Leaders of nations met in Paris and reached a landmark agreement to lower gas emissions.  Scientists reported that 2015 was by far the hottest year on record, this is scary.  In February, a Princeton-based research organization said the tidal flooding that has already made life miserable for people in coastal cities like Miami and Charleston is getting steadily worse.  Also not a good thing to think about.  A group of experts including the one guy who initially brought the results of climate change to congress back in 1988 warned that climate shifts could become sudden and abrupt.  This in turn wouldn’t give humanity enough time to prepare for flooding, severe droughts and disasters.

Another startling finding is that if carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels continue unabated, the vast West Antarctica ice sheet could begin to disintegrate.  This could cause sea leveling rising by five to six feet by the end of the century.   With sea levels rising this much, it would destroy coastal cities and low-lying island nations and create environmental devastation within the lifetimes of children born today.  Robert DeConto of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and David Pollard of Pennsylvania State University were the two to publish this new article.

The report also contains what we would consider good news today.  “The collapse of Antarctica is not inevitable,” it says, and could be prevented with an aggressive global effort to keep greenhouse gases at or below the levels called for in Paris, where leaders embraced a goal of holding warming “well below” an increase of two degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels.”  This issue requires every county to do their part and put in effort.  We all need to work together to try to minimize these emissions quickly.  President Obama is moving aggressively to increase automobile efficiency and develop cleaner sources of energy.  The United States will have to continue to exercise leadership throughout era and we all need to do our best to be more clean and conservative with energy, only then, will we see a difference.

References:

“The Danger of a Runaway Antarctica.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 Mar. 2016. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.