NRDC survey response on climate change

I included a lot of research here that can be used for highly effective debating on the issue.  Please take the time to read thru it as contains some of the most vital and undeniable facts to support both a green ecology and economy, or the world could become uninhabitable within our lifetime.  I don't have a blog or site on which to post this, so I had to use Pastebin instead which will require the links to be copy/pasted.

According to historical researchers, climate change has been one of the top 3 reasons for the collapse of civilizations throughout history and we are facing possible extinction of the human race within 50 years.  It’s literally that extreme, but most people do not know this b/c it’s not on the news, and most people’s belief systems are heavily shaped by reporting of events from the news.  For the majority, what’s kept out of sight is kept out of mind.

‘High likelihood of human civilisation coming to end’ by 2050, report finds | The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/climate-change-global-warming-end-human-civilisation-research-a8943531.html – If the news and government weren’t driven by corporate funding, this would be on the cover of every paper every day as it should be.  Why doesn’t every website and business have an “Existential Threat” section at the top of their site like they do for Covid when this is reality?

One of the most respected medical journals in the world, The Lancet, concluded in their "Commission on climate change” that it was “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60922-3/fulltext, and scientists have been warning us about it since the 1960s (although the study of the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect goes back to the 1800s: https://history.aip.org/climate/co2.htm#Sk)

According to a groundbreaking analysis used in new study from last year, air pollution from fossil fuels results in over 8 million deaths each year globally.  "In the United States 350,000 premature deaths are attributed to fossil fuel pollution.”  Note that China, India, and the US are 3 of the worst countries for coal and oil-producing smog, and “thousands of kids under age 5 die each year due to respiratory infections attributed to fossil fuel pollution.”  However, looking back over the course of a century and a half, the US is by far the biggest polluter, followed by China and Russia: Fossil fuel air pollution responsible for 1 in 5 deaths worldwide – C-CHANGE | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/news/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-for-1-in-5-deaths-worldwide/

U.N. Report: A Million Extinctions and Ecological Collapse Are on the Way | NRDC: https://www.nrdc.org/stories/report-million-extinctions-and-ecological-collapse-are-way

One angle we don’t hear about much is the ever-increasing effect weather disasters have on insurance claims.  This helps put into perspective how the problem has steadily worsened over the past 120 years.  Mark Wilson, CEO of Aviva, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, stated in 2014, “[c]limate change is the ‘big daddy’ of risks. Failing to be sustainable could be the biggest market failure of all time.”  “The insurance industry is saying very clearly: unless we alter things, they cannot remain in business in an affordable manner.” “The first step in resolving a problem is recognizing that there is one." – The reality of climate change | David Puttnam | TEDxDublin – YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBjtO-0tbKU&t=681s

"Natural disasters are being recorded more frequently than ever before. 'Since 1970, the number of disasters worldwide has more than quadrupled to around 400 a year,” and “there are six times more hydrological events now than in 1980,' according to The Economist.  Since 2000, losses, both insured and uninsured, have spiked, according to the Insurance Information Institute.”

This chart shows the rising pattern of billion-dollar weather disasters from 1970 up thru 2017: https://www.artemis.bm/news/insured-disaster-losses-hit-record-144bn-in-2017-swiss-re/ /// This one shows the same between 1980 and 2020, with the most global disasters occurring in 2020 and provides 2 other important charts to show the steady increase in economic tolls: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/01/world-hammered-by-record-50-billion-dollar-weather-disasters-in-2020/ /// This chart shows the rising increase in global disasters since 1900 from which fossil fuel pollution-induced global warming has a direct impact: https://ourworldindata.org/exports/number-of-natural-disaster-events_v5_850x600.svg

3 additional articles on the subject from recent years:
Drought is here to stay in the Western U.S. How will states adapt?: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/drought-here-stay-western-u-s-how-will-states-adapt-n1270248 /// One year since Australia's devastating wildfires, anger grows at climate change ‘inaction’: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/one-year-australia-s-devastating-wildfires-anger-grows-climate-change-n1256714 /// Climate change impacts: Say goodbye to the huskies of Scotland: https://www.traveller.com.au/gone-to-the-dogs-the-huskies-of-scotland-guc6v1

These are probably the 2 most important books on the topic:
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (2014) by Elizabeth Kolbert: "Over the last half-billion years, there have been Five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us.”

The Last Hours of Humanity: Warming the World to Extinction (2013) by Thom Hartmann: "Humanity, as we know it, is on the verge of extinction. There's a common thread to every single mass extinction in our planet's history. It's global warming. From the Permian Mass Extinction 250 million years ago that killed off 95% of all life on Earth to the K/T mass extinction 65 million years ago that killed off the dinosaurs, all were brought about by a sudden warming of the planet. New research shows that once that warming hits a tipping point of 5-6 degrees Celsius, it triggers a cataclysmic melting of sea ice and the release of noxious methane gasses stored deep in the oceans around the world and below the permafrost in the Arctic, which further accelerates the warming of the planet to temperatures unsuitable to life. This book, The Last Hours of Humanity, goes where far too few researchers have been willing to go, which is addressing global warming not as an economic or political problem, but as a geological problem that threatens the survival of every living thing on the planet, including us humans. By bringing together climate scientists, geologists, and cutting edge research too often left out of the global warming debate, the Last Hours of Humanity exposes the dangerous future of planet Earth, and what we humans have to do right now to save our species."

Important facts I compiled 5-6 years ago:

"Since 2009, an estimated one person every second has been displaced by a disaster, with an average of 22.5 million people displaced by climate or weather-related events since 2008 (IDMC 2015)."  http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/climate-change-and-disasters.html

• "Rising seas could result in 2 billion refugees by 2100" (about 1.4 billion people by 2060) ­– Cornell Chronicle: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2017/06/rising-seas-could-result-2-billion-refugees-2100
• "Florida will lose as many as 2.5 million residents, according to Hauer's data, and Texas will pick up around 1.5 million." –­ Popular Science: https://www.popsci.com/sea-level-rise-refugee/
• "Climate change forced over 1 million Africans from their homes in 2015": https://thinkprogress.org/africa-climate-internally-displaced-people-318d3eb8a27b/
• "By the year 2030, climate change and the carbon economy will claim a combined 6 million deaths annually, 600,000 of which will be directly attributed to climate change, estimates DARA. The independent, non-profit organization predicts that a total of 100 million lives will be lost between 2012 and 2030 to climate and carbon-related causes." ­– Discovery
• If the global temperature rises just 4 degrees, 10% of the world's homes will be submerged. ­– Discovery
• 70% of species face extinction ­– Discovery: https://web.archive.org/web/20190708075644/http://www.discovery.com/dscovrd/nature/climate-change-by-the-numbers-70-of-species-face-extinction/
• "Up to one million species face extinction because of human influence, many within decades." ­– NRDC
• The US Dept of Defense stated in 2015 that climate change is "an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources such as food and water." ­ https://archive.defense.gov/pubs/150724-congressional-report-on-national-implications-of-climate-change.pdf?source=govdelivery
• NASA Scientific consensus: Earth's climate is warming: http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ –­ includes statements from 18 US scientific associations as well as a list of "nearly 200 worldwide scientific organizations that hold the position that climate change has been caused by human action."  Also, more than 97% of papers endorse the scientific consensus that climate change is anthropogenic (man-made). "2016 was the warmest year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. The 10 warmest years in the 140-year record all have occurred since 2005, with the six warmest years being the six most recent years."

Additional notes from 2 yrs ago:

You don't need a science degree to figure out that very uncomfortable changes are in fact occurring.  Some of the significant changes can be easily observed on a personal level.  For ex, consider how easily phones overheat in the sun when the air temp is not even that high or how much a car heats up now compared to just a few years ago.  Notice the increase in temp of the rooms of your home that face the sun, and how easily food spoils now in the kitchen when getting blasted with the sun as it shines thru the windows (any food that absorbs moisture, such as baked goods, or that which can melt).  Leaves from plants that I've had for 20 years in the same spot are now getting burned during the months when the sun is strongest thru those windows.  This has never happened before in 20 years time.  Apt buildings in the Northeast (mine included) need the AC turned on in early April each year now when it used to be early June.

For the past few years the sun's rays no longer feel soothing, therapeutic, and charging, but rather uncomfortable, oppressive, burning, and toxic.  It’s like a burning fireball now.  I used to absorb the sun thru my windows every day b/c it felt amazing, and now I make a point to avoid it.  It's in the 20s & 30s out on most days, yet in my apt it's in the high 70s & 80s even with the windows open and 2 fans on high.  Up until a few years ago on the same winter days during the same month it would be 7°-9° cooler in here with the windows closed, and I never used fans in my apt.  I would rarely open them during winter and I never had to change into summer clothes during the day when insideŠ forget about ever going shirtless before.  But this is standard now every day the sun is out.  There was a bumblebee on my windowsill in Feb 2020 and a huge fly in my apt in Dec 2020 and I've definitely never seen a bee or even a fly during winter in NYC before.  When the windows are cracked open slightly my apt attracts bugs now before spring even starts and I used to never see them inside until summer.  The ecology is changing as a result of the climate and I’m sure it’s much more noticeable for those who live in secluded regions amongst nature.  [Also, last summer (2021) it started getting darker much earlier every night – pretty scary.  SPF 15 sunscreen doesn’t even exist anymore b/c it’s no longer sufficient, and what caused mild burns from half an hour of summer sun on a partially cloudy day at 73° between 4-5pm wouldn’t have given me any color just 5 yrs ago.  I could have been on the beach at 12pm if it was 73° on a sunny day and still not have burned.  SPF 30 is new 15.]

This is the first time in my entire life that I have felt anything negative from being in the sun for only a matter of seconds when it's not even hot or humid outside, even during the winter.  The air temperature doesn't change this effect b/c the sun's rays are no longer being sufficiently filtered.  Warnings of climate change are nothing new.  Scientists have been telling us the same thing since the 60s, and by the 80s it became mainstream knowledge.  It used to be referred to as the Greenhouse Effect.  Sound familiar?  Also, weather is not the same thing as climate.  Weather is what occurs by the minute, hour, or day, and climate refers to average conditions in an area over long periods of time.  Just b/c there's a blizzard somewhere or it's -8° doesn't mean that the issue must be improving by any means.  It's actually getting much worse globally every month.  And one of the things that has been predicted to occur as a result of global warming is deep freeze.  It'll get hotter in some places and colder in others.  The weather is expected to go wonky in many directions.

This is basically the same situation that happened when executives from cigarette corps had to testify in court several decades ago swearing that cigarettes don't cause cancer based on the current research.  These were false testimonies, and it has been mainstream medical knowledge for a long time that they are in fact very likely to cause cancer, which is why these companies have been forced to put warnings to this effect on their tobacco products.  The ones who claim that climate change is a hoax either have a vested interest in fossil fuels (profits over people) and/or simply do not care about the long lasting repercussions of our actions.  In future decades these people will be shamed as the liars they are when those who believe them now out of naivety and ignorance come to know the truth.