What’s more important than a habitable planet?
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released their sixth assessment report in March with a shockingly stark visualization of how different levels of warming will affect those who were born in 1950, 1980 and (importantly) 2020. Mayday! This is not a drill!
To add to the alarm, scientists reported “abyssal ocean overturning slowdown and warming driven by Antarctic meltwater”. Remember the cheesy disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow where an ice age happened over a weekend? It’s that scenario. The Antarctic is melting so rapidly that it is diluting the salinity of the ocean and slowing down the overturning current. This is one of those ‘tipping points’ that scientists have been warning us about—rising sea levels, different weather patterns and mass extinction. If today’s emissions continue, the ocean current will slow down by 40% in only three decades.
You can be forgiven for mistakenly thinking that the darkest scenario depicted in the above infographic is an alarmist worst case scenario. However, it is actually the trajectory we’re on. What is needed, starting today, is a rapid increase in the pace at which new climate solutions are developed and existing climate solutions are deployed. That is the only way to bend the trajectory and reduce (not eliminate, that ship has sailed) the adverse effects of climate change. It is the greatest challenge humanity has faced. It can be done, and must be done if the people alive today are to have a habitable planet. That includes you, your loved ones, and the less privileged people in our global community across the world without the means to cope with even the least drastic changes that are already happening at current warming levels.
We at Active Impact plan to do everything we can to be a part of the solution.