There will be “huge” consequences if warming is left unchecked, warned Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the “Summit of the Americas” in Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday. Chu, a Nobel Prize winner, discussed some of the most dramatic impacts that could be expected if the world fails to unite to fight global climate change.
An excerpt from The Huffington Post:
I think for the most part this debate is over. It’s something — yes, it’s changing; that’s a demonstrable fact. If one looks at the latest IPCC reports, there’s very, very convincing evidence — very high probability it was caused predominantly by greenhouse gas emissions. And what is not known with certainty is what are the range of effects that might happen, and — because that, quite frankly, also depends on what the world does.
And so let me remind you that the Earth has already warmed up by about 0.8 degrees Centigrade; that the experts acknowledge that there is another 1 degree Centigrade already built into the system, even if humans stopped carbon emissions today flat. That’s because we put enough greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere, the sun continues to warm up the Earth, and until you reach a new equilibrium or the heat from the Earth then reaches the equilibrium — what’s coming in and what’s getting reflected back — there’s 1 degree change already; that there’s a reasonable probability we can go above 4 degrees Centigrade to 5 and 6 more. That means we have a — there’s a reasonable probability, and certainly in business-as-usual scenario, we can go to 5 or 6 degrees Centigrade.
Now, what does that mean? The last ice age, we were 6 degrees Centigrade colder than we are today — a very different world. Okay, only 6 degrees Centigrade means, in North America, ice sheet from Canada down to Pennsylvania, Ohio — year round in ice. So imagine a world 6 degrees warmer. It’s not going to recognize geographical boundaries. It’s not going to recognize anything. So agriculture regions today will be wiped out. Yes, there are parts of Canada will be — can grow more food, but, you know, the other thing is, the Earth is spherical and the sun hits at an angle up north. So there are going to be huge consequences if we go up to that 4, 5, 6 degrees.
Chu notes that one of the most distressing scenarios would be the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet as well as Antarctica. If Greenland melts, there would be a seven-meter level sea rise around the world which would cause some island nations, like the Maldives, to disappear entirely.
Read the rest of Chu’s statements at The Huffington Post.
Link [The Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Ahmed Zahid
