The Climate Crisis

The climate crisis is, without question, the greatest environmental threat humanity has ever faced.  By any measure, the Earth is at a tipping point. We are sitting on a ticking time bomb. Dramatic changes are happening all over the world.  2005 was America’s worst storm season ever.  2007 is predicted to be the world’s warmest year.  Rising global temperatures are melting glaciers and decimating species.  But this crisis is not just about saving plants, animals and the “environment”.  It’s about saving us.

If we don’t take immediate steps to halt and reverse the climate crisis, the consequences will be catastrophic and life-threatening.  Sea levels will rise to devastate coastal areas across the world. Stronger storms will result in disastrous flooding.  Extreme temperatures, drought and other ecological disasters will cause lower crop yields, threatened food security and widespread destruction of our food supply.  The result will be human suffering and political and social chaos that is unimaginable.

The climate crisis affects everyone, everywhere.

There is no longer any debate about the existence or cause of global warming and the emerging climate crisis. As Governor Schwarzeneggar recently said:  “If your child is sick and 98 out of 100 doctors advise medical attention and 2 out of 100 say ‘Don’t worry’, who are you going to listen to?”

Global warming and the climate crisis are human caused.  Rising levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) is causing the Earth’s atmosphere to warm at an unprecedented rate.  The rise in CO2 is anthropogenic, that is, resulting from human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels.

The world’s most authoritative voice on climate change, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has declared that the evidence of a warming trend is “unequivocal” and blames humans for rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.  The IPCC reports represent the most comprehensive compilation and summary of current climate research ever attempted, and arguably the most thoroughly peer reviewed scientific document in history.

Furthermore, the vast majority of the world’s scientists agree that we have just 10 years to avert catastrophe before the planet will reach a tipping point, sending it into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, famines, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.  The result will be an irreversible slide toward the destruction of civilization, most of the species of the planet, including us humans.

Recently appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, Al Gore said that global warming is a problem with consequences “infinitely worse” than the war in Iraq.  He said that America can’t afford to ignore the warning signs of a catastrophe like it did before the invasion of Iraq.  If we do, we will find ourselves in another catastrophe like Iraq but one of a global scale that is “irretrievable.”

The climate crisis is not a political issue.  It is a moral issue.  We all are locked in a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change.

Only a global response can even begin to address the climate crisis.  In its most recent report, the UN’s climate change experts asserted that significant progress toward stabilizing and reducing global warming emissions can be achieved at a relatively low cost using known technologies.  But the report made clear the risks of delay are high, noting that emissions of greenhouse gases have risen 70% since 1970 and could double again by 2030 if nothing is done.

To save the planet, existing and emergent technologies must be employed immediately if we are going to make the enormous cuts in emissions necessary to stabilize greenhouse concentrations in the atmosphere and avoid global disaster.

Planting trees is one of most important technologies to blunt the effects of global warming because forests provide the planet a vital, long term “sink” for absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that contributes to rising temperature.

Learn more about what Instituto Terra is doing to Fight the Climate Crisis.