Saturday 23 January 2021

Climate Change Didn't Self Isolate in 2020

There was quite a lot going on during 2020 but something that didn't stop and self isolate was our warming Planet and unfortunately there is no vaccine for what is coming.
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached record levels in 2020, hitting 417 parts per million in May and the last time CO2 levels exceeded 400 parts per million was four million years ago. Humans have piled 100ppm in the last 60 years alone, an amount that it took Nature 10,000 years to increase it by at the end of the last ice age
The year 2020 was 1.2C hotter than the average year in the 19th Century, Europe had it's hottest year ever and the World experienced it's joint hottest year, tying with 2016 as the warmest triggering the largest wildfires ever recorded in the US states of California and Colorado, and the fires in eastern Australia which turned the sky black.
The temperature reached 38C in Siberia, the hottest ever recorded within the Arctic Circle which saw the sea ice area at its second lowest on record which has the knock on effect of less area of white to reflect the heat from the Sun back out into space, leading the Arctic to heat twice as quickly as the rest of the world and more sea means more absorption of heat, fueling global warming further.
Across the northern hemisphere, there was less ground that remains frozen all year round which has released billions of tonnes of CO2 and methane which is usually locked away in frozen ground, further clogging the atmosphere.
The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in his State of the Planet speech that we are at the threshold of wrecking our own Planet but the Planet won't care because to be honest, without us, it's job would be much easier without us messing it up.
It isn't in the business of keeping us alive and stop us from doing stupid things like poisoning our own air and water, we are very low down on it's list of things to give a toss about.

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