Here’s the answer I wrote to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s question, What do you think the planet is going to look like 25 years from now if we don’t tackle climate change head-on? Carbon dioxide will be at least 50 ppm higher than it is today, which is already 50 ppm higher than the maximum safe level of 350 ppm (see: 350.org/about/science/ and esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/). Summers will be hotter and droughts longer. Food prices will be several times higher because food will be harder to grow, and supermarket shelves will be half empty. Disadvantaged people will be dying of hunger and thirst. The sea level will be at least 4 higher, and rising faster every year. Thats on top of the foot that it has already risen over the past century. This, in combination with more powerful and more frequent storms, will be causing severe economic disruption and losses in most major coastal cities. Polar ice will disappear entirely every summer, and the few polar bears that remain will have moved inland to try to try to replace their diet of seals, which they cannot catch without the polar ice sheet. The coral reefs will be bleached white, and devoid of their formerly complex and colorful ecosystems. Oysters and other shellfish will be gone because of acidification of the oceans. The thawing tundra and continental shelves will be releasing previously frozen methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide. This will accelerate the process of global warming so much that humans will no longer be able to reverse it, especially considering that our financial systems will have been bankrupted by insurance claims. Riots will be everyday occurrences and social order will be a thing of the past. Nobody would think of leaving his or her home without a gun. I will be on my death bed with only one regret: that I did not leave a world to my children and grandchildren that was as good as the one I inherited from my parents and grandparents.”
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 20:57:57 +0000
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