President Trump, I urge you to read (or have read to you) the consequences of your saying "I dont believe it."
I am assuming that you know what the Greenhouse Effect is and that the average world temperature increases proportional to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The current average daily CO2 concentration is 412.60 ppm on May 14, 2018 (NOAA-ESRL). The last time Earth experienced similar CO2 concentrations was 3 million years ago. Most of the increase has occurred since the industrial age began.
A goal of the Paris Accord goal was to hold global average temperature increase to “well below 2 degree C above preindustrial levels and try to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C."
Let me try to convince you what are the consequences of a "only" a 2 degree C temperature rise.: This would involve world wide mass starvation due to the effect on agriculture of massive droughts and intense heat, leading to mass migrations of people searching for food. Rain forests would be destroyed. The Greenland ice pack would melt as well as parts of the Antarctic ice packs, leading to world wide increases in ocean level and flooding of all coastal cities. Massive migration of people from the flooded coasts will occur, almost certainly leading to wars as the industrial countries attempt to limit the waves of migrations of frantic people. Nuclear exchanges may indeed occur between Pakistan and India, Israel and the Arab states, and the United States, Europe and Russia. It is ironic that the flooding may in fact slow down these wars as the army bases and missle launch sites become covered by water. The flooding will affect the very institutions of modern nation-states - military, business, financial, social, travel, education, communication (including the internet).
Let me try to convince you what are the consequences of a "only" a 2 degree C temperature rise.: This would involve world wide mass starvation due to the effect on agriculture of massive droughts and intense heat, leading to mass migrations of people searching for food. Rain forests would be destroyed. The Greenland ice pack would melt as well as parts of the Antarctic ice packs, leading to world wide increases in ocean level and flooding of all coastal cities. Massive migration of people from the flooded coasts will occur, almost certainly leading to wars as the industrial countries attempt to limit the waves of migrations of frantic people. Nuclear exchanges may indeed occur between Pakistan and India, Israel and the Arab states, and the United States, Europe and Russia. It is ironic that the flooding may in fact slow down these wars as the army bases and missle launch sites become covered by water. The flooding will affect the very institutions of modern nation-states - military, business, financial, social, travel, education, communication (including the internet).
In addition, several other "tipping point" phenomena would occur which will exponentially increase the rate of accumulation of greenhouse gases: Melting of the tundra releasing huge amounts of CO2 and also methane which is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Methane would also be released from melting of the solid methyl hydrides in the deep oceans. “Super hurricanes” would occur due to the energy derived from passage of the hurricanes over the warm ocean. The heat-induced evaporation of ocean water will lead to intense rain storms and flooding. Another serious consequence of increased CO2 is a decrease in ocean pH, which leads to death of shellfish and coral, and perhaps has other less understood effects on fish life. Since seafood provides a large percent of the diet worldwide, this will accentuate starvation-induced migrations.
A recent report by dozens of U.S. federal agencies concluded that if nothing is done, a cataclysmic 4 degrees Celsius of warming is inevitable by the year 2100. By this time the structures of nation states and indeed civilizations will be destroyed and people will revert to a hunter- gatherer life style for food. Finally, as the temperature increases above 4 degrees C, life itself become almost impossible as the earth turns into another Venus with boiling oceans due to a runaway greenhouse effect.
President Trump, please think about this: There will be incredible human suffering (including your children and grandchildren) and finally there will be destruction of the very fabric of modern civilization. This is not a political event. It is the end of our civilization as we know it, and perhaps the end of human life on this earth, in the very near future. Think about this when you say "I dont believe it."
Think about this.
