Jeff Berardelli, WFLA-TV (Tampa Bay) chief meteorologist and climate specialist, recently posted on X that the number of 90 degree days in the Tampa area has doubled—from about 60 per year in the 1970s to 120 per year today.
Unless we take concrete steps to slow earth’s warming, imagine the number of 90, and even 100, degree days in another 50 years. And consider what this will mean for the heat content of the oceans, and consequently for sea level rise, storm surge and the intensity of rainfall and hurricanes.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Limiting global mean temperature increase at any level requires global CO2 emissions to become net zero at some point in the future.”
In other words, we must reduce carbon dioxide emissions enough that they are balanced by CO2 removal, such as being absorbed by forests and dissolved in the oceans. Otherwise the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to grow.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting forests and wetlands because of their ability to store carbon, and funding adaptation, are among humanity’s greatest moral obligations. Even small changes in the trajectory of Earth’s warming could mean better lives for decades for millions of people.
Climate change poses great threats. Conservatives would be unlikely to tolerate this level of risk with regard to national defense or financial markets.
Prudence dictates that we also hedge against the risk of disastrous climate change.
Reader Terry Hansen is a frequent contributor to Villages-News.com’s Opinion section.