Dire warning

last updated 8 January 2015

Greenland

The world will heat up to an irreversible tipping point in less than 10 years if greenhouse gases aren’t reduced, an international task force said this week. The group of scientists, politicians, and business leaders—led by Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine and British diplomat Stephen Byers—released a report that warns of disastrous climatic changes. If the average global temperature rises 2 degrees Celsius above what it was in 1750, before the Industrial Revolution, the ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica could begin to disappear, causing a rise in sea levels, changes in the Gulf Stream, and catastrophic droughts. The average temperature has already risen by 0.8 degrees, and there is so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that the rate of increase is likely to accelerate.