Monday's report on the Hothouse Earth effect clearly demonstrates that humanity cannot be allowed to continue on our suicidal trajectory. It was so clear that even the BBC managed to report on it without "balancing it" with a climate denier.
There are some startling phased in the report but this is the one that should send shivers down our spines: "Hothouse Earth is likely to be uncontrollable and dangerous to many, particularly if we transition into it in only a century or two, and it poses severe risks for health, economies, political stability (especially for the most climate vulnerable), and ultimately, the habitability of the planet for humans."
Within our lifetime and certainly within the lifetime of those born now, our current trajectory is for the 2 degrees "safer" level to be breached in a few decades and for the tipping points of feedback mechanisms to start to push temperatures towards 5 degrees. In a couple of hundred years we are looking at 60m sea level rises.
The report is basically saying that we are not doing nearly enough to stop climate change and that the impacts are coming far harder and far faster than we thought.
Discussions about anti-semetism in the Labour Party, Islamophobia in the Tories, gender politics, even Trump's antics on the world stage, pale into insignificance against this threat. This should be permanently headline news.
But as yet there is no political will. There continues to be severe resistance from the corporate and media world and there is little engagement by the people as a result. If terrorism were threatening us this way there would be a concerted global action to rectify it.
It would be easy to think that governments across the world could take some immediate steps. Grounding non-essential flights. Banning fracking. Investment in public transport and insulation. A Green Marshal Plan for the world. But they are not and they are failing humanity and the Earth.
It is time to up our game.
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