Researchers at the Center for Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge found that climate change is not just about rising air temperatures. Experts believe that global warming will irrevocably change the usual course of life for billions of people. Scientific work this was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists explain that high temperatures will not be the only cause of natural disasters. Disease outbreaks, financial crises and armed conflicts also leave a huge mark on the climate situation in the world. They can provoke other global problems and make it difficult to recover from potential disasters, including after a nuclear catastrophe.
Due to food shortages and the search for alternative food sources, people are increasingly infected with animal diseases, which leads to pandemics. This only exacerbates hunger and inflation. And the latter is affected both by the epidemic situation and the economy’s attempts to cope with new ways of doing business in an increasingly hot climate.
Image: CC0 1.0 UniversalBy 2070, an increase in temperature and the resulting social inequality will directly affect the two nuclear powers and laboratories that contain the most dangerous bacteria. The consequences can be catastrophic, scientists say.
Unless the rate of global warming slows down—as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes—we can almost certainly expect average temperatures to rise by 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels somewhere between 2030 and 2052. indicators. The consequences may be irreversible.
The authors of the publication note that now we have little understanding of what such an increase in the average temperature of the planet will lead to, and we may miss the opportunity to prepare for future problems.
Preparing for further climate change while ignoring the worst-case scenarios is naive risk management at best, and fatal stupidity at worst.
Luke Kemp
researcher at the University of Cambridge
Recall that in April, UN climatologists released a report on climate change. In it, experts agreed that humanity needs to reduce greenhouse emissions by at least half now, so that life on Earth does not turn into a game of survival.