‘We’re looking at Billions of People not being able to Survive’
Peter Carter, M.D. joins Roger Hallam to discuss the science and ethics with regard to climate emergency for all of us struggling to understand what’s actually going on, what needs to happen, and what we need to do.
Peter is on a mission to talk about the terrible truth about the extreme risks and magnitude of the global climate and ocean disruption emergency and he has been an expert reviewer of IPCC, a comprehensive Assessment Report about the state of scientific, technical and socio-economic knowledge on climate change, its impacts and future risks with options for reducing the rate at which climate change is taking place.
Below are some crucial themes mentioned in the video by Peter Carter
- Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations in one of many public statements on climate action has highlighted climate change being an existential threat to the survival of life on earth, particularly humankind.
What’s happening in the real geophysical system right now, is a lot worse than what people would like to believe. The “terrible truth” as Peter says is the unprecedented rise in global temperatures. The net zero carbon target to keep global temperature below 2 degrees C is not just a need but a must because it is well established in the scientific community that anything beyond 2 degrees C will be catastrophic. - In the past 23 million years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air has reached an all-time high. And the fact that we aren’t decarbonizing yet is startling.
According to scientific research, there is an equivalent of five Hiroshima bombs being dropped into the ocean per second in terms of energy added to the oceans. - The two jewels of the earth, one on land and the other in the ocean are both facing high implications of climate change.
The Great Barrier Reef in Australia has faced its 3rd major bleaching in five years. On land, Amazon forests in South America have seen the worst early-season fires which are slowly swallowing up the entire Amazon. The outcome of these fires is not just carbon dioxide, but also methane and carbon soot which is both air pollutants. - The significant impact of climate change on agriculture and food production, which could result in numerous failures of the breadbasket, is a grave threat to humankind that could cause extinction. A breakdown of the biosphere may eventually result from the imbalance.
The solution to this catastrophe, according to Peter Carter lies in our economy and politics. Our perverse irrational economics, which by its very nature is destructive to earth, need to be radically altered. He is of the view that it is the crime against all humanity and needs to be urgently addressed. Government policies too need to be altered keeping sustainable growth at the center of discussion.
It is upon us, as our moral responsibility to make earth rich and wonderful like before. “To go vegan”, according to Peter is the most effective, definite, and readily doable action everyone can do which would immediately drop carbon emissions manifold.
Climate crisis is changeable and is in our control, at least for now so we must act, and act urgently to get rid of the casino of human sufferings unknown to human experience nature holds for us.
