Climate Place
Climate change will be much worse, much sooner than most people think. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC) recent report, while rather dire, is actually a best-case analysis. The IPCC’s report did not include the effects of “amplifying feedbacks” such as melting permafrost releasing methane -- a powerful greenhouse gas -- which causes more warming, which melts more permafrost, and on and on. Including such effects leads to much more dire results than the UN presented.
Humans respond best to threats that are immediate, visible, simple, personal, have historical precedent, and are caused by another “tribe” (think Al-Qaeda). Unfortunately, climate change, has none of these characteristics and this may partially explain why so little is being done to address the biggest threat mankind has ever faced.
I’ve been giving talks around the world about climate change and many people have asked me for copies of slides, references, etc. I’ve set up this site to provide this information and to help people convince others that we need to take dramatic action right now in order for our children and grandchildren to avoid the worst case impacts of climate change.
A really inconvenient truth
The purpose of this site is to give people the tools and information they need to make the case for urgent and dramatic action to address climate change.
“They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent… Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have entered upon a period of danger. The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…. We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now…”
- Winston Churchill, November 12, 1936
Correction:
I used an incorrect animation in the online version of my talk. Click here for an explanation and correction.
