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David Wallace-Wells paints a terrible picture: the world we live in is about to undergo a profound and devastating transformation. Our environmental harm is almost irreversible. Our once-prosperous ways of life will soon come to an end and crumble due to our complacency and irresponsibility, which have finally caught up with us. If this seems bleak and horrific, it is. Within a single generation, the fragile climate of Earth was pushed to its breaking point, and the children have failed to atone for the misdeeds of their parents. We must now face the repercussions and take action to help this unfortunate situation get better. It's not an easy book to read, but The Uninhabitable Earth lays out just what a warmer planet will mean for humanity. In the coming century, we're in for a rough ride due to a lack of fresh water, catastrophic floods, and maybe the reemergence of long-extinct illnesses. You'll learn more in these chapters. why grains are losing their nutritional value; why the internet is in danger due to climate change; and how climate cascades exacerbate every problem. Chapter 1 - The objectives of the Paris climate agreement are utterly unrealistic. To establish a new set of objectives to combat climate change, the majority of the world's leaders gathered in Paris in 2015. Many people assumed that humanity had turned the corner on its dark past because politicians had appeared to recognize the seriousness and urgency of our problem. The primary goal of these debates was to keep world average temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, which is commonly recognized as the point at which disaster starts to occur. But there's a catch: we're going to break over this 2-degree barrier. Consider the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which was published in 2018. It claims that even if nations move swiftly to combat global warming and implement all of the Paris Agreement's recommendations, global temperatures would likely rise by 3.2 degrees before warming ceases. What's worse is that no industrialized nation is currently even close to implementing all of the necessary policy adjustments. Specifically, what does the above mean? In other words, even our new best-case scenario appears to be rather grim. The world's ice sheets would still melt during our lifetimes even if nations awoke tomorrow and somehow met Paris' emissions targets. Over a hundred cities, including Miami, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, would eventually experience flooding as a result of this. The United States would see a 600% increase in the annual area burnt by wildfires, and southern Europe would experience persistent drought with 3 degrees of warming. Also, keep in mind that this is an optimistic viewpoint. By 2100, the UN projected a worst-case scenario with temperatures rising by an astounding 8 degrees. When temperatures reach this level, equatorial regions are utterly uninhabitable. Our forests would be destroyed by massive firestorms. Cities in two-thirds of the world's countries would flood, and tropical diseases would spread in what was previously the Arctic. However, the fast pace of global warming is possibly the most terrifying aspect. We're accustomed to conceptualizing Earth in geological terms as a steady, almost sluggish system that changes throughout millions of years. This, however, is a deadly fallacy. Since World War II, the vast majority of carbon emissions—more than half—have come from the past three decades. It is not an exaggeration to say that within a generation, the world was brought to its knees and that it is now entirely up to us to save it. However, to save the earth, we must comprehend its effects. Also, despite appearances, these are complicated. Chapter 2 - As a result of the negative effects of climate change, additional warming is sparked. If you're upset after reading the last chapter, the short answer is that you should be. Even while there is still hope for humanity, some level of calamity is inevitable. Calculating how severe this level will be is challenging since climate change depends on so many various variables, such as how much more carbon we emit or what solutions we develop to mitigate this. We don't fully understand or are even unaware of some of the other, more complex factors that contribute to global warming. Cascades are among these and are the most complicated. A cascade happens when a climate change effect causes the globe to warm, even more, leading to more consequences and even more warmth in a negative feedback loop. The melting of Arctic ice sheets is an obvious example of a cascade. Our polar ice caps reflect a significant quantity of sunlight into the universe since white is such a good reflector of light and heat. Less heat is reflected and more heat is absorbed when our ice sheets melt. This causes the ice sheets to melt more quickly and warms the planet even more. That's only one component of this cascade, though. Up to 1.8 trillion tons of carbon are found in Arctic permafrost, which is frozen rock and soil. More heat will result from the release of this carbon into the atmosphere as the permafrost thaws. The worst part is that some of this could dissipate as methane. Methane is an 86-times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide when compared over 20 years in terms of warming impacts. Another alarming cascade is wildfires. Our forests are more vulnerable to fires as a result of the extreme heat we're experiencing, with 16 of the 17 hottest years on record occurring since 2000. Additionally, these wildfires are getting worse, lasting longer, and consuming more carbon-sucking plants due to our forests' drier conditions. However, the carbon emissions caused by wildfires are the most dangerous. Trees do not cause carbon to disappear when they consume it to produce oxygen. Rather, they keep it in their branches, trunks, and roots. When a wildfire destroys a woodland, carbon that has been stored over many centuries is released back into the sky, thereby turning our woods into carbon sources. This raises global temperatures, increasing the likelihood of future wildfires. Nature turning against us as a result of climate change is best illustrated by wildfires. We'll then look at how climate change is affecting our weather similarly. Chapter 3 - Extreme weather is evolving into the new norm. Imagine monitoring the weather for the coming week when you get up tomorrow. Depending on the place you live, there may be some bright, clear days interspersed with rain. You would probably be surprised if you saw a severe weather warning. However, in the next years, red and amber warnings will start to flash on your screen alarmingly more frequently. After a period, you might start to consider storms and floods to be as routine as getting your hair cut every month. The reality is that this is already taking place. The link between storm intensity and global warming is straightforward. More moisture can be held by air as it warms. This makes storms more powerful by delivering greater rains and more severe flooding. Regarding hurricanes, meteorologists are aware that they are fueled by warm seas. Hurricane wind speeds rise together with the warmth of our oceans. Both the frequency and the severity of storms are increasing. The Science Advisory Council of the European Academies reports a two-fold increase in storm frequency since 1980. Sevenfold more damage has been caused by these "garden variety" hurricanes in the United States over that period, even without considering the impact lost workdays have had on economic production. Although you would believe that storm protection measures or advancements in infrastructure have made them simpler to weather, you'd be mistaken: Since 2003, storm-related power outages in the US have increased by twofold. Additionally, not only storms but also hurricanes are becoming more frequent. Hurricane Irma devastated Caribbean island communities and cost the region $64 billion in damage in September 2017. It was a Category 5 hurricane, the most powerful kind, and it was so violent that these islands might be able to withstand it once every generation. However, only a few days later, Hurricane Maria made landfall as a Category 5. In addition to killing almost 3,000 people, this storm cost some of the world's poorest countries an additional $94 billion in damage. Particularly hard-hit was Puerto Rico, which suffered months-long power and water outages. There was a serious humanitarian situation. This double blow is regrettably no longer regarded as an exceptional circumstance. According to research, the probability of Category 4 and 5 storms rises by 25 to 30% globally with every degree of warming. Hurricanes as powerful as Hurricane Katrina from 2005 are predicted to occur twice as frequently by 2100. Chapter 4 - Cities and entire nations will be flooded as a result of rising sea levels. Since Plato's day, humans have been enthralled with the legend of Atlantis, a legendary island in the Atlantic Ocean that was sunk by angry gods. However, shortly, we won't need to use Atlantis as an inspiration for our movies and fiction because the twenty-first century will be filled with plenty of our own. This is because of the most well-known effect of climate change, which is the rise in sea levels brought on by melting polar ice caps. In the coming century, if emissions aren't reduced, our oceans will rise by 1.2 to 2.4 meters. Even though these figures appear to be rather innocent at first glance, they are deadly. There will be flooding in Bangladesh, which now has 164 million residents. The White House, the Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice, the White House, and all of the world's most stunning beaches will also be submerged.