We are in the thick of Global Warming. I think across the planet if you asked anyone in their 40's or older if the summers are hotter than usual a common theme would be nicer weather. Even as we complain almost daily about the weather these days it seems that not much is being done urgently enough to reverse the situation. Much of this is simply that culture is hard to change, the matter is we've never had to bother about taking care of our planet's weather. Until recently the weather was just something we lived with. Its never easy to adopt a new ideas or habit until situation forces our hand. I think such as situation will be upon us by the next decade–the 2020s. Climate conditions are going to deteriorate faster than we can predict as Global Warming is exasperated by the 'double whammy' conditions. The double whammy are exponential multiplier effects that feed a situation to make it get worse faster than expected. If you like some optimism, its like starting the day on the right foot and seeing it get even better as the day progresses or vice versa.
The last year Global Warming got worse with the hottest year on record after getting a lift from El Nino. There are many more double whammy situations on the cards. Droughts and fires are killing trees even as we curtail our addiction to felling the gentle green giants for timber. I still see trucks carrying huge logs from primary rain forests on the highway, its so sad to see these botanical hearses pass by. They are worse than human hearses since every giant tree cut is one less super efficient carbon dioxide scrubber out of action. Last year the planet also lost a lot of forest to fires during South East Asian haze crisis. El Nino is also going to cause a lot of coral death this year–another efficient carbon sink. We continue to eat fish from the oceans in the billions of tons, not only is this habit becoming less sustainable with each year, we are also killing baby fish and animals with plastic. As fish population in the oceans reduce the efficiency of the seas to sink carbon gets less.
Even as the world celebrated the historic COP21 agreement to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius by cutting down on fossil fuels, the planet is becoming less efficient in absorbing excess carbon dioxide because all across the planet natural ecosystems have been heavily disrupted. Increasing reports of animals becoming extinct in the wild should concern us very much because they are the red flag that indicate the ecosystems are deteriorating. So even as we rush to reduce carbon emissions, the systems to absorb excess carbon we will still be emitting is also becoming less and less efficient. The binding agreements in COP21 will make little difference to the course of global warming if we don't do anything to restore ecosystems.
It is obvious that we have the technology necessary to withstand even the worst global warming scenario. Humans will prevail. But it seems nobody cares what the world is going to look like when they step outside their expensive weather conditioning cocoon and the cost we are going to pay in human lives to bear with global warming. We can still return things to how they used to be less the species that are extinct or critically endangered but that means we have to accept some inconvenience. That's what it will take to turn around the double whammy conditions that are accelerating global warming. But our problem is habit. We are creatures of habit and habit is hard to change.
The last year Global Warming got worse with the hottest year on record after getting a lift from El Nino. There are many more double whammy situations on the cards. Droughts and fires are killing trees even as we curtail our addiction to felling the gentle green giants for timber. I still see trucks carrying huge logs from primary rain forests on the highway, its so sad to see these botanical hearses pass by. They are worse than human hearses since every giant tree cut is one less super efficient carbon dioxide scrubber out of action. Last year the planet also lost a lot of forest to fires during South East Asian haze crisis. El Nino is also going to cause a lot of coral death this year–another efficient carbon sink. We continue to eat fish from the oceans in the billions of tons, not only is this habit becoming less sustainable with each year, we are also killing baby fish and animals with plastic. As fish population in the oceans reduce the efficiency of the seas to sink carbon gets less.
Even as the world celebrated the historic COP21 agreement to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius by cutting down on fossil fuels, the planet is becoming less efficient in absorbing excess carbon dioxide because all across the planet natural ecosystems have been heavily disrupted. Increasing reports of animals becoming extinct in the wild should concern us very much because they are the red flag that indicate the ecosystems are deteriorating. So even as we rush to reduce carbon emissions, the systems to absorb excess carbon we will still be emitting is also becoming less and less efficient. The binding agreements in COP21 will make little difference to the course of global warming if we don't do anything to restore ecosystems.
It is obvious that we have the technology necessary to withstand even the worst global warming scenario. Humans will prevail. But it seems nobody cares what the world is going to look like when they step outside their expensive weather conditioning cocoon and the cost we are going to pay in human lives to bear with global warming. We can still return things to how they used to be less the species that are extinct or critically endangered but that means we have to accept some inconvenience. That's what it will take to turn around the double whammy conditions that are accelerating global warming. But our problem is habit. We are creatures of habit and habit is hard to change.
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