The Effects of Climate Change: Looking into the Future
- ywacc.ngo
- May 6, 2020
- 3 min read
Hi everyone! We hope you are doing well given the circumstances. We would like to take a moment before we get started to remind everyone reading to wash your hands, continue to practice social dancing, and reach out to friends and family. The world is in a very scary place right now, and a little positivity and love can make all the difference.
Today’s article will be focused on a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that explores the effect of climate change on human habit. This study created major waves within the science community because the numbers and statistics published were much higher than any scientist has thus proposed. Major news sources like The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian have also already written pieces about the study, which shows how fast the study is spreading through America. The authors of the study have stated they were “floored” and “blown away” by the findings. What were these crazy, unexpected results? Let's dive into them.
The new study has proposed that the human species will become increasingly vulnerable to climate change; this is not new information. We already knew that, and we are already seeing the harmful effects. What the study did find was that billions of people could live in extreme heat zones within the next couple of decades, or fifty years. How many exactly? 3.5 billion people. This estimate is much larger than previous estimates by scientific researchers and teams. For example, in 2018, the World Bank published a study that estimated that up to 140 million people would be forced to emigrate from places such as Africa, South Asia, Central America, and South America. The 3.5 billion people estimate was calculated based on the estimate that the global population would reach about 10 billion people by 2070. Thirty five percent of the population will live in extreme heat zones within the next fifty years. These zones will not just include parts sub-saharan Africa, which in 2020, are the world’s hottest habitable areas, but would encompass a much larger part of Africa, parts of India, the Middle East, South America, and Australia. Additionally, an even more important fact to note, as stated by an author of the study, “The parts of the world that could become unsuitably hot“are precisely the areas that are growing the fastest.”
The authors of the study are themselves in a bit of shock and disbelief. Dr. Scheffer, a professor of complex systems sciences at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, stated, “We didn’t really believe our results at first. But we looked at them from many different angles. This is just the way it is. And it turns out that if climate change remains on the current track, then a lot more will change in the coming 50 years than have changed in the past 6,000.” Another scientist Tim Lenton, of Exeter University, said, “The numbers are flabbergasting. I literally did a double take when I first saw them. I’ve previously studied climate tipping points, which are usually considered apocalyptic. But this hit home harder. This puts the threat in very human terms.”
These growing areas of intense heat gives us a very real question to think about? What will happen to the people currently living in those areas? This will most certainly effect global markets and the world economy as migration patterns change and shift. We must be accommodating to those who will be displaced by the climate crises, but we also must now try and change the course our planet is heading towards. Us humans were put on this Earth to live in harmony with this beautiful planet, not to conquer it- yet that is exactly what we are doing. We must start now. We owe it to our future generations to give it our best attempt. This planet should continue to exist long after we are gone, it is our responsibility to ensure that. Let us all try and remember that there is absolutely no Planet B. We all must do better.
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