We cannot stop talking about the climate crisis

Results from a Pew Research Center Study conducted between September 25 to October 1, 2023. “How Americans View Future Harms From Climate Change in Their Community and Around the U.S." Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (October, 25 2023) https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/10/25/how-americans-view-future-harms-from-climate-change-in-their-community-and-around-the-u-s/#:~:text=A%20new%20Pew%20Research%20Center,get%20worse%20in%20their%20lifetime..

There’s been a lot of devastating news for people who care about the future of the planet over the last couple of weeks. On my Twitter alone, I have shared biodiversity news — that there has been a 79% decline in global forest-dwelling wildlife populations over less than 50 years, that 21 species present in the US were declared extinct Oct 16 and that all 6 species of river dolphins in the world are facing extinction despite how crucial they are to river ecosystems — and broader climate news. I’ve reposted that there will likely be a collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet within decades which will be devastating to land masses around the globe and that just yesterday, researchers have declared that “we are now in uncharted territory” when it comes to the changing climate and that by 2100, 3 to 6 billion people may live outside of survivable regions.

This is just a small cross-section of the devastating climate news we are seeing every day, and yet some people still do not understand the scope of the issue. I want to reiterate the last fact I pointed out; according to the 2023 State of the Climate Report, by the end of the century a devastatingly large number of people — what would be the vast majority of today's global population of 7.8 billion, were it to remian stagnant — will be living outside of survivable climate regions.

The findings of this report are staggering and devastating. More than anything else, they point out to me that people underestimate how critical of an issue this is. The reality of the situation, and the reason so much of the work I do is focused on the environment and climate, is that it is feasible in my lifetime that vast areas of the planet will be unlivable, that there will be no future for so many people and places in the world. And this will remain true if we don’t start doing something about it ten years ago. Studies have shown that it is likely too late to undo all of the damage we have done to this planet — there is no bringing back those 21 species that were declared extinct earlier this month, and there is no undoing the hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, sea level rise and other natural disasters and extreme weather events that have caused people to lose their lives and their property just to name a few of the critical impacts of climate change. But if we stop talking about the crisis and we stop pushing for solutions and action, the one thing I know for sure is that the situation will not get better.

It is impossible to articulate the severity of this issue in just one post, but I will leave you with this quote:

"We must shift our perspective on the climate emergency from being just an isolated environmental issue to a systemic, existential threat. Although global heating is devastating, it represents only one aspect of the escalating and interconnected environmental crisis that we are facing (e.g., biodiversity loss, fresh water scarcity, pandemics). We need policies that target the underlying issues of ecological overshoot where the human demand on Earth's resources results in overexploitation of our planet and biodiversity decline (figures 5a, S5; McBain et al. 2017). As long as humanity continues to exert extreme pressure on the Earth, any attempted climate-only solutions will only redistribute this pressure." - The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory