Home » Climate, scientists: “Let’s prepare for the most extreme consequences”

Climate, scientists: “Let’s prepare for the most extreme consequences”

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Climate, scientists: “Let’s prepare for the most extreme consequences”

Climate change can really turn into a catastrophe for the whole of humanity: we must therefore prepare for the worst scenarios, ranging from the decimation of the world population to the extinction of man, focusing research efforts on four crucial issues, namely hunger and malnutrition, extreme weather events, wars and vector-borne diseases (such as ticks and mosquitoes). This appeal is launched by an international group of experts led by the University of Cambridge, in a study published in the journal of the American Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The researchers in particular ask the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to dedicate a report to their most extreme consequences, to spur the scientific community and inform citizens. “There are many reasons to believe that climate change can become catastrophic, even at modest warming levels,” says the study’s first author, Luke Kemp of the University of Cambridge.

Chain effects

“Climate change has played a role in every mass extinction event. It favored the fall of empires and shaped history. The modern world also seems to have adapted to a particular climatic niche. Disaster is not achieved only by the direct consequences of high temperatures, such as extreme weather events. Ripple effects such as financial crises, conflicts and new epidemics could trigger other calamities and prevent recovery from potential disasters such as nuclear war ”.

The models used by experts indicate that areas of extreme heat (those with an average annual temperature of over 29 degrees, where today about 30 million people live between the Sahara and the Gulf coast) could extend so far as to affect as many as two billion people. by 2070. “These temperatures and their social and political consequences will directly affect two nuclear powers and seven maximum containment laboratories that house the most dangerous pathogens: there is a strong possibility of knock-on effects” underlines one of the authors of the study. Chi Xu of the University of Nanjing.

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McGuire: “There is no more time”

Meanwhile, the alarm has also come in the book “Hothouse Earth”, by Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climatic risks at University College London. As the lecturer makes clear, in the review reported in the Guardian, for too long we have ignored explicit signals about global warming due to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions.

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