Climate change is making our world uninhabitable. But the sooner we act, the less we lose
Global warming is making our climate change. Rising temperatures are causing more extreme and destructive typhoons, hurricanes, floods, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires. These extreme conditions are destroying homes and agriculture, spreading disease and preventing people from accessing clean water.
We must act now to limit the damage.
The next few years are critical if we are going to stop the worst effects of global warming. Everyone’s actions can make a difference and save more of our future – save more land from sea or desert, more homes from floods and fires, more lives from hunger and disaster.
But is it really for UK ELT, a sector of small and medium businesses, to take on this huge, global problem? If you are not convinced, please read: Why should you care?
Temperatures are rising
- 2011-2020 was the warmest decade on record
- 19 of the 20 warmest years on record have been recorded since 2001
- The 10 warmest Septembers have all occurred since 2005
- Global average temperature increased by 1.1°C since the pre industrial period
- A 1.5°C increase is considered an unacceptable risk that would cause irreversible damage to our ecosystems and the habitability of our planet.
For more about how global warming leads to climate change see the Climate Reality Project’s climate crisis 101 and NRDC’s global warming 101.
Creating an inhospitable planet
- Two-thirds of the world’s large cities are at risk of sea level rise
- The intensity and burn area of wildfires has increased
- Tropical diseases are surviving better and spreading further in warmer oceans
- We are in the sixth mass extinction and it is human made
- Loss of biodiversity threatens valuable ecosystem services and human wellbeing
- Global warming continues to widen the gap between the world’s richest and poorest
And the changes we make will take time to take effect so we must act decisively now. (If we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, it would take several decades, if not centuries, for the earth to respond.)
Further resources
- Climate Reality Project
- The Consensus Project
- IPCC Special Report: “Global Warming of 1.5°C” summary for teachers
- Green Facts website
- NASA climate
- What we want to do is save humanity from extinction – lecture by behavioural neuroscientist for Extinction Rebellion
- The Guardian newspaper’s global heating – the facts
- Do we really have 12 years to save the planet?