With college football season is coming to an end and Yeezy season delayed for months, ignorance season is right around the corner.
The 2015 Paris Climate Conference, also known as COP21, began yesterday. The conference includes prominent heads of state who want to ratify an international treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s about time. World leaders stalled in previous conferences to reach legally-binding agreements. The Kyoto Protocol, the landmark climate change treaty, is in the midst of expiring.
The United States, under former President George W. Bush, did not sign the Kyoto Protocol. He said it “would have wrecked our economy.”
What Bush didn’t understand then, and what some still refuse to acknowledge, is the economy will be in even worse shape if we don’t curb climate change.
If you’re a climate-change denier, read my last column on this topic. I don’t want to waste your time or mine rehashing the same points.
I’m also not going to waste space arguing humans are a primary cause of the uptick in temperature and sea levels. I’ll leave that to the American Meteorological Society, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. They agree.
I’d rather dig into a dangerously flawed mindset. Much of the rhetoric, primarily from conservatives, is that climate change is not important enough to worry about now.
Climate change is the most pressing threat to the world. Not terrorism, not “Obamacare,” not police brutality, not the lack of a $15 an hour minimum wage — climate change trumps them all.
Let’s talk about the economy because our corporate overlords always derail discussions of how to fix the climate crisis. Capping emissions will probably hurt big oil’s bottom line, but ignoring the effects of climate change is the real economic disaster.
A study published in an October issue of the scientific journal, “Nature,” found anticipated average global incomes will drop 23 percent by 2100 if humans continue current levels of greenhouse gas emission.
Think about what your salary will be right before you retire. Now, subtract a quarter of it. That’s your future with unmitigated climate change.
It doesn’t stop there. A study from 2000 cited by the IPCC found sea-level rise in the U.S. alone could cause anywhere from $20 billion to $150 billion just in property damage.
Ever thought of living on the coast? Think again.
Next, the Pentagon released a report in late July with testimonies from each four-star general in the military. They gave a soldier’s credibility to scientists’ findings, acknowledging climate change will exacerbate already unstable regions of the world.
Increasing temperatures make the drought in Syria worse, where the U.S. and allies fight the Islamic State. Melting Arctic ice is revealing new oil reserves Russia is staking claim over, providing potential future conflict.
Finally, climate change is literally moving mountains. University of Cincinnati researchers further cemented evidence that global and local climate change induces plate tectonic shifts in a July study. So, climate change could mean more earthquakes around the globe.
Climate change is not homework — you can’t procrastinate until the last minute. Every day we lose points, and we’re already barely passing. Don’t let humans flunk out. Support climate change reform.
Jack Richards is a 20 year-old mass communication junior from New Orleans. You can reach him on Twitter @jayellrichy.