Earth Equity News

Climate Scientist James Hansen Issues Direst Forecast Yet. By Mark Hertsgaard, The Daily Beast, 7/20/2015. "2 degrees Celsius is not the safe “guardrail” most politicians and media coverage imply it is, argue Hansen and 16 colleagues in a blockbuster study they are publishing this week in the peer-reviewed journal Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry. On the contrary, a 2 C future would be “highly dangerous.” If Hansen is right—and he has been right, sooner, about the big issues in climate science longer than anyone—the implications are vast and profound. Physically, Hansen’s findings mean that Earth’s ice is melting and its seas are rising much faster than expected. Other scientists have offered less extreme findings; the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected closer to 3 feet of sea level rise by the end of the century, an amount experts say will be difficult enough to cope with."