“The IPCC* report is a massive alert that the time for climate action is nearly gone, but crucially not gone yet.”
See: “Environment”, The Guardian Online, The IPCC report is a massive alert that the time for climate action is nearly gone, but crucially not gone yet | Greg Jericho Accessed 10 Sept 2021. *Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change.
Last words on PLASTIC — IT is definitely a problem; IT is here; we need to remove IT from our product lines; and, safely dispose of the existing plastic that is here RIGHT now, and doing so without causing further damage to the very fragile ecological balance of our world that we are now experiencing. Always remember — PLASTIC is a carbon based by-product of PETROLEUM OIL, so please think before you pick up the large plastic soap containers, the shampoos, the conditioners, etc. There are alternatives on the market with more coming on every month. So, for the time being, let’s take a break and leave PLASTIC for a bit.
The latest IPCC report from the United Nations, due out on October 1, was leaked last month. IPCC REPORTS began in 1988 and were created by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Simply put, the objective of this compendium is to study and record scientific information providing governments with the ability to develop climate policies around the globe. Summaries of the report provide tools for each nation to address the dire need for management regarding global warming and its effects on humans, plants, animals and food and water, within their jurisdiction.
Well, the 2021 report, the IPCC has stopped mollycoddling the world and declared that we humans are totally responsible for global warming and the climate issues that we are now experiencing world wide. Climate change has been with us for several decades now, and it has largely been ignored, again and again by politicians, corporations and individuals across the globe. It will keep getting worse until humanity reduces its greenhouse-gas pollution to zero. The only way to do so is by ditching “…oil, coal, and gas as the central energy sources powering the global economy.” (see: “Its Grim” The Atlantic, Online, The Latest IPCC Report Is a Catastrophe).
I am not a scientist nor do I profess to be any kind of expert on this crisis. However, I do read, I do research as I am a researcher and historian in my work, so for that reason, I am giving you the “Fast Facts: On climate and the physical science” straight from the IPCC summary from pdf format as accessed 10 Sept 2021 here: ClimateChange under the first column, under “IPCC: We can act on climate change but time is running out.”
1. Human activities have warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land, producing widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere.
2. The scale of recent changes across the climate system are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years. Many changes are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially in terms of the ocean, ice sheets and global sea level.
3. Human-induced climate change affects every region. There is growing evidence of links to extreme heat waves, heavy precipitation, droughts and tropical cyclones.
4. Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the middle of the century. Unless we make sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions i coming decades, global warming will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, after which climate consequences will be even more severe.
5. The more the world warms, the greater the changes in the climate system become. This includes more frequent and intense hot extremes, marine heatwaves, heavy precipitation, agricultural and ecological droughts in some regions, the proportion of intense tropical cyclones, and reductions in Arctic sea ice, snow cover and permafrost.
6. Continued global warming will further intensify the global water cycle, making it more variable, and changing monsoon precipitation and the severity of wet and dry events.
7. As carbon dioxide emissions rise, the ocean and land will be less effective at absorbing and slowing the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
8. With further global warming, every region will increasingly experience changes in the drivers of climatic impacts. Drivers will be more widespread at 2 degrees Celsius compared to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and even more so at higher levels of warming.
9. Ice sheet collapse, abrupt ocean circulation changes and warming beyond current projections are less likely outcomes but cannot be ruled out.
10. Limiting human-induced global warming requires limiting cumulative carbon dioxide emissions, reaching at least net zero. Strong reductions in other greenhouse gas emissions such as methane would also be required.
11. Achieving low or very low greenhouse gas emissions would lead within years to discernible effects on greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations and air quality.
Discernible differences in global surface temperature would emerge in around 20 years. Source: https://www.un.org/climatechange Based on findings and projections from the IPCC’s Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science.
“Our Common Agenda” report looks ahead to the next 25 years and represents the Secretary-General’s vision on the future of global cooperation and reinvigorating inclusive, networked, and effective multilateralism. The Secretary-General presented his report to the General Assembly in September 2021 before the end of the 75th session of the General Assembly.” (see: Common Agenda Online accessed 10 Sept 2021 https://www.un.org/en/un75/common-agenda). Here is the video from the UN WEB TV, released this month in conjunction with the IPCC report of 2021, concerning the UN Secretary Generals report. https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/index.php/extwidget/preview/partner_id/2503451/uiconf_id/43914941/entry_id/1_h8zv3bsh/embed/dynamic
Scary? Hell yes, if you care about the future of our children and future generations. And hell yes, if you are worried about the current weather patterns we have been seeing throughout the United States. And yet, too many are still hiding their heads in the sands of time. We are out of time. Every single one of us needs to take a proactive stance in battling the monster of global warming. We are reaching the point of needing to become adaptable, but we still need to severely change the way we live right now or adaptability will not matter.
I strongly urge you to read the Guardian article at The Guardian Online, The IPCC report is a massive alert that the time for climate action is nearly gone, but crucially not gone yet | Greg Jericho. There are a number of excellent graphs, drawn from the IPCC report that I found interesting and mind boggling at the same time. For additional reading, if you are inclined to read the IPCC Report of 2021 in full, known as the “AR6, here is the link: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
