What would it be like to wake one morning to a news broadcast from the Presidential Emergency Operations Center? This lies beneath the White House East Wing and is a secure shelter and communications hub for the U.S. President. The president walks up to the podium and speaks the words we feared.
“Our planet experienced irreversible damage from a surge in warming overnight. We are witnessing the collapse of our society. I fear I can do no more to help you. You are on your own.”
David Attenborough Says We Are Facing Irreversible Damage Now
David Attenborough made his strongest statement yet on April 18, 2019. Is he a prophet crying in the wilderness or will our leaders hear these words? “We face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies. But there is still hope if dramatic action to limit the effects is taken over the next decade.
The Natural World is Under Attack
Meteorologist Peter Stott agrees. There have been cooler and warmer spikes, he concedes. However, a “steady and unrelenting trend has seen 20 of the warmest years occurring in the last 22 years.” Others have done a global assessment of ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland. These tell us that things are worse than we’d ever expected,
Ice Losses Causing Catastrophic Losses in Louisiana
The three trillion tons of Greenland ice are melting 5 times faster than 25 years ago. Colette Pichon Battle of Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy shared more bad news with columnist Matt McGrath. The last four years were the hottest ever.
In the US, Louisiana is on the front line of irreversible damage caused by the climate crisis, she explains. “It’s losing land at one of the fastest rates on the planet. This is at the rate of a football field every 45 minutes.” This is causing the local society to collapse as folk abandon their homes and move away. “We are running out of time, but there is still hope,” says David Attenborough.
“I believe that if we better understand the threat we face. Then the more likely it will be we can avoid such a catastrophic future.”
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