Four horrible climate things happening right now.
The Arctic, Antarctic, Asia and the Planet are all having a major breakdown currently.
Welcome to the 5th issue of Climate Matters newsletter. If you like what you are seeing, subscribe, share and/or support my work on climate outreach. I’ll keep today’s issue short & s̶w̶e̶e̶t̶ scary, but do read the previous longreads (Issues 1, 2, 3 & 4) if you haven’t yet.
We all know doom scrolling is harmful to our mental health. But the question beckons, can we afford to take a minute off from the horrible headlines? In the case of most other crises, I would say yes. But when it comes to climate crisis, we don’t have that luxury. Because, even though the crisis is extremely here and now already, we still have a shot at averting this disaster with minimal damage. And so, I’m here to give you select scary updates so we don’t get complacent or our take our eyes off the prize.
Here we go, four horrible things you should know.
1. The Arctic is on fire, like a hellfire never seen before
The Russian town of Verkhoyansk recorded a temperature of 38 degrees C in June -- a record temperature for the Arctic. The heat in the vast Russian region triggered widespread wildfires in June, associated with an estimated 56 million tons of carbon dioxide -- more than the annual emissions of some industrialized nations like Switzerland and Norway, as reported for CNN in Siberian heatwave made 600 times more likely by climate change, experts find.
2. The earth is running an unprecedented streak of high fever
The last 12 months were the hottest ever, recording a 1.39°C temperature rise above preindustrial levels. And according to the latest report by the World Meteorological Organization, there's a 20% chance that global annual temperatures will break the 1.5°C threshold over the next five years, compared to pre-industrial levels. Remember, this does not mean that we’ll hit the global overall 1.5°C temperature rise by 2100 threshold as agreed in the Paris Agreement, in 2024 itself. That overall temperature rise is measured over hundreds of years starting from 1850s. This new update only means there a high chance we’ll see the 12-month temperature rise crossing 1.5°C within the coming five years. But this is a clear indication that the planet is warming unprecedentedly, and that we are inching dangerously closer to the worst case scenario already. Read more at Climate change: 'Rising chance' of exceeding 1.5C global target
3. The Antarctic ice sheet is having a proper meltdown
“Antarctica holds around 90 per cent of the ice on the planet. It is equivalent to a continent the size of Europe, covered in a blanket of ice 2km thick. And as the planet heats up due to climate change, it doesn’t warm evenly everywhere: the polar regions warm much faster. The South Pole has warmed at three times the global rate since 1989, according to a paper published last month. As Antarctic ice melts and the glaciers slide toward the ocean, Thwaites has a central position that governs how the other glaciers behave. Right now, Thwaites is like a stopper holding back a lot of the other glaciers in West Antarctica. But scientists are worried that could change.” - Read more at Climate change: what Antarctica’s ‘doomsday glacier’ means for the planet
4. Monsoons rains are lashing Asia like a vengeful monster
Monsoon season has barely started and already several countries are reeling under extreme rainfall and reporting terrible flooding. Millions are displaced and hundreds have lost their lives along with massive property and infrastructure damage. Flash floods, swollen rivers breaching banks, rainfall triggered landslides and widespread inundation is reported in India (Assam, Bihar, Arunachal), China, Japan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar as of now.
The monsoon season — usually June to September — brings a torrent of heavy rain, a deluge that is crucial to South Asia’s agrarian economy. But in recent years, the monsoon season has increasingly brought cyclones and devastating floods. Scientists say global warming has played a role by affecting rainfall patterns across the subcontinent. Instead of more constant but less intense rains, warming has increased the frequency of extreme rains, which are more likely to cause flooding. - Monsoon Rains Pummel South Asia, Displacing Millions on New York Times.
Climate Change exacerbates extreme weather events, making them more intense and more frequent. The unusual flooding is already our new normal, and when the global temperature rises more, we will be unable to deal with these recurring deluges.
Read: How climate change is making record-breaking floods the new normal
Now, the important thing to remember here is that if this depresses you, please use that anger and sadness to demand better from our governments and fellow citizens. We need to treat climate crisis like a proper crisis to make any progress on it and individually we can do nothing except call for a radical collective response. Talk about this obsessively, even if people around you think you sound like a broken record.
And that’s it for this week! Don’t forget to share this post with your friends and start a discussion on climate crisis.
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