As the rich and powerful continue to refuse to do what’s necessary to stop global heating and the climate catastrophe that threatens all life on Earth, we can’t write full stories on all of the related current developments. Here are two of the most recent signs of the need for an urgent response from the world’s people.
- Rising sea levels and ocean water temperatures continue to make storms more destructive. While Hurricane Fiona knocked out Puerto Rico’s power grid and moved on through the Caribbean Sea and north to Canada, Typhoon Nanmadol forced the evacuation of at least nine million people in Japan, and former Typhoon Merbok, one of the strongest storms to hit Alaska in the last 70 years, came just as isolated communities, many of them indigenous, were doing their annual hunting before winter.
- A new report from the World Meteorological Association for the United Nations, United in Science: We are Heading in the Wrong Direction, highlights new tipping points that can irreversibly threaten life. These include tipping points related to: imbalance among heat, salt, and water in the climate system; melting of polar ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica; drying of the Amazon rainforest; and other regional droughts.
