If you think the catastrophic effects of climate change are waiting far out in the future, well, Australian think-tank Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration has some bad news for you.
Their report warns of a “existential risk to humanity” coming within the next three decades, not centuries – a risk that could see a “high likelihood of human civilization coming to an end.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BynhfGqpLDu/
I’m guessing that means civilization as we know it, not an extinction event, but the group is warning that urgent, immediate action is needed to right the proverbial ship. Their advice, of course, is not out of line with the alarms being sounded by environmental and climate scientists around the world.
Their scenario is apocalyptic, with conditions devolving into “beyond the threshold of human survivability” across much of the Earth’s surface. They refuse to downplay the very real possibility that the “large negative consequences to humanity may never be undone, either annihilating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtailing its potential.”
The think-tank details a fairly plausible “2050 scenario” that outlines total and irreversible collapse in three short decades.
2020-2030
Despite the Paris Agreement, governments fail to act and the 3°C threshold comes to pass. Carbon dioxide levels reach 437 parts per million and the planet as a whole warms by 1.6°C.
2030-2050
Emissions peak in 2030, and even though they’re reduced, it’s too late. The continued use of fossil fuels set the Earth’s temperature on a rise toward 3°C by 2050.
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByndtY8H7Yn/
2050
Ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, as well as the permafrost, deteriorate. Temperatures are doomed to rise another 1°C, regardless of whether or not emissions are stopped. We no longer have the ability to stop what we’ve started, and 55% of the global population suffer 20 days of lethal heat conditions every year. North America struggles through extreme wildfires, drought, and heatwaves while China drowns under monsoons, Asian rivers dry up, and central American rainfall falls by half.
Deadly heat ravages West Africa for over 100 days a year, devastating food production and displacing more than a billion people.
National security, pandemics, armed conflicts, and even potential nuclear war result, and a worst case scenario is anyone’s guess, honestly, but would almost certainly result in the end of human civilization as we know it.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BynXSYcgvbq/
The report pleads for action on the part of the nations of the world, saying we must “urgently examine the role that the national security sector can play in providing leadership and capacity for a near-term, society-wide, emergency mobilization of labor and resources, of a scale unprecedented in peacetime, to build a zero-emissions industrial system and draw down carbon to protect human civilization.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Byngxh6HdiN/
It’s still possible to prevent this model of our future, but only if we act now.
So, you have two choices: contact your officials and do your best to get things moving in the right direction, or stop exercising, start eating french fries and buffalo wings every day, and hope for the best.
