01-25-2021, 11:15 PM
As a geoscientist, I find this NYT article frighteningly realistic regarding the fact that many global warming consequences are observed to be occurring at or faster than the "worst case" scenarios that previous models indicated. We have to be prepared for massive changes in our ways of living, and even with that, continued massive changes in climate will likely continue to occur.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/opini...tion=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage. There might be a paywall, so here are a couple of clips:
"Going back to normal now means returning to a course that will destabilize the conditions for all human life, everywhere on earth. Normal means more fires, more category 5 hurricanes, more flooding, more drought, millions upon millions more migrants fleeing famine and civil war, more crop failures, more storms, more extinctions, more record-breaking heat. Normal means the increasing likelihood of civil unrest and state collapse, of widespread agricultural failure and collapsing fisheries, of millions of people dying from thirst and hunger, of new diseases, old diseases spreading to new places and the havoc of war. Normal could well mean the end of global civilization as we know it."
"we won’t see “normal” again in our lifetimes. Our parents and grandparents burned normal up in their American-built cars, with their American lifestyles, their American refrigerators and American dreams. And now China and India are doing it, too, because capitalism is global, and we sold it wherever we could. "
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/opini...tion=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage. There might be a paywall, so here are a couple of clips:
"Going back to normal now means returning to a course that will destabilize the conditions for all human life, everywhere on earth. Normal means more fires, more category 5 hurricanes, more flooding, more drought, millions upon millions more migrants fleeing famine and civil war, more crop failures, more storms, more extinctions, more record-breaking heat. Normal means the increasing likelihood of civil unrest and state collapse, of widespread agricultural failure and collapsing fisheries, of millions of people dying from thirst and hunger, of new diseases, old diseases spreading to new places and the havoc of war. Normal could well mean the end of global civilization as we know it."
"we won’t see “normal” again in our lifetimes. Our parents and grandparents burned normal up in their American-built cars, with their American lifestyles, their American refrigerators and American dreams. And now China and India are doing it, too, because capitalism is global, and we sold it wherever we could. "