By now, you’d think with all these climate change and “end of the world” scares we’d either be;
- Extremely cautious with the environment and doing anything and everything to save it OR
- Used to the empty threat of distinction and carry on with our day-to-day lives
Well, yet again, that odd contradiction is on display, in the wake of an announcement by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that a catastrophe is nearing. The issue of global warming is becoming worse than we originally thought and radical, unprecedented and immediate action is needed to protect communities around the world.
From the release, experts say that the planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030 (Yikes!). This means, the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages are on the cards for hundreds of millions of people. And well, the planet is already two-thirds of the way there, with global temperatures having warmed about 1 degree C, so it ain’t lookin’ good for us.
When we visited the Arctic this March, we saw the shrinking of the Arctic ice up close. Data collected & tracked very closely not by the UN, but the @USNavy, which needs accurate data to plan Arctic operations. #ClimateChange pic.twitter.com/2Un2b6qfRN
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) October 8, 2018
So What Needs To Be Done To Avoid Literal Human Extinction?
Global net emissions of carbon dioxide would need to fall by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach “net zero” around 2050 in order to keep the warming around 1.5 degrees C. While this all sounds easy to us, experts say that lowering emissions to this degree, while technically possible, would require widespread changes in energy, industry, buildings, transportation and cities.
Now if you’re wondering, “What the heck are we doing about it then?”, the answer is: pretty much nothing. The current Australian government has no policies in place to meet even the insufficient target levels by 2030 – and is on track to miss them by a huge margin. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has taken emissions reduction out of his government’s energy policy altogether, and downplayed the IPCC’s findings on Monday (R U SRS?). Here’s what some of us had to say about that:
Weak policy on addressing #climatechange means that @LiberalAus is risking losing #Wentworth. But they deserve to lose when they let the likes of Tony Abbott & Craig Kelly influence climate & energy policy. #auspol #WentworthVotes #WentworthByElection https://t.co/HltioDm9dx
— Dr Daya Sharma (@DrDayaSharma) October 8, 2018
In the last 24 hours the Prime Minister of Australia @ScottMorrisonMP has tweeted four times about a car race in rural New South Wales but not once about climate change.#Priorities #IPCCReport #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #Wentworth #WentworthVotes
— David Ritter (@David_Ritter) October 8, 2018
The numbers in the #IPCCReport terrify me more than any number on my power bill.
— Dr Darren Saunders (@whereisdaz) October 8, 2018
So if you reside in Australia, then I recommend checking out this article by 2030.
Image Source: Legendary Pictures
