Oh, the climate is a-changin’
Tim Stolp, Entertainment Editor
October 18, 2018
With the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change’s most recent report, we should all be slightly panicked: Time is not on our side.
I know: I’m a Gen-Z, liberal hippie who predictably goes cuckoo every time he reads the headlines about global warming. Yet while all of this is arguably true, the urgency expressed in new scientific revelations demands our attention, if not priority—regardless of party, generation or any of other difference. Global climate change is a bipartisan issue that affects every nation on Earth, but in certain circles maintains the reputation of a balderdash theory.
The opposite is true as David Wallace-Wells of Intelligencer explains the chilling details his latest article.
“Hundreds of millions of lives are at stake[…] should the world warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which it will do as soon as 2040, if current trends continue,” said Wallace-Wells. “What has been called a genocidal level of warming is already our inevitable future.”
Climate change is a bigger threat than we are treating it as. The rate at which the problem is escalating is exponential as we continue to ignore the dire tone that scientists and climate activists have been taking in recent years. Consider that the IPCC, established in the late 80s, began as a way to counteract what was happening. Now, the department is attacking the issue in terms of slowing it down.
“It’s not that the news about climate has changed,” said Wallace-Wells. “But that the scientific community is finally discarding caution in describing the implications of its own finding.”
The ad hominem counterargument against global warming will only continue to contribute to the climate catastrophe we are headed toward if attitudes do not change. For those who are aware but unsure of how to take action, it is important that we educate ourselves on the simple ways we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, we must call for change that Wallace-Wells claims “requires a complete rebuilding of the entire energy infrastructure of the world, a thorough reworking of agricultural practices and diet to entirely eliminate carbon emissions from farming, and a battery of cultural changes…[.]”
The scientific community is screaming for action. If we remain deaf to their pleas, we may be putting our lives at risk.
More resources and sources to look into:
Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet
The Trump Administration Anticipates Catastrophic Global Warming by 2100
