· 2 min read
illuminem summarizes for you the essential news of the day. Read the full piece on The Independent or enjoy below:
🌍 Driving the news: Climate change is causing unprecedented global disruption, fundamentally threatening systems like insurance, food security, and global trade that rely on predictable weather patterns. The economic and social structures that depend on limiting risk are crumbling as extreme weather events escalate, challenging the core of free enterprise
🔭 The context: As each year surpasses the last in heat, wildfires, floods, and hurricanes of growing intensity are undermining the ability to insure against natural disasters, shaking the foundations of capitalism, which relies on controlling risks and protecting capital. The increasing severity of climate impacts, such as Canada's record-breaking fire season and rising sea levels threatening entire nations, exacerbates existing crises like migration and resource conflicts
🌍 Why it matters: The disruptions to global systems are escalating, pushing humanity toward a critical choice: continue with business as usual, risking catastrophic 3-degree warming, or initiate a new industrial revolution centered on renewable energy to build a sustainable future
⏭️ What's next: The world faces a stark choice: respond to the escalating global threat with decisive action or risk entering a period of uncontrollable and catastrophic climate change
💬 One quote: "If this is what we get with 1.5 degrees warming, do we still cling to business as usual until 3 degrees warming produces results we hardly dare contemplate?"
📈 One stat: The rate at which Earth's energy balance has shifted has doubled in less than 50 years, with unprecedented heat flowing into oceans, ice caps, and the atmosphere
