Climate

“self-accelerating transformations set off when natural thresholds are crossed” (Blaustein 2015, 36).


Without notice and sometimes with notice our world is changing. We hope that it's always for the better or livelihood but unfortunately not always. The main area that is affecting us are the hurricanes. Stronger, bigger and more often is what we especially here in Florida has to deal with. The warming of El Nino keeps putting us at risk for more and more possibilities of getting "hit". We had been lucky but our luck finally ran out last season which now puts us now on the edge. I guess now we can be more prepared and not just sit back and think "it won't hit us". 

Photo by naharnet.com

“may be at risk of abrupt and irreversible change;” (IPCC 2014a, 13). 

I think that we have been at risk for quite some time now. I think we are at another level of at risk and maybe should be looking into how to fix and deal with the changes that are irreversible. It seems that every year abrupt changes are happening as well as those that have been changing over time. Unless we admit that these changes are occurring we may reach a point of NO RETURN and then what? It seems to me that we always wait until we have reached that point and then say "oops" let's fix it now. I understand that it takes time but we have been wasting that time instead of using it wisely. We need more action to have a positive reaction.

Photo by NASA/Rueters

May 2018 was fourth warmest May on record

According to the report from Nasa's goddard institute of space studies this past May was the 4th warmest since they started keeping record 138 years ago. The temperature was + .082 degrees Celsius and +0.86 degrees Celsius than between the years of 1951-1980. The rising of temperatures is just one of the many climate changes happening today. As mentioned in the book that it's not always the amount that it is changing but at the rate of speed that the changes are occurring is what is more important. In fact the report also states that the last three months were also among the warmest that it has ever been. Even though weather is different than climate the change in climate is affecting the weather. Just as recently as last week the temperatures in the Northern part of the country have been unbearable. Of course this is nothing new as the same thing happened a few years ago where people were dying due to heat strokes and others couldn't even go outside because it was so hot. Even though I prefer the heat over the cold, I don't want to reach to the point where I can no longer enjoy the warmth of the sun on my face. 

Photo by climate.nasa.gov

Source:

Nasa's Goddard institute for space studies

Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.