The Climate Clock says less than six years

By KENDRA BURDICK

The Climate Clock website shows the exact Climate Clock timer and the number of temperatures people are adding to the global surface. (KENDRA BURDICK/ Ethic News photo)

Since the beginning of time, people have questioned if there will be an end. According to the ‘Climate Clock,’ people have less than seven years to fix the damages they’ve made or they will start seeing the Earth’s end.

“The Clock’s Deadline tells us that, at current rates of greenhouse gas emissions, we have less than seven years left in our global ‘carbon budget’” the Climate Clock scientists Gan Golan and Andrew Boyd explain to the people, “which gives us a two-thirds chance of staying under the critical threshold of 1.5°C of global warming”.

Most people know of the trash in the oceans, the smog in the air, and the human-made fires that are destroying the land. Up until this point, a majority of people from all over the world have been thinking that they will not have to deal with these problems. With help from the Climate Clock, humans now have a timer that lets them know they will have to work on these problems or see an end to life itself.

The Climate Clock site also shows the humans’ effect on the global temperature and the results caused by the changes. The site explains, “the model suggests that average global surface temperature would likely reach 3-4°C by 2100 with catastrophic (and permanent) impacts on humanity and the biosphere, including floods, droughts, mass extinctions, permanently uninhabitable regions, billions of climate refugees, and 100s of millions dead”. (KENDRA BURDICK/ Ethic News photo)

Now, of course, there are ways to help these problems such as using renewable energy. Golan and Boyd warns people that “around three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels for energy.” This means that humans need to be using as much solar energy as possible rather than burning fossil fuels, which are causing the most damage according to a study done by Harvard.

This study from Harvard University, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, Leicester and College London, found that the death rate in 2018 due to fossil fuel pollution is more than eight million people.

This is conspicuously higher than previous research suggested, meaning that all the air pollution created by burning fossil fuels is responsible for about one in five deaths worldwide.

Kayden Patel, junior at Redlands East Valley High School shares his thoughts on the matter, “Global warming is just one of the serious problems that the Earth is facing because of humans and we are only just starting to do something about it.” (GEFFREY ACOSTA/ETHIC PHOTO)

Another way to help is by donating to the Green Climate Fund. The Green Climate Fund, created in 2010, is a finance mechanism which was set up by the UNFCCC to support critical climate mitigation and work on adaptation projects in developing countries.

“GCF (Green Climate Fund) was established by 194 governments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in developing countries, and to help vulnerable societies adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change” the website behind the fund explains why it’s so important to reducing humans’ changes to the climate.

Indigenous land sovereignty is another way to help. The indigenous communities are critical stewards of the planet’s natural carbon sequestration capacity. This means they must be protected to prevent the abysmal impacts of climate change.

Humans are being told to get their act together to save lives. How many humans are going to ignore what most humans have been doing and help save the Earth? The people standing behind the Green Climate Fund say “We mustn’t pretend we have more time than we do.”

Link to Climate Clock

Link to Green Climate Fund