Science News: Red alert for Earth’s climate

– K.J., Editor

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently released their findings in a report called Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis[LINK1]. This is the Sixth Assessment Report of the present and future changes to our global climate. At around 4000 pages, this report contains a large volume of alarming data and makes a number of predictions for the future of our planet.

The report shows that human influence has led to increasing amounts of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, in the atmosphere, since measurements were last taken in 2001. More alarming, however, is the effects these greenhouse gases will have in the future: compound extreme events (specifically hot extremes such as heatwaves, droughts, flooding and fires occurring at the same time). Data suggests that the frequency has increased and will continue to increase in the future. This should alarm anyone who reads it.

With a three-fold increase in the rate of sea level rise compared to 1901-1971, and the highest recorded temperatures in the past five years since 1850, the UN states that this is a code red catastrophe that can only be fixed if greenhouse gas emissions are greatly reduced. Naysayers can no longer deny the dire future our Earth faces and the general public can no longer ignore the impact they are having on our planet.

Scientists have long understood the threat to our planet, but governments and the general public have been slow to accept reality and make the necessary changes. Hopefully, this report will encourage countries like Japan to embrace clean energy sources and invest in new technologies that can help us to reverse the effects of climate change and improve humanity’s future.

Click here for the Japanese version.