“Now could be our final greatest likelihood to face the local weather disaster” – is that true?

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Rolling Stone believes that making the world more habitable for people will kill us.

Now is our last best chance to face the climate crisis

With Joe Biden in office, we finally have a serious plan to combat climate change in our sights – but the clock is ticking and there is no room for error

By Jeff Goodell

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalistic collaboration that strengthens reporting on climate history.

Earth’s climate has always been in the works. In the 4.5 billion years that the planet revolved around the sun, ice ages have come and gone, punctuated by epochs of intense heat. The highest mountain range in Texas was once an underwater reef. Camels migrated in evergreen forests in the Arctic. Then, a few million years later, 400 feet of ice formed over what is now New York City. But in the midst of this geological chaos, people have been lucky. For the past 10,000 years, in practically all areas of human civilization, people have lived in what scientists call the “goldilocks climate” – not too hot, not too cold, just right.

We’re running out of luck now. The world’s industrialized nations release about 34 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, which is about ten times faster than Mother Nature herself ever did, even during past mass extinctions. As a result, global temperatures have risen 1.2 ° C since coal began burning, and the past seven years have been the warmest in seven. The temperature of the earth is rising faster today than ever before since the end of the last ice age 11,300 years ago. We push ourselves out of a Goldilocks climate and into something completely different – literally into a different world than humans have ever lived before.

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According to all information, President Biden and his team understand all of this. And it’s hard to feel that after 30 years of trembling, denial and hypocrisy, the battle to save the climate has finally begun in earnest. In the 2020 election, nearly 70 percent of Biden voters said that climate change was a key issue for them. Biden has staffed his administration with the Climate A team, from Gina McCarthy as the local climate zar to John Kerry as the international climate envoy. He has made racial and environmental justice a top priority. And perhaps most importantly, he sees the climate crisis as an opportunity to reinvent the US economy and create millions of new jobs.

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For more than 30 years, scientists and politicians have known that our hellish fossil fuel consumption could push us out of the Goldilocks Zone and force people to live in a world we have never lived in before. When Biden’s push for climate change becomes real, we will learn a great deal about how serious people are about life on this planet and how willing the mighty and privileged are to alleviate the suffering of the poor and vulnerable. If political leaders don’t take the climate crisis seriously now, with all they know, with all they’ve been through, will they ever do it? “Climate advocates keep saying,” That’s it, that’s it, that’s it, “warns Podesta.” But it really is. If we don’t accelerate and accelerate energy conversion this decade, we are Goners – really Goners . “

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/climate-crisis-2050-goals-biden-administration-1154528/

Why do I claim that if global warming happens, it will make the world more habitable for humans?

Very easy. Take off your jocks or a bathing suit if you prefer and walk around outside.

You could get away with it on a warm day in summer. Not so much in winter.

The lower limit of survivability is difficult to determine, and there are notable stories of tribes whose ancestors survived extreme climates without clothing, but most people feel cold without clothing when temperatures drop below 80 ° for extended periods of time F fall. 26C. Even in the tropical region I live in, winter would be uncomfortable without warm clothes.

Our ancestors evolved in the extreme tropics, where the temperature almost never drops below 80 ° F. Our “Goldilocks Zone” is a place near the equator where nobody has to wear clothes to stay warm.

We inhabit vast areas of the planet that are far too cold for us because our ancestors used their intelligence to figure out how to protect themselves from the cold when their unprotected bodies were struggling to survive. But somewhere along the way, some of us seem to have forgotten why we needed clothes in the first place.

The idea that a warmer climate is a problem for humans is absurd. We are one of the warmest weather-adapted animals in the world.

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