Irreversible extinctions |
UK Edition | 30 June 2022 The Conversation
Decades of dire warnings have failed to arrest rising greenhouse gas emissions. Without drastic action this decade, humanity may end up heating the Earth by more than 2°C - the upper limit which world leaders agreed not to cross. Yet some are optimistic: if Earth overshoots the Paris agreement target, it could still lower the global temperature over several decades with what are called negative emissions technologies.
For the first time, scientists at UCL and the University of Cape Town have examined what temporarily exceeding 2°C of warming would mean for life on Earth: "waves of irreversible extinctions and lasting damage to tens of thousands of species". Their new study also found that some of these supposed climate solutions would make things worse, like bioenergy crops which would deprive embattled wildlife of habitat. The team urged leaders to take the hard limit of 2°C seriously and do everything possible to slash emissions now.
Catastrophic warming is still not inevitable. If you have trouble fixating on the worst-case scenarios in your life, Patricia Riddell, a neuroscientist at the University of Reading, offers four ways to think differently. Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, recently set a date for a new Scottish independence referendum. Political scientist Murray Leith explains what's changed since the first one. And we hear from a lion expert who argues trophy hunting does little to benefit their conservation.
Jack Marley
Environment + Energy Editor
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2021.0394
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