Last week, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an alarming report that has brought attention to the climate crisis we currently face. In summary, because of human activity, the Earth is warming at a rate higher than that which was expected, influencing the changes in weather and climate extremes that we see happening around the world. The language used in the report named the current condition as a “code red for humanity.” What does this mean for the future of New Orleans?
Human activities, including groundwater withdrawal, oil and gas extraction, sand mining, and the construction of flood barriers around rivers, can all cause the ground to sink. While we need to prevent river flooding, it stops rivers from spreading sediments that slowly rebuild the land. In addition, present trends and historical data indicate that sea level rise will not come to an end anytime soon. Since most of New Orleans is below sea level, there could be catastrophic flooding over the city within the next few decades if humans continue to influence land subsidence and emit greenhouse gases at the current rate. More intense rains, stronger hurricanes striking the coast, and even higher temperatures can be expected as well. This is a shared concern in coastal regions throughout the world, so mitigating the issue is a local and global challenge.
The contents of the report are devastating and may seem like some sort of fear-mongering tactic, but the data is well built over thousands of research papers and rather meant to show people the reality of the situation we put ourselves in. While we need to remain accountable for our own dependency on fossil fuels, we also need to hold corporations and industries accountable for their large-scale emissions that have driven the global temperature up to an unprecedented high. The UN report states, “global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered. Global warming of 1.5°C and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.” The key takeaway here is that as a global society, we need to collectively work towards reducing global warming and emissions to avoid irreversible damage to our homes.
Sources:
https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_9b8f89cc-f93d-11eb-bb66-9f4f7033c4bf.html
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf