Press release by the Earth League<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a009\/16\/2013<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThe body of evidence is overwhelming\u201d: Prominent climate scientists issue stark statement<\/b><\/p>\n
Two weeks prior to the launch of the first section of the latest IPCC\u2019s report on climate change, twelve members of the newly established Earth League \u2013 a global initiative of prominent climate scientists \u2013 have jointly published a stark statement.<\/b><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThe body of evidence indicating that our civilisation has already caused significant global warming is overwhelming,\u201d the scientists argue. In their concise report, they warn that if we continue on our current path of business-as-usual, devouring fossil fuels and excessively pumping out greenhouse-gases, we are on track to enter into a 4-degrees warmer world this century. \u201cMoreover, powerful feedback processes that very likely will push the warming even higher could be set into irreversible operation.\u201d<\/p>\n
A cap of a 2-degree temperature rise was set by the international community as a safe guardrail, though even this was cautioned by many to bring dangerous environmental and human consequences. The report warns a 4-degree rise, however, would set to drastically change our planet. Certain coastlines and whole islands would be submerged by rising sea-levels, and more extreme heat waves will strike regions and provoke yield failures and the loss of lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough climate science only tells us what might happen and not what to do about it, we authors feel that inaction is an unacceptable prospect,\u201d the scientists state. \u201cNations go to war, implement mass vaccinations of their populations, and organise expensive insurance and security systems (such as anti-terror measures) to address much fainter threats. However, our societies seem to be willing to impose immense risks on future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, while some say that humanity could not cause a 4-degrees warming by any conceivable means, others declare environmental defeat by maintaining that the international climate-policy goal of confining the planetary warming to less than 2-degrees is already a lost case. Yet there is ample evidence that we can hold a 2-degrees line indeed, the authors point out. Technological advancements show we can realise the \u201cGreat Transformation\u201d of global sustainability and research initiatives are rising to face this challenge. However, the evidence demonstrates that the time frame to achieve this is rapidly shrinking.<\/p>\n
Signatories to the report – Earth League members<\/b>:<\/p>\n
Johan Rockstr\u00f6m, Stockholm Resilience Center, Sweden
\nHans Joachim Schellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany
\nMario Molina, Centro Mario Molina, Mexico
\nBrian Hoskins, Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College, UK
\nGuy Brasseur, Climate Service Center, HZG, Germany
\nCarlos Nobre, National Institute for Space Research, Brazil
\nPeter Schlosser, Earth Institute, Columbia University, USA
\nVeerabhadran Ramanathan, University of California at San Diego, USA
\nNebojsa Nakicenovic, IIASA and Vienna University of Technology, Austria
\nYouba Sokona, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Ethiopia
\nLeena Srivastava, TERI University, India
\nJennifer Morgan, World Resources Institute, USA<\/p>\n
\u00a0The full document can be found on the Earth League website, here<\/a>.<\/b> Press release by the Earth League \u00a009\/16\/2013 \u00a0\u201cThe body of evidence is overwhelming\u201d: Prominent climate scientists issue stark statement Two weeks prior to the launch of the first section of the latest IPCC\u2019s report...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,41],"tags":[1422],"class_list":["post-10863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-environment","tag-earth-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10863"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10865,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863\/revisions\/10865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span>– which also provides contact details for the Earth League initiative and the member\u2019s details.
\nEarth League contact
\n<\/b>Secretariat: April Humble
\nApril.Humble@hzg.d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"