There is something happening and we all know that. We know that CO2, once it’s in the atmosphere, is effectively permanent. We know that for a given level of CO2 concentrations, eventually you get a given temperature, and for a given temperature, sooner or later sea level will rise to adjust. When you raise the temperature, you “lock in” a certain amount of sea-level rise, even if you don’t know exactly how quickly it will happen.
So what’s the verdict?
Long story short, for every degree Celsius that global average temperature rises, we can expect 2.3 meters of sea-level rise sometime over the ensuing 2,000 years. That means locking in 9.2 meters, or 30 feet, of sea level rise. Suffice to say, that would wipe out most of the major coastal cities and towns in the world.
If we stay on our current trajectory, by the end of the century we will ensure the eventual destruction of our coastal developments. But! That destruction will happen at some point over the next 2,000 years. It sounds that it is nothing urgent to us, the current generation. Maybe not for 100, maybe not even for several hundred, long after you and your children and your grandchildren are dead. That’s why so many people know it but do not care at all.
It is true that no one can really predict what’s going to be happened in the future. If costal cities really being destroyed, perhaps they’ll live in floating cities, or space stations. Who knows?! Yet, it doesn’t mean we can be ignorance.
Save our planet. Do our best to control CO2 emission. It is better than doing nothing.
Source: Grist
