Climate Crisis: Hyper Anthropocene
Climate scientist James Hansen and is co-authors warn in a recent paper that a 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperatures would spell disaster for the planet, including significant sea level rise. The authors claim we are in an era called the Hyper-Antrhopocene, in which there are rapid and alarming rates of carbon dioxide emissions – well-illustrated by this graph.
Joe Romm summarizes the paper and its implications in a blog post from Climate Progress, calling for immediate action to protect life from rapid sea level rise (more than 70 feet and much sooner than expected) and Rolling Stone recently highlighted many of the extreme events that are sweeping across the United States and the world.
Food for thought, given that our highest greenhouse gas emissions globally come from eating meat and dairy.
The irony of climate change is that even as we face a massive drought in California and other parts of the world, including Australia, we can expect serious sea-level rise in the coming decades.