Catastrophic Climatic Events: How Did The World Get Here?

CATASTROPHIC CLIMATIC EVENTS: HOW DID THE WORLD GET HERE?
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The climatic events that have been witnessed in the past few years have shown the adverse effects roaming the planet due to climate change. Lives and property have been lost, economies have been destroyed, and a feeling of hopelessness is growing bigger than the day. It is not a secret that human beings are wondering whether anything can be done or if this is the end. However, before looking at whether the current situation can be remedied, it is important to look at the past. Was humankind too blind to the changing circumstances and allowed the situation to get here? Were there any warnings? Were they worked on or ignored? Would the situation have been any different had the warnings been heeded? This paper seeks to answer these questions by looking at the obstacles that the climate activists and politicians were unable to surmount in the 21st century in their quest to influence the policymakers as well as the public to take action. Ways in which global warming can be limited will also be discussed.
The Environmental and Social Consequences of the Massive Warming
In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which comprised some of the best climate change researchers in the world, released a report stating that temperatures had to be capped at 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial levels to avoid catastrophic events in the future. However, they were worried that achieving the goal was exceedingly difficult (Irfan 2018). Time has confirmed their worries. They warned that failure to pursue the goal would mean that global warming would persist towards 3 degrees Celsius, which would lead to devastating changes. The fact that the planet had warmed by 1 degree Celsius when the report was released and various consequences such as rising sea levels, a decline in Arctic sea ice, and damaging weather events were being experienced emphasized on the big cost of inaction (Irfan 2018). Unfortunately, the modern world is paying this price. Heat waves have claimed thousands of lives around the world, storms have become more damaging over the years, and coastal flooding has led to the refugee crisis, which has fueled armed conflicts in various parts of the world. Large tracts of lands in poor countries in Africa and Asia have been rendered unusable. Inadequate food production and related factors have led to more than 150 million prematur...