Within the past month, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued two reports that, taken together, make clear just how fast the earth’s climate is changing as a result of human conduct and that the consequences of that conduct will, unless arrested immediately, be severe on every continent, including North America. The two reports, issued by the IPCC Working Groups II and III on March 31 and April 11, respectively, identify the precise human conduct primarily responsible for climate change and the actions, and their timing, necessary to avoid the most severe consequences for human civilization.1 Whether the nations of the world, including our own, will take those actions in the time remaining depends on their elected, appointed or self-appointed leaders, but the reports make indisputably clear that those most affected by the continuing failure of nations to act will be our children, their children and grandchildren and anyone else living in a superheated world in the year 2100 and beyond.

IPCC Temperature Projections

Just how superheated the Earth could become by 2100 will surprise all but the closest followers of climate science. The March 31 (Working Group II) report indicates that there was an average increase in global temperature (over land and oceans) of about .85 degrees Celsius (C)—about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit (F)—between 1880 and 2012. This increase has not been spread evenly, and future increases are expected to vary by region, as well as by the actions the world takes to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

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