An opinion piece by writer Gwynne Dyer examines the most recent evidence for the severity of current climate change, and the associated consequences.
Recent research has suggested that that if current fossil fuel usage patters continue, we could be 4degC warmer by the 2060s (not 2100), and that the current CO2 target of no more than 450 ppm (parts per million) may in fact be too high if we are to avoid catastrophic rises in sea level.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“This month’s bad news came from the drilling ship, JOIDES Resolution (Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling), which brought up cores from the ocean bottom containing sediments dating back 20 million years.
“The leader of the [Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling] research team, Aradhna Tripati, of the University of California at Los Angeles, put it bluntly: “What we have shown is that in the last period when CO2 levels were sustained at levels close to where they are today, there was no ice cap on Antarctica and sea levels were 25m-40m higher.”
“Suspicions that the 450ppm target is much too high have been growing for some time.”