'It's my generation's responsibility to fight climate change' | Environment | DW.DE | 12.06.2013
Even the smallest breakthrough in climate negotations can be measured in lives saved, says Wael Hmaidan, the director of the Climate Action Network.
...
[Q] At the climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009, you described the death that would spread across the globe if action wasn’t taken.
...
If we lose a battle, it means more death, it means losing time. The outcome will be harder to change. But you can still save another 100,000 lives or a million lives. Cancelling the surplus carbon credits in Doha definitely contributed to saving lives.
If we don’t reduce emissions enough to stay below two degrees, we might reach scary scenarios. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the World Bank say that if we don’t start action now, by the end of this century we might exceed four degrees temperature increase, which means the collapse of human civilization. We will not be able to adapt no matter what we try.
...
Wael Hmaidan is the director of the Climate Action Network, a worldwide network of 850 NGOs working to promote climate protection and sustainability.
Posts
3 comments:
Wael took Bill McKibben's creep factor and amplified it 850 times.
It's a good thing we don't have an organization to represent serial killers. If there was, I think Wael might be a good candidate to direct the outfit. It appears that Wael would take the job if the compensation was adequate.
It is already clearly evident that the world has passed critical tipping points. The oft-made claim that we have "time" yet to "stop climate change" is quite absurd and fails to take into account the totality of evidence we now have.
You cannot replace all the missing glaciers, or the sea ice and put the water "back" now. Or stop the albedo effect. Nor restore the jet stream to normal patterns. Or remove the heat in the oceans. Or lower sea level rise. Or remove the methane and carbon dioxide. Or prevent the methane hydrate release. Or extract the black soot / carbon from the atmosphere.
All the energy now released by melt and the amplified hydrological cycle is unleashed, it is simply "not stoppable" and will accelerate.
We only experiencing the emissions from the 1980's - we've yet to even comprehend what it will mean when we experience the increased emissions we're still emitting through 2013.
The Arctic is exhibiting anomaly's of 50 degrees higher then normal throughout the year now. This is not "fixable" either.
It all means more and more heat, faster and faster, accelerating year by year. Unstoppable. Immutable. Indifferent to our pandering and politicking and nitpicking stupidity.
2 degrees was ALWAYS a political "pick" with zero basis in science. Now, to say we "might" experience 4 degrees, is yet another political "compromise" which seeks to hide the horrible truth.
We are irrevocably committed to 8C warming and the extinction of all life on Earth (except for some very low life forms which will manage this temperature increase).
This is a provable FACT now. Humanity has less than 100 years of survival left. In that time, billions will die. The effects of climate change are already clearly evident, taking the lives of thousands and it is accelerating. By 2050, the annual death toll will be in the millions per year.
There is very little time left. ~J.R.~
Surely the existence of Climate Action Network and the IPCC shows that human civilization has already collapsed!
Post a Comment