CLIMATE IS CHANGING FASTER THAN SOCIETY CAN ADAPT!

With hotter temperatures, severe storms, rising sea levels, forest fires, and extinctions happening at a faster rate, there is no more time to debate if climate change is happening or not. According to NASA, 97% of publishing climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change.

In a recent episode on Green Sense Radio with Dr. Rao Kotamarthi, Senior Scientist in the Environmental Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, he stated, “Climate change is not a belief; it is an evidence-based idea that the climate is changing. It is a science.” During the interview, he discusses how scientists predict with a high degree of accuracy why the climate is changing. Using historical climate data, the computer models can anticipate future risks, predict cause and effect, guide adaption decisions, and set mitigation targets for now and future generations.

Temperature data shows rapid warming in the past few decades, the latest data going up to 2021. According to NASA data, 2016 and 2020 are the warmest year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures.

When asked what keeps him awake at night, Dr. Kotamrthi answered, “we aren’t moving fast enough. Climate change is moving faster than we are.” Humans are causing more damage than scientists expected, and without a sense of urgency or drastic change, there is fear that humans and wildlife will not be able to adapt to the warming planet.

For fans of the movie Don’t Look Up, it appears life is imitating art.

“Don’t Look Up satirically exaggerates a scientific fact being denied and then highly politicized by world leaders, who make their decisions to benefit only the upper class.

The climate crisis and the pandemic are the two most obvious metaphors for the film’s comet. Through Don’t Look Up, McKay points out that we live in a society that allows us to bypass scientific fact and ignore the threat of our own self-destruction for rich people’s short-term gain.”

Emily Parkinson, Queens Journal, Jan 21, 2022

https://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2022-01-20/lifestyle/dont-look-up-is-all-message-no-movie/