It's been over 30 years since the first major UN report on the dangers of climate change. Many scientists knew what was happening even before then, and had warned governments and corporations about the risks of continuing with Business As Usual.

And what was the response?

Not only was there no serious attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — "No, sorry, we can't do that" — instead our so-called leaders doubled down, greatly *increasing* their use of fossil fuels!
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Global greenhouse gas emissions have reached a record high amid an unparalleled acceleration in global warming, according to a new study.

From 2013 to 2022, “human-induced warming has been increasing at an unprecedented rate of more than 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade,” fifty top scientists warned on Thursday in a sweeping climate science update.

The findings would appear to close the door on capping global warming under the 2015 Paris Agreement’s ambitious 1.5C target, long identified as a guard rail for a relatively climate-safe world, albeit one still roiled by severe impacts.
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FULL STORY -- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/8/planet-warming-at-unprecedented-rate-study-finds

SEE ALSO -- https://www.dw.com/en/global-warming-surged-in-past-decade-research-says/a-65864100

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #BusinessAsUsual

Are we, the larger society around us, ready to wake up? Are we ready now to take action and stop what is happening?

An opinion piece published at The Hill asks these questions...
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How dire a warning must there be for us to do something about global climate change? Is there anything scientists can say or the weather can do to persuade us to stop dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere?

Perhaps not.

After issuing five detailed “synthesis” reports about climate change since 1988 — each more certain and urgent than the last — the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just issued its sixth report. It minces no words. Our final chance to avoid a global catastrophe is to make massive cuts in fossil-fuel emissions within 12 years.

Yet, energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide set a record last year. Countries still provide fossil fuels with trillions of dollars annually in direct and indirect subsidies. The world’s 60 biggest banks provided $4.6 trillion in fossil fuel financing, including $742 billion in 2021, since nations agreed to the Paris climate accord in 2015. Four of the biggest oil companies had $1 trillion in sales and record profits last year. And 20 of the biggest oil companies plan to spend nearly $1 trillion to develop new oil and gas fields by the end of 2030. Even President Biden, fully aware of the climate crisis, has given the go-ahead to an $8 billion oil project in Alaska.

In other words, the global oil and gas industry has never been better, while the world has never been closer to simultaneous environmental, economic and humanitarian disasters expected to displace 1.2 billion of the world’s people by 2050 and have violent impacts that will last thousands of years.

A year ago, The Guardian reported on climate-related “doomerism” — even resulting in suicide in some cases.

“Studies have shown that while alarm over worsening wildfires, droughts, flooding, and societal unrest is on the rise, not many of us talk about climate angst with others to avoid political arguments or simply avoid bringing down the mood. Those who do speak out are often younger activists – research has shown that half of people between 16 and 25 years old believe the Earth may be doomed, while three-quarters feel anxiety when they think or hear about climate change. Some speak openly of not wanting to bring children into a hotter, harsher world,” according to The Guardian.

“But the worst part is that everyone’s acting normal — it’s like we are zombies,” clinical psychologist turned climate activist Margaret Klein Salamon told The Guardian. “The sense of helplessness and hopelessness is holding back conversations and political action.”

So, will the masses wake up and force industry and governments to take the radical steps necessary at this late date?

In a brilliant essay published by the Washington Post, author and historian Rebecca Solnit suggests that since wealth accumulation and retention seem to rule, we should redefine what wealth is. While fossil fuels make a few people financially wealthy, they impoverish the rest of us in ways not measured by goods and money.

“Even the affluent live in a world where confidence in the future, and in the society and institutions around us, is fading,” Solnit points out, “and where a sense of security, social connectedness, mental and physical health, and other measures of well-being are often dismal. This is the world we live in with fossil fuel — the burning of which makes us poorer in many ways.”
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SOLNIT ESSAY -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/15/rebecca-solnit-climate-change-wealth-abundance/

HILL OPINION PIECE -- https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/3912939-fossil-fuels-are-impoverishing-us/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #Anticapitalism

Why are so many climate scientists so scared and so angry?

Maybe it's because they know better than most of us how bad our situation today truly is, and how horribly we've been betrayed by our so-called leaders.

Here's an excerpt from an excellent piece on this subject by Alan Urban...
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Even if the planet stopped getting warmer right now, we would still be in big trouble. The ice caps would keep melting and sea levels would keep rising.

Look at what’s happening at a mere 1.2°C of warming. We’re already seeing some of the worst heat waves in human history, not to mention record-breaking floods, droughts, wildfires, and water shortages.

But of course, warming isn’t going to stop at 1.2°C. Because of the heat we’ve already trapped in the atmosphere, and because we continue to emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases every year, the climate is warming exponentially.

All of these climate-related crises are stretching farms to the limit, yet this is just the beginning. As crop yields decline and the population grows, we will see food insecurity get worse and worse until we’re in a global famine.

And that right there is why climate scientists are scared. They understand that human civilization was born during the Holocene, when global temperatures were very stable and stayed within a range of about 1°C.

As we push the planet out of that range and raise the temperature about 50 times faster than would occur naturally, it will become harder and harder to produce enough food to feed everyone, and this will lead to social instability, political upheaval, the worst migration crisis ever, and wars over resources.

Disasters that weren’t supposed to happen until we reached 1.5°C are happening now, so we can only imagine what will happen when we hit 2° or 3°C.

This is why top scientists from around the world are warning us that we face a ghastly future filled with untold suffering. They’ve been telling us over and over, year after year, summit after summit, that we have to stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible. But as you can see [below], the world keeps ignoring them.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40CollapseSurvival%2Ffaster-than-expected-why-climate-scientists-are-so-scared-985db6579f2e

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #Capitalism