{"id":9386,"date":"2012-11-26T16:45:15","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T20:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=9386"},"modified":"2012-11-26T16:45:15","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T20:45:15","slug":"chris-hedges-on-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/chris-hedges-on-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Hedges on Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I posted the Potsdam Climate Institutes assessment of climate\u00a0change, research\u00a0undertook on behalf of the World Bank. Reactions are coming in \u2014 below Chris Hedges’ article for Truthdig, which you can read in toto here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Stand Still for the Apocalypse<\/h2>\n

Posted on Nov\u00a026,\u00a02012<\/h6>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

\"\"

In much of the world, including China and the United States, dirty energy remains cheap and plentiful, with disastrous consequences. AP\/Elizabeth Dalziel<\/p><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

By\u00a0Chris Hedges<\/a><\/p>\n

Humans must immediately implement a series of radical measures to halt carbon emissions or prepare for the collapse of entire ecosystems and the displacement, suffering and death of hundreds of millions of the globe\u2019s inhabitants, according to a report commissioned by the World Bank. The continued failure to respond aggressively to climate change, the report warns, will mean that the planet will inevitably warm by at least 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, ushering in an apocalypse.<\/p>\n

The 84-page document<\/a>,\u201cTurn Down the Heat: Why a 4\u00b0C Warmer World Must Be Avoided,\u201d was written for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics and published last week. The picture it paints of a world convulsed by rising temperatures is a mixture of mass chaos, systems collapse and medical suffering like that of the worst of the Black Plague, which in the 14th century killed 30 to 60 percent of Europe\u2019s population. The report comes as the annual United Nations Conference on Climate Change begins this Monday [Nov. 26] in Doha, Qatar.<\/p>\n

A planetwide temperature rise of 4 degrees C\u2014and the report notes that the tepidness of the emission pledges and commitments of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will make such an increase almost inevitable\u2014will cause a precipitous drop in crop yields, along with the loss of many fish species, resulting in widespread hunger and starvation. Hundreds of millions of people will be forced to abandon their homes in coastal areas and on islands that will be submerged as the sea rises. There will be an explosion in diseases such as malaria, cholera and dengue fever. Devastating heat waves and droughts, as well as floods, especially in the tropics, will render parts of the Earth uninhabitable. The rain forest covering the Amazon basin will disappear. Coral reefs will vanish. Numerous animal and plant species, many of which are vital to sustaining human populations, will become extinct. Monstrous storms will eradicate biodiversity, along with whole cities and communities. And as these extreme events begin to occur simultaneously in different regions of the world, the report finds, there will be \u201cunprecedented stresses on human systems.\u201d Global agricultural production will eventually not be able to compensate. Health and emergency systems, as well as institutions designed to maintain social cohesion and law and order, will crumble. The world\u2019s poor, at first, will suffer the most. But we all will succumb in the end to the folly and hubris of the Industrial Age. And yet, we do nothing.<\/p>\n

[ctd.\u00a0here<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I posted the Potsdam Climate Institutes assessment of climate\u00a0change, research\u00a0undertook on behalf of the World Bank. Reactions are coming in \u2014 below Chris Hedges’ article for Truthdig, which you can read in...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,49],"tags":[1316],"class_list":["post-9386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-global-warming","tag-chris-hedges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9386","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=9386"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9390,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9386\/revisions\/9390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}