From Hurricane Sandy to Typhoon Haiyan to the severe droughts currently underway in states like California and Texas — and countries such as Colombia, Pakistan, Somalia, Australia, Guatemala, China and Kenya — people are seriously suffering as extreme climate-related disasters start to feel like the new normal.
And a draft of the latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows why. It paints a dire picture of the causes of global warming and what it will do to us in the future, according to the Associated Press, which obtained a copy of the report. “Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems,” the draft says.
How did we get here? This three minute video by the Climate Reality Project provides a brief history of the carbon boom and global warming, as well as an explanation of how carbon is costing us in more ways than we might think.
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