Could We Be On The Brink Of Extinction?

Climate Change Study Suggests Things Are Worse Than We Thought

By Jerry Garner

The results of a new climate change study will be presented in Belgium next month. These results are expected to shock and horrify even those who had envisioned the worst scenario for global warming. Humans, along with other plant and animal species, are expected to be pushed to the brink of extinction, and it’s expected to happen much sooner than anyone thought.

We are all familiar with a multitude of doomsday scenarios. Epic events that will, at best, disrupt human civilization, or at worst, bring about the extinction of our species or maybe even the destruction of the entire planet. With causes ranging from volcanoes to meteors to extraterrestrials, these scenarios have plagued the imagination of mankind throughout history.

These end of the world scenarios have often been chalked up to delusions of paranoia, an assumption that is often times very fitting to the scenario that is in question. However, an international panel studying the effects of climate change now believe that such an epic event is not only possible, but that it is probably going to occur within the next few decades.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988. The group was commissioned by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to assess the scientific and technical information required to study human induced climate change. The chief concern of this network of over 2000 scientists is to study the potential impacts of climate change, and to present options of adapting to the changes, or mitigating them entirely.

As much as 90% of the scientists involved with the IPCC agree that the harmful effects of global warming are already present in our daily lives. More shocking is the report to be issued in Belgium next month. Preliminary drafts of this report indicate that hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of humans will die from climate change in coming decades, and that survivors are likely to suffer life-altering hardships.

One of the many contributors to the report is Patricia Lankao, who works for the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Lankao states that things are going to happen much faster than anyone has ever expected.

Initial changes will not appear to be negative. Within the next couple of years, growth of food will actually increase. Specifics noted in the report are that soybean and rice production will increase noticeably Latin America. Areas to the North of the tropics will also initially see larger food production, due to shorter winters and longer growing seasons.

These benefits are only short-term, however, and just a short time later hundreds of millions will suffer and die from the effects of starvation induced by massive drought. Hundreds of millions of Africans and tens of millions of Latin Americans are projected to suffer from extreme water shortages in less than 20 years.

It is predicted that as many as 1 Billion people will suffer in Asia as a result of water shortages. By 2080, these water shortages, due to drought, an increase in greenhouse gases, and increased amounts of water supplies becoming acidic, could cause as many as 3.2 Billion to suffer.

At the same time, tens of millions of people each year will fall victim to massive flooding as the world’s sea levels rise at an unprecedented rate. At the broad end of the predictions is the possibility that as many as 100 million people per year could suffer as a result of this flooding.

The report concludes that by 2030 there will be a significant increase in deaths from climate change related illnesses, including malnutrition and diarrhea. Tropical illnesses like Malaria are predicted to spread like wildfire by 2050, eliminating even more of the Earth’s population.

The warning of the report is clear, that the dangers of climate change are not only a reality, but that they are a reality that could very well push our species to the brink of extinction within the next few decades. The good news of the report is that most of the damage can still be prevented. The report concludes that if this generation substantially reduces the amount of CO2 emissions, and if the volume of greenhouse gases in the air stabilizes, then most of the major impacts can be avoided, but that some are still likely to occur.

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