Why are we Ignoring Earth's Distress Signal

 

  Is Earth going through a Planetary Shift?

There has been little progress made by humanity in addressing the climate catastrophe, according to a new planetary report card.

To put it simply, Bill Ripple, an ecologist at Oregon State University, claims that humanity is failing. "We're increasing greenhouse gas emissions instead of reducing them. Thus, we're not performing well at the moment.

Co-author of a study that was published on October 24 in Bioscience, Ripple provides an overview of the state of the planet's climate based on 35 "planetary vital signs." According to the data, 20 of these metrics—such as the gross domestic product, annual carbon emissions, subsidies for fossil fuels, and glacier thinning—have reached unprecedented heights for humanity.

 In general, the paper examines human actions like deforestation and meat consumption along with the planet's reactions to such actions, such as Apart from the 35 formal variables, the majority of which Ripple and his colleagues started monitoring in late 2019, the team is also keeping a careful eye on estimates of the world's undernourished population. Even while political factors might contribute to undernourishment, crop damage from droughts and floods is a common culprit.

The analysis uses data up to this point, if feasible, while some variables that don't have recently published measurements rely on slightly earlier data. That being said, the situation is undoubtedly dismal. According to Ripple, "many climate-related records have been broken by enormous margins in 2023." For instance, by a considerable margin, July was the hottest month on record and September was the most unusually warm month.

Climate-related catastrophes are increasing in frequency as temperatures rise, according to Ripple. "Climate-related disasters are surging dramatically right now."

He claims that the fact that many of these catastrophes are occurring in areas where carbon pollution has previously been quite low is even more worrisome. While intense heatwaves and wildfires have impacted the United States, South America, Southeast Asia, Libya, and northern India have also experienced intense flooding. According to Ripple, "the less developed nations that had minimal involvement in causing climate change are having the greatest vulnerability to the climate disasters."

As a result, Joyeeta Gupta, a sustainability scientist at the University of Amsterdam who was not involved in the new research, thinks that dealing with the climate catastrophe from a justice perspective is crucial and is highlighted in the report. Gupta observes, "We are repeating ourselves about the nature of the problem and the impacts," pointing out that scientists have been aware for decades that human activity is affecting the climate.

"Justice issues are frequently overlooked by natural scientists," she continues. "If we don't make the justice issue a much bigger part of our story, we won't be able to solve these issues—instead, we'll just keep telling people that there are problems."

Though several aspects Spiral

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to climb if we don't quickly switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. This will result in rising sea levels, melting ice, more heat waves, and more acidic oceans.

Thankfully, Ripple and his associates have discovered that advancements in wind and solar power technology have been created by humans. Another encouraging finding in the report is the decline in deforestation worldwide, including in the Amazon, an area that is especially important to the climate.

Scientists employ a variety of frameworks to comprehend how the earth is changing as the climate catastrophe worsens, and one of them is Ripple's 35 "vital signs." According to a different project, humans have crossed six of the nine planetary boundaries that make it harder for our species to sustain the society that it has established. This announcement was made last month. The borders cover some of the critical indicators, such deforestation and ocean acidification, as well as factors like biodiversity and nutrient flow that are not covered in the new analysis.

Ripple expresses his hope that the findings will be taken seriously by citizens and policymakers. He declares, "Life on Earth is under siege." "When examining planetary limits or our planetary vital indicators, they both tell the same story.