It's Real ~ It's Here
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| It's Real ~ It's Here |
"Stings in the tail
Five unexpected threats posed by the pumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
Under our feet As vast, thick sheets of ice disappear from high mountains and from the poles, rock crusts that had previously been compressed are beginning to rebound, threatening to trigger earthquakes and tsunamis. “We are on track to bequeath to our children and their children not only a far hotter world, but also a more geologically fractious one,” says Bill McGuire.
New battlefields
As crops burn and hunger spreads, communities are coming into conflict
and the election of populist leaders – who will promise the Earth to
their people – is likely to become commonplace. Most worrying are the
tensions over dwindling water supplies that are growing between India,
Pakistan and China, all possessors of atomic weapons. “The last
thing we need is a hot war over water between two of the world’s
nuclear powers,” McGuire observes.
Methane bombs Produced by wetlands, cattle and termites, methane is 86 times more potent in its power to heat the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, though fortunately it hangs around for much less time. The problem is that much of the world’s methane is trapped in layers of Arctic permafrost. As these melt, more methane will be released and our world will get even hotter.
Losing the Gulf Stream As the ice caps melt, the resulting cold water pouring from the Arctic threatens to block or divert the Gulf Stream, which carries a prodigious amount of heat from the tropics to the seas around Europe. Signs now suggest the Gulf Stream is already weakening and could shut down completely before end of the century, triggering powerful winter storms over Europe.
Calorie crunch Four-fifths of all calories consumed across the world come from just 10 crop plants including wheat, maize and rice. Many of these staples will not grow well under the higher temperatures that will soon become the norm, pointing towards a massive cut in the availability of food, which will have a catastrophic impact across the planet, says McGuire."
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