Poliitikot puhuvat korkeintaan 2 asteen lämpenemisestä, mutta todellisuudessa heidän toimensa valmistelevat sitä, että maapallo lämpenee tällä vuosisadalla 4 astetta. Pahimmassa tapauksessa jo noin 50 vuoden kuluttua, vuonna 2060, olisi 4 oC esiteollista aikaa lämpimämpää. Tämä olisi varsinainen helvetti, jossa suurin osa ihmisistä kuolisi – jollei muuhun niin nälkään. Asiaa koskevia uusia tutkimuksia vetää yhteen Climate Action Centren uusi raportti ”4 degrees hotter”:
http://www.climateactioncentre.org
Olisiko aika ottaa oppia egyptiläisistä ja suorittaa vallankumous täälläkin: kumota ne valta- ja ajatusrakennelmat, joiden puitteissa on luonnollisempaa tuhota nykyisenkaltainen maapallo kuin fossiilikapitalismi?
Alla lainauksia raportista.
Just two months before the fifteenth meeting of the Coalition of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen, ??€oe4 degrees and beyond” was the focus of a 28-30 September 2009 International Climate Conference at Oxford. It brought together many of the leading scientists and some disturbing research, and received extensive media coverage. A number of the papers presented have just been published by the Royal Society. The conference heard that:
- A 4C rise could turn swaths of southern Europe to desert.
- Sea levels will rise twice as fast as official estimates predict, up to 2 metres by 2100.
- Modest warming could unleash a carbon ??€oetime bomb” from Arctic soils as positive feedbacks kick in.
- A failure to cut emissions could render half of the world uninhabitable.
- Rising temperatures could kill off 85% of the Amazon rainforest by 2100.
…
A 4C global average rise means on average about 5.5–6C warmer over land, especially away from the coast. Where people could actually live with land suitable for growing food (with the much greater evaporation rates implicit at +6C), and above existing deltas and flood plains as sea-levels rise, would be limited. On 30 November 2007, Reuters reported: Children born today in countries such as Spain and Italy will witness a 7 degrees Celsius rise in summer temperatures by the end of their lives, the European Union??€â„?s environment watchdog warned on Tuesday. Much of the tropics would be too hot, much of the temperate regions desertified. The ??€oe4 degrees and beyond” conference heard that 4C could render half of the world uninhabitable. Populations would be driven towards the poles, and practically-speaking that means the north pole. How many would survive? On 29 September 2009, at the conclusion of the ??€oe4 degrees and beyond” conference, ??€oeThe Scotsman” reported:
Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, believes only around 10 per cent of the planet??€â„?s population – around half a billion people – will survive if global temperatures rise by 4C…
Current Met Office projections reveal that the lack of action in the intervening 17 years – in which emissions of climate changing gases such as carbon dioxide have soared – has set the world on a path towards potential 4C rises as early as 2060, and 6C rises by the end of the century.
Anderson, who advises the government on climate change, said the consequences were ??€oeterrifying”. ??€oeFor humanity it??€â„?s a matter of life or death,” he said. ??€oeWe will not make all human beings extinct as a few people with the right sort of resources may put themselves in the right parts of the world and survive. But I think it??€â„?s extremely unlikely that we wouldn??€â„?t have mass death at 4C. If you have got a population of nine billion by 2050 and you hit 4C, 5C or 6C, you might have half a billion people surviving.”
Earlier, in March 2009, at the Copenhagen science conference, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute, and one of Europe??€â„?s most eminent climate scientists, told his audience that at 4C, population ??€oe… carrying capacity estimates (are) below 1 billion people.”