Climate Crisis: Elephants in the Room are Getting Nastier

Robert Sandford
Inter Press Service News Agency
May18, 2021

The year 2020 will forever be notorious for the COVID-19 pandemic but it might also be known by historians for a precipitous rise in second order climate change consequences — a new elephant in the room.

Familiar first order consequences, as documented in the World Meteorological Organization’s most recent State of the Global Climate report in April (at https://bit.ly/3eyrPwU), were the ongoing temperature rise over land and sea, melting sea ice and glaciers, higher sea levels, and changes in precipitation patterns.

Also in 2020, continuing a decade-long trend: widespread drought, heat waves, wildfires, cyclones, and flooding, especially in Africa and Asia but also in South America and the United States.

All these led to the second order consequences: Greater food insecurity and an accelerated explosion in involuntary human migration and displacement worldwide.

Read the article here: Climate Crisis: Elephants in the Room are Getting Nastier | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)