The IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - is the big deal. It is by far the most comprehensive and heavily reviewed word on climate change. They don’t conduct experiments or get funded by companies… It is a collaborative put together in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N Environmental Program to put together and summarize the absolute best information that we have on climate change and what will happen in the coming years. There are three working groups that put together different aspects of the information; Group 1 - the relevant science Group 2 - the potential negative and positive effects climate change will have on nature and the economy and how to adapt Group 3 - options for change. And this year they’re releasing another assessment….
In February they released the assessment on the relevant science and now it is going to be the “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability”. Well… what to expect. More food for us here in the rich countries, but accompanied with increased poverty, water shortages, drought, heat waves, rising sea levels, disappearing Islands, starvation… Then in a month we’ll get the assessment on how to change.
With the addiction of 1 degree celcius we can expect between 400 million and 1.7 billion extra people not getting enough water, some infectious diseases and allergenic pollens rise, and some amphibians go extinct. But the world’s food supply, especially in northern areas, is likely to increase… all by 2020.
While we sit and enjoy our copious amounts of food, in our moderate climates, wasting water by watering our lawns and filling up gigantic swimming pools - people in say… Africa… won’t be doing so well.
In contrast, Africa accounts for less than 3 percent of the global emissions of carbon dioxide from fuel burning since 1900, yet its 840 million people face some of the biggest risks from drought and disrupted water supplies, according to new scientific assessments. As the oceans swell with water from melting ice sheets, it is the crowded river deltas in southern Asia and Egypt, along with small island nations, that are most at risk.
I think we have all known that Global Warming is going to effect the less affluent nations more dramatically than it will be hurting our own societies, but we’ve disconnected ourselves so much that the fact that OUR actions will be making these people suffer doesn’t even click in our minds. And if it does - little is done about it. Professor Weaver also points out the effects that this heat is going to have on extinction levels.
Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist with the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said the chart of results from various temperature levels is “a highway to extinction, but on this highway there are many turnoffs. This is showing you where the road is heading. The road is heading toward extinction.”
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The report says global warming has already degraded conditions for many species, coastal areas and poor people. With a more than 90 percent level of confidence, the scientists in the draft report say man-made global warming “over the last three decades has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.”
What do we care about even less than children dying in Africa? Right. Animals.
Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what the proposed solutions are and if anyone will listen to them.
