Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Now will we listen?

For decades, scientists have been reporting that the Earth’s climate is changing.  Greenmomster has written posts about the health, environmental, and security issues associated with climate change.  We’ve written letters, met activitists, and attended protests.  At a local level, I’m thankful for many folks who spend several weeks each year working with state legislators to enact climate change legislation. 

Now the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a new report regarding the effects of climate change.  The report discusses necessary actions to slow the causes of climate change, and also encourages actions to adapt to the changes we can’t avoid.  Here’s the Summary for Policy Makers.  Be sure to scroll to the charts at the end that outline the possible outcomes of climate change on each continent and their probability (ie. high confidence of increased human deaths due to temperature extremes in North America and high confidence in North America of “urban floods in riverine and coastal areas inducing property and infrastructure damage; supply chain, ecosystem, and social system disruption; public health impacts”).  If you’d like a short summary and video on the report, check out this Washington Post article.  The future for North America isn’t great, but think about the folks in Kiribati:

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