11,000 scientists from across the globe wrote a letter Tuesday warning that “untold human suffering” will happen if the governments of the world don't act immediately to combat climate change.
The letter comes the day after President Trump began the yearlong process of withdrawing the US from Paris Climate Accord which is signed by every other country in the world.
Despite 40 years of major global negotiations, we have continued to conduct business as usual and have failed to address this crisis
Said Oregon State University ecology professor William Ripple, one of the main authors of the letter.
Published in Bioscience Tuesday, the letter says that climate change has arrived and is accelerating faster than many scientists expected.
Major Indicators behind the Letter :
- Global surface temperature
- Ocean heat content
- Extreme weather
- Rise in sea level,ocean acidity and land area
- declining trends in minimum summer Arctic sea ice, Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and glacier thickness.
All of these indicators are imporant. However, other indicators must be monitored such as human population growth, meat consumption, tree-cover loss, energy consumption, fossil-fuel subsidies and annual economic losses to extreme weather events.
The 6 Major Objectives of the letter :
- Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy
- Reducing pollutants that exacerbate warming (such as hydrofluorocarbons)
- Restoring forests
- Switching to a mostly plant-based diet
- Stabilizing the global population
- Sransforming the economy.
Action is our best hope:
Global Citizens around the globe are showing their concern about the serious risk that climate change poses for present and future generations. People are starting to committ to take personal action and by striking in order for countries, states and provinces, cities, and businesses to make change.
Citizens’ role in the mitigation of climate change is bigger than most of us expect.
With just a handful of energy and transportation related choices and solutions, citizens can have significant potential to reduce CO2 emissions.
United, we take hands-on action to reduce our personal climate footprint, we join a global movement of action on climate change.