Peter BrannenSaturday 9 September 2017 19.00 BST
Peter points out that severe impacts from climate change are now occurring and we have only warmed the planet by 1 degree, it is frightening to think what will happen when we roll over 2 degrees of warming. He points out that if we burn through all our current oil reserves we have the potential of raising the planets temperature by 18 degrees. At 4 degrees there would be no ice and our oceans would be raised by 80 metres.Clearly business as usual would end the world as we know it and our ability to survive. The excessive heat as temperatures rise would kill off a great deal of humanity, the resulting mass migration would destabilize any form of civilization that survives these heat waves.
What dies when as the temperatures rise:
- 0.6C higher As temperatures increase beyond preindustrial levels, widespread extinction of amphibians begins.
- 1.0C higher As warming causes ice sheets to melt, krill populations suffer, threatening the penguins’ main food source.
- 1.6C higher About half of wooded tundra is lost, putting pressure on its inhabitants such as moose, lynx and brown bears.
- 2.2C higher At warming just over the +2C limit agreed in Paris 25% of large mammals in Africa are extinct.
- 2.6C higher Major loss of tropical rainforests and the species that depend on them for habitat, including orangutans, sloths and jaguars.
- More than 4C higher At these temperatures, up to 70% of species would be extinct, coral reefs would be dead and deserts would expand across the globe.
Business as usual is not an option.
