exaggeration? Unfortunately, not. Please consider: 1. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an organization composed of climate experts from many countries, warned that “unprecedented changes” were needed by 2030 for the world to have a chance to avert a climate catastrophe. Despite that warning, in May 2022 it was announced that atmospheric carbon dioxide had reached a record level, indicating hat the world is still heading in the wrong direction with regard to climate change. 2. Because of many dire warnings, like the one above, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated that the climate situation is a “Code Red for Humanity” and that “delay means death.”
3. The year 2022 was unprecedented for the frequency and severity of droughts, heat waves, wildfires, storms, and floods, with many records being broken. As devastating as climate events have been recently, prospects for the future are even more frightening, for four very important reasons: ☼ While all the recent severe climate events have occurred at a time when the global temperature has risen about 1.1 degrees Celsius (about two degrees Fahrenheit) since the start of the industrial revolution, climate experts project that this will at least triple by the end of this century, triggering far worse climate events. ☼ While climate experts believe that 350 parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric carbon dioxide is a threshold value to avert the worse effects of climate change, the world has reached 420 ppm and it is increasing at 2 - 3 ppm per year. ☼ Climate experts fear that self-reinforcing positive feedback loops (vicious cycles) could result in an irreversible tipping point such that global warming will rise uncontrollably, with catastrophic results. One example is that as the world gets hotter, more air conditioning will be used, meaning that more fossil fuel will be burned. This will release more greenhouse gases, heating the atmosphere even more, resulting in still more use of air conditioning, etc. ☼ Military experts are warning that there will likely be tens of millions of desperate refugees fleeing from severe heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, floods, and other climate events, which will promote social and political instability, terrorism, and war. Severe droughts already caused major migrations that resulted in civil wars in both Sudan and Syria.
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