CLIMATE CHANGE IN BRIEF

Due to the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and agricultural practices, the earth’s surface temperature has risen about 0.6°C during the last century, and sea levels have risen between 10 and 20cm.

The global impacts of this change have already been catastrophic. Widespread flooding and droughts, the melting of permafrost and glaciers, shrinkages of lakes and river systems, declines in plant and animal species and changes in seasonal events have already resulted in severe economic hardship in many regions, the forced relocation of large numbers of people, and disruptions to food and water supplies around the globe.

If emissions of greenhouse gases continue at their current rate, the most conservative estimates predict that temperatures will be up to 5.8°C higher by the end of this century, and sea levels will be up to 88cm higher.

If this occurs, it is likely that 3 out of every 5 species will not be with us at the dawn of the next century.

An estimated one billion people - one in seven people on earth today - could be forced to leave their homes over the next 50 years due to food and water shortages, deteriorating pasture lands and sea level rises.

Those with the least resources will feel the impacts most severely.  Climate Change has the potential to be the catalyst for a shift in consciousness where quality of life and compassion and equity for all becomes the dominant paradigm. It also has the potential to generate a collapse into anarchy and violence as more and more people fight over access to less and less resources.

The incidence of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods, heatwaves and avalanches is likely to increase, and the severity of these events will also increase. Diseases will spread further, and more rapidly.

More seriously, it is possible that these climate changes may lead to irreversible changes to the earth’s systems. Effects could include the slowing or stopping of the Gulf Stream warm water current, which would lead to Europe’s climate being more like Alaska’s, and the melting of enormous ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica that could lead to sea level rises of over 30m – enough to inundate many of the major cities and regions of the world.