The American public
imagine all these ecological impacts are in some distant future. They’re not in some distant future. We’re experiencing them now.
said Anthony Janetos, as reported in today’s Washington Post.
Janetos is one of the lead scientists commissioned by the US Government to study effects of fossil fuel on agriculture. Significant measured impacts from this cause (that have already happened) include:
- More frequent forest fires
- Reduced snow pack
- Drought
This is not a prediction for what may happen in the next fifty years. These already happened enough to measure. They are still happening, and the report say changes
are very likely to accelerate in the future, in some cases dramatically. Even under the most optimistic CO2 emission scenarios, important changes in sea level, regional and super-regional temperatures and precipitation patterns will have profound effects.
I am very glad that our government has, for the first time come to the conclusion that climate change is not just real, it is here now.
So don’t spend your time thinking about melting ice caps and huge increases in sea level — those are just the calamity situations that “might” happen at some point in the future. What’s happening now is affecting our food supply and so many other things.
So should we act now or wait for someone else to do it for us?