It’s Code Red for Planet Earth

More than 30 years ago, leaders at the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization acknowledged the reality of global warming and its impact on the world. The group also predicted that the climate issue would break down along philosophical lines: businesses and countries with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo would work to undermine the science. In the more than 30 years since, climate science has become more absolute while the issue of climate change has become more divisive.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a series of climate science reports since it was founded in 1988. It’s newest assessment report released on Aug. 9 didn’t pull any punches.

Hundreds of scientists from around the world contributed to the nearly 4,000 page assessment of where things stand. The report is detailed, definitive, and devastating and the message is unequivocal: climate change has reached crisis level, it will get worse quickly and we humans are to blame. Unless we take greenhouse-gas reduction seriously. dethroning oil, coal, and gas as the central energy sources powering the global economy.

In a press conference, the vice chair of the IPCC and senior adviser for climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that climate change is already affecting every region on earth in multiple ways. “This report tells us that recent changes in the climate are widespread, rapid, and intensifying, unprecedented in thousands of years,” said Ko Barrett. “There’s no going back from some changes in the climate system.”

This is the first report in eight years and, as has always been the case, 195 countries must agree on what to include. The hesitancy of past reports is gone. The recent spate of horrific heat waves, droughts, flood-inducing storms, the demise of glaciers and other extreme weather events are all attributed to climate change.

The mammoth report cites more than 14,000 climate change studies, all of which make the case for action. If we make serious lifestyle changes and commitments to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, we can avoid and/or mediate some of the most devastating impacts of climate change.

Climate change is already happening on the southeastern coast of the United States. Increasing temperatures are expected to bring even more extreme heat waves.

As sea level rise continues, increased hurricane frequency and intensity will wreak havoc on the coastlines. The agriculture, health, environment, public safety, water resources, housing and people who live there are under increasing threat.

That is the verdict of the 2020 North Carolina Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan. The warning could not have been more clear or more dire for residents in coastal communities, many of whom are already suffering.

Many residents of the state’s agricultural and meat producing and processing hub have been led to believe they must choose between the environment and the economy. Yet, science clearly shows that the status quo poses a much greater threat to their health and livelihood than addressing the realities of climate change.

The policy and lifestyle decisions we make going forward must take the IPCC report into account.