Equatorial Heat May Soon Spark Mass Exodus
By James Donahue
There are perhaps billions of people living in what some researchers are perceiving as “climate change hotspots” where extreme periods of heat may soon prove to be too brutal to sustain life.
This is the findings in a recent study by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany and the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia, Cyprus.
This study, which examined only areas in the Middle East and Northern Africa, found that temperatures on the hottest days may soon be reaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and if something isn’t done to curb the trapped atmospheric gases soon, could be soaring over 120 degrees within the next decade.
“Prolonged heat waves and desert dust storms can render some regions uninhabitable,” warned Jos Lelieveld, director of the Max Planck Institute and lead author of the study which was published in the journal Climate Change. This in turn, he said, could “jeopardize the very existence of the area’s 500 million inhabitants.”
Heat like that would almost certainly trigger a mass climate exodus to cooler places. But in this overpopulated world where people literally go to war over property ownership, where would this people go?
The study involved an analysis of what would happen if global carbon emissions continued at the present rate. Unfortunately, in spite of agreements made in a Paris global climate conference in 2015, and in spite of extreme efforts in some parts of the world to curb the release of greenhouse gases, the planet is continuing to get warmer.
This suggests that it has been “business as usual” for our growing world population which is demanding more and more electricity, carbon fueled vehicles and heating systems. The rush to green energy is not happening fast enough to be making much of a difference.
The study warned that people living in these targeted regions can expect longer and warmer heat waves as the years pass.
In the meantime, much of the Western United States is already smothered in extreme heat with thermometers reaching triple-digit figures and the real heat of summer 2016 hasn’t yet arrived.
A recent heat wave, stretching from New Mexico west to Los Angeles, hit high temperatures from 110 to 117 degrees in Phoenix, Arizona. Cities were keeping libraries and other public buildings open for the homeless and people who did not have air conditioned shelter.
Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, noted in an interview with The Huffington Post that the Middle Eastern and North African study was one of a number of recent studies. All of the researchers agree that deadly heat waves are looming if we don’t put a lid on our burning of fossil fuels.
By James Donahue
There are perhaps billions of people living in what some researchers are perceiving as “climate change hotspots” where extreme periods of heat may soon prove to be too brutal to sustain life.
This is the findings in a recent study by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany and the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia, Cyprus.
This study, which examined only areas in the Middle East and Northern Africa, found that temperatures on the hottest days may soon be reaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and if something isn’t done to curb the trapped atmospheric gases soon, could be soaring over 120 degrees within the next decade.
“Prolonged heat waves and desert dust storms can render some regions uninhabitable,” warned Jos Lelieveld, director of the Max Planck Institute and lead author of the study which was published in the journal Climate Change. This in turn, he said, could “jeopardize the very existence of the area’s 500 million inhabitants.”
Heat like that would almost certainly trigger a mass climate exodus to cooler places. But in this overpopulated world where people literally go to war over property ownership, where would this people go?
The study involved an analysis of what would happen if global carbon emissions continued at the present rate. Unfortunately, in spite of agreements made in a Paris global climate conference in 2015, and in spite of extreme efforts in some parts of the world to curb the release of greenhouse gases, the planet is continuing to get warmer.
This suggests that it has been “business as usual” for our growing world population which is demanding more and more electricity, carbon fueled vehicles and heating systems. The rush to green energy is not happening fast enough to be making much of a difference.
The study warned that people living in these targeted regions can expect longer and warmer heat waves as the years pass.
In the meantime, much of the Western United States is already smothered in extreme heat with thermometers reaching triple-digit figures and the real heat of summer 2016 hasn’t yet arrived.
A recent heat wave, stretching from New Mexico west to Los Angeles, hit high temperatures from 110 to 117 degrees in Phoenix, Arizona. Cities were keeping libraries and other public buildings open for the homeless and people who did not have air conditioned shelter.
Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, noted in an interview with The Huffington Post that the Middle Eastern and North African study was one of a number of recent studies. All of the researchers agree that deadly heat waves are looming if we don’t put a lid on our burning of fossil fuels.