Since last July, Earth’s average temperature has been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.
As global temperatures spiked to their highest levels in recorded history on Monday, ambulances were screaming through the streets of Tokyo, carrying scores of people who had collapsed amid an unrelenting heat wave. A monster typhoonwas emerging from the scorching waters of the Pacific Ocean, which were several degrees warmer than normal. Thousands of vacationers fled the idyllic mountain town of Jasper, Canada ahead of a fast-moving wall of wildfire flames.
By the end of the week — which saw the four hottest days ever observed by scientists — dozens had been killed in the raging floodwaters and massive mudslides triggered by Typhoon Gaemi. Half of Jasper was reduced to ash. And about 3.6 billion people around the planet had endured temperatures that would have been exceedingly rare in a world without burning fossil fuels and other human activities, according to an analysis by scientists at the group Climate Central.
These extraordinary global temperatures marked the culmination of an unprecedented global hot streak that has stunned even researchers who spent their whole careers studying climate change.
People simply can’t/won’t hear it. Society is clinging to any doubt or contrary viewpoint (and oil companies and their paid shills provide plenty) because it is difficult to envision the delicate and finite nature of our situation. Triggered methane releases are currently ratcheting up the warming, you can’t refreeze the permafrost, it rapidly cooks the planet.
No one wants to believe it, but this is the end unless dramatic changes are made. Having children, at this juncture, with what we know, is profoundly selfish. And folks cannot accept this, let alone, the changes that must be made, systemically, for society to survive.
Not just having children, but raising them to continue the same “driving huge SUV everywhere” costco lifestyle that got us into this mess
This is all a red herring. Our SUV’s, stupid as they may be, are statistically barely relevant compared to effects of corporate greed and pollution on the rest of us. Point the blame where it belongs: at the ruling class for having the knowledge and means to have avoided all of this, but chose not to.