A new United Nations scientific report warns that some devastating effects of climate change are unavoidable, but there’s a window of opportunity to prevent things from becoming much worse, The New York Times reports.
And if it’s up to us, many people don’t really think it’s going to end well.
The fact that vaccines are available against Covid-19 and 40 percent of the people (in some states) still refuse to get vaccinated against an immediate threat gives me reason to doubt that the nation or world has enough willpower to take actions when the consequences of not acting are decades off.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report unequivocally ties increases in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to human activity. Much of this comes from the burning of fossil fuels in the production of electricity and the operation of motor vehicles, agriculture, and power plants.
For the next 30 years, though, warming and its effects are unavoidable, the report says. But, if governments and the growing world population can manage to significantly reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, warming could plateau after about 2050, holding steady at 1.5 degrees Celsius and sparing today’s children some of the most dire predictions of climate scientists.
In other words, if we take some tough action now, when current high school students turn 45, the world may not be on fire.
