U.N. Climate Panel: Only 12 Years Left to Mitigate Climate Catastrophe
The United Nations’ climate panel warns in a new report that humanity has only a dozen years to mitigate climate change or face global catastrophe—with severe droughts, floods, sea level rise and extreme heat set to cause mass displacement and poverty. This is not in any way a so-called a “doom and gloom” prediction; but rather, it is a very real prognosis based on the best scientific modeling by the best scientists living on the face of the earth today. The validity of those models has been shown time and time again by the extreme weather disasters that have been borne out over the first 18 years of this century. To deny this reality and the seriousness of continuing with the status quo “business as usual” way of living so many countries are aspiring in light of this forecast is tantamount to digging our own graves and the graves of billions of today’s children and and future humanity. It’s unconscionable. As we continue to burn fossil fuel which were produced over millions and billions of years, the residuals, including greenhouse gases, soot and other products of petroleum products seem to vanish, and we are consuming in the U.S., record amounts of “stuff” and go on endless exotic trips Henry David Thoreau would have scorned them for doing that.
A small portion of the world’s population continues, in the last two centuries, to almost double the heat barrier surrounding Earth, called its “atmosphere”, enslaving all succeeding generations to an environmental unlike its former brilliant self. While most the pre-industrial revolution atmosphere always had sufficient volumes of heat-trapping gas to keep the average temperature above 0 degrees C., too much of will make the average temperature too high, much higher than can be used for sustainable living.
Earth could very well end up like all the other known planets in the universe – devoid of all forms of life. And we here living in the 21st century have no choice but to accept the entirety of the blame. We must no longer plead ignorance or pretend someone other than ourselves is to blame. The fault lies squarely one we humans who are living today, and of course the way we live.
The landmark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns “dramatic action” over the next 12 years – beginning immediately = is absolutely imperative for earth’s temperatures at the surface to remain sufficiently moderate and to avoid the possibility of “catastrophic” consequences to human life within just 12 years! The IPCC report concludes that global average temperature (throughout the year) must not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), above and beyond which global catastrophe could unfold, “at an extremely rapid pace, and that ignoring this finding could prove suicidal for most forms or life on the planet.
Every time more carbon dioxide is released back into the earth’s atmosphere – whether it be from burning gasoline in automobiles, from jet fuel combustion in jet airplanes, coal or natural gas burning in power plants, or to use in heating homes, businesses, factories and institutions; or in diesel powered transportation or construction machinery, the earth’s atmosphere captures the radiant heat coming of the surface after the Sun’s rays strike the surface, The carbon dioxide and other “released” greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere for decades, centuries or even millennium, strengthening the earth’s atmosphere and keeping what would have otherwise been released to outer space.
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