I’m no scientist. I won’t pretend I got better than a C+ in Chemistry or a B- in Biology. But something I’ve always valued are the perspectives of those who’ve actually made it their life’s work to study the scientific causation and potential effects of a warming climate.
Related:Â Planet Earth Sounds Warning Alarm By Turning Glaciers Pink
The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change might be the best collection of climate change minds in the world and when they say: ‘it’s do or die’— we believe it makes sense to listen up.
A recent study published on Friday from the IPCC warns policy makers that if we don’t “halt anthropogenic global warming,” we’ll likely break through our 1.5°C buffer that prevents such things as our polar ice caps from melting and our coasts– from becoming inundated. The report says that our climate has seen a rise of 1.0°C solely from industrial or human-related emissions.
“Warming from anthropogenic emissions from the pre-industrial period to the present will persist for centuries to millennia and will continue to cause further long-term changes in the climate system, such as sea level rise, with associated impacts (high confidence)” – Understanding Global Warming of 1.5°C
Those effects might even come sooner rather than later as our poles are more susceptible to extreme temperature fluctuations. Anthropogenic emissions alone will likely be responsible for a .2°C rise each decade for the next century unless we do something soon to curb human emissions.
The study goes on to show how we must sharply and quickly eliminate CO2 based emissions to keep our climate from breaking through that dangerous, 1.5°C mark by 2030. If we don’t, the study lists a depressingly long list of potential victims from Miami to the Maldives. And that’s not even mentioning the ecological impacts that will be felt globally. Decreased snowpacks, extended droughts, and mass extinctions will also be felt as our atmosphere adjusts to its new chemical makeup.
We’ll let you get in this depressing doc if you like but we suggest giving your paycheck to the Green Climate Fund and pray that people start believing in science again. That’s ironic…Â
Find the entire report here: Global Warming of 1.5°C