Palm trees in Northern Canada? Equatorial areas uninhabitable? By the end of this century?
In this week’s episode of his “Why is this happening” podcast (also known as WITHpod), Chris Hayes interviews David Wallace-Wells about his book “Uninhabitable Earth”. From the introduction:
Is it too late for us? Scientists have spent decades sounding the alarm on the devastating effects of climate change. And for decades, society decided to do pretty much nothing about it. In fact, over the past 30 years, we’ve done more damage to the climate than in all of human history! Now, there’s a real chance we may have waited too long to avoid widespread tragedy and suffering. In his book “The Uninhabitable Earth”, David Wallace-Wells depicts a catastrophic future far worse than we ever imagined...and far sooner than we thought. It is undoubtedly a brutal truth to face, as you will hear in this episode, but if there’s any hope to avert the worst case scenarios, we have to start now.
The author thinks that a 2°C average temperature rise is now the “best case scenario”. Things are changing much faster than people previously thought, or even the scientists were forecasting.
The Earth is now leaving the temperature regime in which all of human society has taken place. Yes, the Earth has been warmer in the past, but there were not any people then.
Recently European society has been in turmoil in response to about 1 million refugees from the wars in Syria. How will society react to 1 billion refugees from the equatorial regions?
But it is all our choice. This bleak future will not be the fault of our ancestors — they did not know any better. It depends on what we consciously do now. Meeting the IPCC guidelines of a 50% reduction in CO2 emmisions by 2030 means a WW2 level of effort starting now. We could start by ending all subsidies to the oil and gas industries.
Please incourage any school kids you know to participate (if they choose) in the worldwide Climate Strike next Friday, March 15.
“Climate delayers aren’t much better than climate deniers. With either one, if they get their way, we’re toast.”
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez