Children Face Horrible Climate Future

Many forecasts for global warming and climate crisis have an endpoint of 2050, a tip of the hat to mid-century. Many of the world’s children will live in that future. A child born in the US today could well live until 2100. The world’s climate situation will be grim.

The journal Nature has just published a paper titled .”Global emergence of unprecedented lifetime exposure to climate extremes,.” The authors point out that “Under a 1.5 °C pathway, 52% of people born in 2020 will experience unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves. If global warming reaches 3.5 °C by 2100, this fraction rises to 92% for heatwaves, 29% for crop failures, and 14% for river floods.”

Heat Waves

This means broad exposure to heatwaves, crop failures, flooding, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes. In most parts of the world, the population is ill-prepared for these, and in poorer nations, these circumstances kill millions of people each year.

The only solution the authors suggest is lowering greenhouse gas emissions. If anything, these efforts have eroded in the last two years, and the US has led this retreat.

In developed nations, more money will be spent on climate mitigation. This may include seawalls, more sophisticated AC, and access to renewable energy. In much of the rest of the world, these will not be available.

One conclusion which can be taken away from the study is that there will be attempts of climate migration. The hurdle with this is that there are already people in areas other people want to move to