A World at Stake
Increases in severe droughts and intense rain threaten to depress food production and spread economic distress, hunger, and conflict across the globe. Melting glaciers and continental icecaps may raise sea levels enough to flood many of the world’s great coastal cities and create tens of millions of refugees. Rising temperatures could trigger one of the greatest mass extinctions of plants and animals in the history of the planet. And that’s just a partial list of the dangers posed by climate change.
Climate change can seem so overwhelming that we feel powerless and tune out.
But any serious attempt to limit the damage will cause its own major disruptions. It could require nothing less than a modern revolution in how we produce and use energy. And coping with some inevitable climate changes could demand major shifts in how and where we live or even what we eat. Such changes would require new policies and technologies on a global scale and trillions of dollars in investments over the coming few decades.
We can choose to live with the consequences of climate change, act to minimize them, or follow a middle path. In any of these alternative futures, climate change or our attempts to address it will create big winners and losers. Businesses and industries will rise and fall, and the fates of peoples, nations, and species will hang in the balance. With the stakes so high, the impulse by some to tailor the science to justify certain agendas has never been greater—and the need for accurate information never more crucial.
Featured Video: "Montana: Trout and Drought"