Editor’s note: for a dissenting opinion, see this opinion article. If you agree or disagree you’re free to submit your own article on this or any other subject.
On the scent of the dramatic report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which flagged 2012 as the hottest year on record by far, Obama is facing still more pressure on the climate issue.
An over 1,000-page report by the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee, called “the National Climate Assessment,” has urged the White House to take immediate action to curb the intensification of global warming.
The report made clear that the steps taken by Obama so far to slow down emissions have not been “close to sufficient”.
The body’s findings aren’t original, stressing the effects of the anthropogenic impact on the environment, such as the rise of weather extremes and the rise of the sea level.
The assessment said that temperatures will keep rising and offered different scenarios for the future — including temperatures rising between 2.8 to 5.6 degrees Celsius (or an increase between around 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit) after 2050 if emissions climb further.
It also details how climate change is quickly disrupting the health, habits and other aspects of American life. “It affects where you live, where you work and where you play and the infrastructure that you need to do all these things. It’s more than just the polar bears.”
If you were to list the number of ways in which your life has changed in the last decades because of climate change, the list would be at least one hundred points long, according to two of the over 240 authors involved in the project.
The report continues, “Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours, though in many regions there are longer dry spells in between.
Other changes are even more dramatic. Residents of some coastal cities see their streets flood more regularly during storms and high tides. Inland cities near large rivers also experience more flooding, especially in the Midwest and Northeast.
Hotter and drier weather and earlier snow melt mean that wildfires in the West start earlier in the year, last later into the fall, threaten more homes, cause more evacuations, and burn more acreage.
In Alaska, the summer sea ice that once protected the coasts has receded, and fall storms now cause more erosion and damage that is severe enough that some communities are already facing relocation”.
Despite not bringing much new to the table the report has been described by the guardian as ” the most ambitious scientific exercise ever undertaken to catalogue the real-time effects of climate change, and predict possible outcomes in the future”.
The Obama administration has thus far often neglected climate change. Their efforts to cut down on carbon emissions failed in 2010 in the Senate. Lawmakers of the opposing Republican Party said it would be too expensive and also cast some doubts on the veracity of climate change.
As with most political issues, the democrats’ lagging efforts to enact reforms has been met with fierce opposition by powerful corporations and lobbying groups.
Marco Volpe is a freelance journalist from Italy. He currently enrolled at the University College London studying human sciences. He currently writes for an independent local journal in his local area.
Edited by Madison Ruppert
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