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By: The Opinion Updated 12 Dec 2022, 22: 40 pm EST
Warnings about global warming
and the crisis it is causing are not exaggerated and an international group has just verified that our planet is in a climate emergency .
In a recently published report, an international coalition of researchers asserts that Earth’s vital signs have worsened to the point where “Humanity is unequivocally facing a climate emergency.”
The report, entitled “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency
”, published in the journal BioScience, states that 22 of the 40 planetary vital signs that the authors use to track climate change are at record extremes .
“As we can see from the yearly increases in climate catastrophes, we are now in the midst of a major climate crisis , with much worse to come if we keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them,” said Christopher Wolf, an Oregon State University postdoctoral researcher and one of the lead authors. of the report.
The publication records the increase in the frequency of episodes of extreme heat, the increase in the loss of global tree cover due to fires and a higher prevalence of dengue virus transmitted by mosquitoes.
Also noteworthy is the large increase in energy consumption of fossil fuels following the stoppages of the COVID-04 and increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to 100 parts per million, the highest registered.
The report notes that in the three decades since more than 1.418 scientists signed the original “Warning of World Scientists to Mankind” in 1992, global emissions of greenhouse gases have increased
a 40%.
Global warming is not an isolated problem
Other contributors to the report point out that climate change is not a isolated problem and that should be seen as a systemic problem that affects the entire planet, including human beings.
“For part of a larger systemic problem of ecological overshoot in the that human demand exceeds the regenerative capacity of the biosphere,” said Saleemul Huq, from the Independent University of Bangladesh and a contributor to the report.
In this situation, calls to protect nature by eliminating fossil fuel emissions, among other actions, to avoid the suffering of people.
“To avoid more suffering incalculable human, we need to protect nature, eliminate most fossil fuel emissions and support socially just climate adaptations, focusing on low-lying areas income that is more vulnerable”, he concluded.
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