(This page contains and defines the major primary and secondary consequences of climate change. It will give you both a factual, comprehensive, and holistic sense of the climate future we all now face. At the end of this article is a section to help you decide what you will want to do about the information in this article.)
Introduction
We are already experiencing many of the climate consequences already. Over the next several decades we will, unfortunately, experience many more of the following primary and secondary climate change-related consequences.
This will happen simply because we are failing horribly in reducing our global fossil fuel use! Over the last four decades, from the chart below you can see that no national or global climate conference, government action, mass public protests, or educational movement by ANY climate or environmental group have done anything genuinely effective to slow or stop the rapid increase of dangerous carbon in the atmosphere! In fact, truth be told, increased carbon in the atmosphere, which causes ever-rising global warming has gone from rising at a gradual and linear rate to rising exponentially!
Atmospheric carbon (CO2) as measured in parts per million (ppm) is the simple best, and easiest way to tell if we are making real climate progress in reducing global fossil fuel use and if our current climate change reduction strategies are working. It is the best way to measure our climate management success because of the immutable laws of physics. These immutable laws dictate that if atmospheric carbon ppm continues to rise, the average global temperature will continue to rise as it has faithfully done since the fossil fuel-powered industrial revolution began. (Carbon was at about 270 ppm level before the Industrial Revolution. It had been at about the 270 ppm level for hundreds of thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution began in around 1770.)
As you can see from the charts above, the current exponential increase of carbon in our atmosphere (primarily from burning fossil fuels) signals the collective failure of 40 years of strategies to slow climate change, and that the climate emergency is getting worse at an even faster rate! (See the steeper line slope in the charts above as they approach 2022.)
The above charts help one to underscore the painful fact that as time passes, the following primary and secondary climate consequences will most likely also continue to increase in frequency, severity, and scale.
The most important thing to remember as the following primary and secondary climate consequences converge is that they will bring about additional later consequences even faster because of intrinsic climate feedback loops, synergies, interdependencies, and tipping points. Worse yet, as time passes these climate change consequences will suddenly get exponentially worse both unpredictably and regularly.
This is because these consequences will feed into and collide with each other and, they will also be fed by the worsening of these other 11 major global crises! As you will soon see for yourself, no government, global corporation, or global NGO will be able to stay up with the damages of these accelerating and interacting primary and secondary climate consequences listed below. These collective primary and secondary consequences accelerating and occurring very often simultaneously will create unimaginable global chaos.
Many of the following primary and secondary climate consequences are interconnected and interdependent. Some climate consequences below also exist in transformative relationships and within interconnected linear and non-linear cause and effect processes that can amplify or multiply the other's consequences and, in effect, further disrupt our abilities to predict or control these consequences.
Never forget that the primary and secondary climate consequences listed below are critical and powerful warning signs to watch for in the news to know that our climate change emergency is accelerating and worsening in your area and, that you should act before it is too late.
When reading the climate change primary and secondary consequence lists, keep in mind that the consequences listed earlier on the lists are occurring now or will be occurring first. The consequences listed near the end of the lists will take longer to unfold.
And finally, no single global warming consequence listed below by itself creates global collapse, complete human extinction, or our doomsday entirely. But, cumulatively, synergistically and over time, as the primary and secondary climate consequences below increase and unfold in continuous waves, if left unchecked, they will bring about Climageddon, our global warming doomsday, and extinction.
The primary climate change consequences and warning signs to watch to protect you, your family and your immediate and long-term future
While reading the following 32 mostly natural primary global warming consequences listed below, keep in mind, there are also secondary consequences and warning signals. This secondary set of consequences and warning signals (further down) will show you how the mostly natural global warming consequences will directly affect you and your loved one's future wellbeing and survival. In addition, the secondary consequences will illustrate what will happen to humanity as the global warming consequences unfold and interact with our 11 other global crises.
As you read through the primary and secondary consequences, it will become clear to you how our economic, ecological, social, and political systems will destabilize and come ever closer to collapse. Taken collectively, the primary and secondary consequences and warning signs of accelerating global warming will give you a high-level, meta-systemic view of humanity's future.
Where applicable, for both primary and secondary consequences we have also listed what we call panic-worthy or mega warning signs. Although we do not want you to ever panic, these particular mega warning signs mean things are worsening very fast even exponentially and you have very little time left to prepare and adapt.
The primary phase one mostly natural climate change consequences and warning signs:
The primary climate change consequences have already begun. They will become exponentially worse once we enter the carbon 425-450 ppm threshold.
Above carbon 450 ppm, we enter into climate hell. As you read the following list of consequences, keep in mind that the first nine primary consequences below will also have profound temporary and long-term effects on world travel, tourism, and world trade.
1. increased atmospheric heating which increases average global temperature, (This increased heat will cause many more days each summer and growing season that will be near or over 100 degrees. This increased heat will make all kinds of outdoor activities more difficult and less productive.)
Increased heat during winter seasons will also cause periodic rain in winter and dangerous freezing rain and ice storms. These winter ice and freezing rain storms will take down power lines and disrupt transportation, production, and life in general.
2. extreme storms of all kinds (hurricanes, tornadoes, Derechos, rain bombs, bomb cyclones, etc.) Regarding hurricanes, if you hear we have had a category six hurricane or, worse yet, a category seven hurricane, this is a panic-worthy mega warning sign. It means that things have taken a very steep turn toward the worst-case scenarios. (A category six hurricane starts at a wind speed of about 180 - 185 mph. A category seven hurricane would have winds of at least 210 - 215 mph. By this scale, Hurricane Dorian was our first category six hurricane.)
Think of more global warming like heat under a pressure cooker. The more heat the pot (Earth) gets the more the contents inside our atmosphere become more turbulent and churn and "boil" onto extreme storms of ALL kinds.
Because of the direct and indirect churning and boiling-off effects of increasing global warming heat, there is now anywhere from 5 to 8% more water vapor circulating throughout the world's atmosphere than just a generation ago. This increased water vapor, combined with temperatures that are driving water up from the deep ocean in places where hurricanes typically form, has created the ideal potential for the next generation of monster hurricanes, for which we are totally unprepared. So when you start seeing category six hurricanes hitting different parts of the world, you will know the future of humanity is in deep peril.
Rain bombs (when days or weeks' worth of rain falls in hours or days) will start occurring everywhere. These rain bombs will be particularly destructive in cities where older street drainage systems will be quickly overwhelmed. These rain bombs will unexpectedly flood areas of cities that have never flooded before.
3. droughts, (many areas of the world are currently experiencing global warming-aggravated mega-droughts that have lasted one or more decades.)
4. desertification,
5. increasing wildfires, Global wildfires burn roughly 865 million acres of land each year —an area five times larger than the size of Texas. Wildfires are expected to become more frequent and intense, and fire seasons are projected to last longer.
In the United States, approximately 7 to 9 million acres burn each year. Some studies predict a 50 to 100 percent increase in area burned in the United States by 2050, with the most severe changes occurring in Western states. It is reasonable to project that global wildfires will also increase 50 to 100 percent in areas burned. Global wildfires will cost humanity in the range of 1/trillion dollars annually by 2050.
The greatest cost of global wildfires accelerating in acres burned as global warming increases is not financial. Instead, it will be in the millions of tons of carbon that these wildfires release into the atmosphere beyond what we are already releasing annually due to our current fossil fuel uses.
In 2019 global forest fires released about 7.5 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. As global forest fires increase by 50-100%, this extra carbon released into the atmosphere will further quickly push up global temperatures once again. This 50-100 % increase in global forest fires is another panic-worthy mega warning signal if you see global wildfires rising rapidly to the 50-100% levels.
6. shrinking sea ice and ice shelves, glaciers, and snowpack, (This further destabilize seasonal climates and many biological systems,)
7. increasing flooding and sea-level rise. (If we are very, very lucky and we keep crossing climate tipping points as we are doing now, sea levels will rise by only 2-4 or more feet (2/3 meter to 1 and 1/3 meter) by 2050 and 4-10 feet (1 and 1/3 meter to 3 and 1/3 meters) by 2100.
Fifty percent of the global population lives at sea level. Based upon an unrealistically low 3-inch sea-level rise prediction, the chart below shows hundreds of millions of people will be displaced. This displacement will create massive migrations that no country is prepared to absorb.
Sea levels rising as little as one foot will cause immediate massive property losses worldwide and then the sudden migration of hundreds of millions away from coastal areas. A sea-level rise of 2 feet or more will cause billions of coastal dwellers' to migrate. Worse yet, we are totally unprepared to abandon many of the world's largest coastal cities.
The illustration below does not include compensating calculations for crossing any climate tipping points. This lack of allowance for climate tipping points means the cities illustrated below will flood far faster than is shown below. Many of the worst sea-level flooding catastrophes are now just a few decades away!
Moreover, if we do not make radical global fossil fuel use reductions soon, the sea level will eventually rise about 230 feet over the next few centuries. If that was not bad enough, we have already baked-in 60-100 feet (20-30 meters) of sea-level rise. This baked-in rise is from the carbon and methane we have put into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.
Massive sea-level rise is the vast, slow-moving global mega-catastrophe barrelling toward us. Currently, sea levels are rising by about 2 inches every decade, which is double what they rose just one decade ago! Suppose we add all the climate tipping points that will be crossed soon. In that case, sea levels will continue increasing exponentially and not gradually or linearly!
The illustration below also does not factor in any crossed climate tipping points. As a result, its worst-case scenario in red is likely considerably underestimated.
When you see sea levels start rising by anything close to an inch per year, you have reached another panic-worthy mega warning sign!
8. increased toxic air pollution and air pollution-related deaths and disease from the global burning and use of carbon and methane-based fossil fuels and other greenhouse gasses. Additionally, wildfire smoke (full of the most health dangerous PM 2.5 particles will increase 50-100% over the next several decades due to increasing heat and droughts.
Air pollution a key consequence of global warming often gets the least climate change attention, yet in many ways, it has the most impact on a personal level. This is because air pollution from fossil fuel burning is a slow and invisible cause of excruciatingly painful respiratory disease and death. It is also responsible for aggravating many other diseases.
Directly or indirectly, air pollution causes approximately 11 to 13% (about 1 in 8) of ALL global deaths each year. (About 60 million people die globally each year.) According to a recent World Health Organization survey, 40 percent of deaths linked to outdoor air pollution are from heart disease; another 40 percent from strokes; 11 percent from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); 6 percent from lung cancer, (30) and 3 percent from acute lower respiratory infections in children.
China has the most air pollution fatalities with nearly 1.4 million deaths a year. India has 645,000 and Pakistan has 110,000. To put this in perspective, air pollution kills more people each year than malaria and AIDS combined! Because air pollution supports weed growth, it is also a major accelerator of allergy attacks. It has been directly linked to asthma. Within the past 20 years, there has been an observed doubling of pediatric asthma prevalence.
This toxic air pollution also exacerbates pre-existing health conditions such as bronchitis and emphysema. Air pollution from fossil fuel burning also dramatically increases national and international health costs, and the burden for those increased health costs falls squarely upon individual taxpayers. Paul Epstein, with the Harvard School of Public Health, found that the hidden costs of burning fossil fuel coal in just the U.S. alone to be $345 billion per year!
The worst news is that in the future there will be many more than just the 1 in 8 global deaths attributed directly or indirectly to global warming and fossil fuel-related air pollution. Do not be surprised to see a 1 in 7 to a 1 in 5 global death rate in the future. This death rate increase will be related to increasing fossil fuel air pollution as the greenhouse gas amounts (carbon, methane, etc.) continue to rise in our atmosphere.
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9. ever-increasing starvation worldwide. This starvation will be primarily because of crop failures and crop yield reductions. Crops will fail or be stunted because of global warming aggravated heatwaves, rain bombs, droughts, flooding, wildfires, out-of-season cold spells, hail, Derechos (severe wind storms), and other extreme weather or seasonal destabilization.
Please note that the world's five principal grains (rice, wheat, maize [corn], millet, and sorghum) are particularly vulnerable to massive crop failure. This crop failure occurs when temperatures (heat waves) are near or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for more than 30 days during their regular growing seasons.
This increasing starvation will increase mass migration, which will cause even more mass starvation and soaring food prices. In addition, increased mass migrations will generate more local, regional, and national conflicts and economic instability.
Mass global starvation from crop failures and low harvests and its chain reaction of other downstream consequences will be the primary driver of the die-off of much of humanity by mid-century. Mass global starvation and resulting mass migrations also will be a significant underlying factor behind increasing local criminality. People desperate for food and resources will always do what they have to do to survive.
The global warming-triggered die-off of much of humanity will not occur all at once or suddenly around mid-century. It is happening already, and the global warming-fueled die-off will continue to kill more people every year for the next ten years on a rapidly rising linear curve. After that, each year, annual deaths will start to go up exponentially until by mid-century, 50% or more of humanity is no longer alive. (The UN estimated in 2020, up to 100 million people died from the direct and indirect consequences of global warming such as famine, migrations, and conflicts.)
One of the other things that also will worsen global starvation will be panic food buying and hoarding. Panic buying waves would likely occur as more people saw major crop failures, local food prices soaring, or regional food distribution failing.
Falling crop yields, growing local, regional, and national crop failures, and soaring food prices will lead to increased starvation at levels never seen before. This food issue is a critical mega-warning sign of quickly rising instability in social and economic systems! So keep a very close watch on lowered crop yields and crop failures in the news as well as in your grocery bills.
10. Increasing deaths and debilitating illnesses from the toxic plastic by-products of fossil fuels. As plastics produced from fossil fuels decay, they eventually become toxic micro-particles. These harmful microplastic particles are turning up in soils, water, and oceans to such a degree they are found in most fish and much of the plants and animals we eat.
This microplastic particle explosion is terrible for long-term human health. New studies show that these strange microplastic particles cannot be adequately processed by our bodies and are sources of cancers and other illnesses. As more research is done on our food and water supplies, it may turn out that this toxic microplastic by-product of fossil fuel will create more long-term problems than the poisonous carbon and other atmospheric pollution it produces when we burn fossil fuels.
The primary phase two mostly natural climate change consequences and warning signs:
11. we cross the mass extinction-accelerating carbon 425 parts per million (ppm) last battle line to prevent a mass human extinction event from unfolding. This crossed battle line begins a major acceleration for crossing more critical global warming tipping points even faster.
Once we cross the carbon 425 ppm tipping point, we pass a point of no return and we begin an unavoidable and continually worsening die-off of much of humanity by mid-century!
If we continue as we are now, we are projected to cross the carbon 425 ppm level by or before 2025.
If we cross the carbon 425 ppm level we will rapidly shoot through the 2 degrees Celcius global temperature increase level and we will be unable to stop ourselves from eventually reaching a 4 degrees Celcius global temperature increase level. (If you want all of the details on this first critical atmospheric carbon tipping point level go to this page and to the section called, "The first extinction-accelerating tipping point that we will cross at or before 2025: the carbon 425-450 ppm tipping point.")
The distinguished Professor of Meteorology Michael Mann from the University of Pennsylvania recently stated that once we reach the carbon 405 ppm level in our atmosphere, a 2 degrees C average global temperature increase is already baked in! Once that happens there is nothing we can do to stop it!
Because of global warming tipping points and positive feedback loops, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director emeritus and founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, believes that if we go much above 2° C, we will quickly get to 4° C anyway and, a 4° C increase would spell the end of human civilization.
Johan Rockström, the head of one of Europe's leading climate research institutes, warned that in a 4°C warmer world, it would be "difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that. Not even a rich minority world survive with modern lifestyles in the post 4°C-warmer turbulent, conflict-ridden world".
Many other climate scientists have warned that once the climate warms 4 degrees C over our preindustrial average global temperature, human adaptation to these temperature levels will be all but impossible!
We are just about to cross the carbon 425 ppm tipping point that will rapidly take us to a 4 degree Celcius warmer world and all its horrors! Also, take a look at the atmospheric carbon (CO2) ppm graph just below. This graph tells us our global warming temperature future and that we have made literally no progress in reducing atmospheric carbon levels in spite of 40 years of valid scientific warnings!
This rise is in carbon is also happening in spite of the 20 plus past global climate conferences and decades of international government agreements to reduce global fossil fuel use!
12. increased releases of methane from melting tundra and permafrost, (methane as a heat-producing greenhouse gas is about 80 times more powerful than carbon in the atmosphere,) If you hear about a sudden massive increase in permafrost melting far beyond what was predicted this is another mega warming sign.
The atmospheric methane (CH4) graph below is in parts per billion.
13. accelerating reef collapses around the world, which negatively affects fish spawning and feeding areas, which causes more collapse of global fish populations, which causes more human starvation around the world. (This is because fish protein is a major source of food for up to 70% of the world's poorer populations.)
14. new disease outbreaks, epidemics, and more COVID-19 like pandemics in areas where they have never been before. (This is due to loss of natural animal habitat, eating more wild animals, additional melting of the permafrost, overcrowding, less resilient health systems, and mass migrations. Because of accelerating global warming consequences, we could soon be experiencing COVID-19 type pandemics as often as every decade.)
15. increasing economic losses. (most nations will spend an ever-increasing percentage of their total gross domestic product (GDP) directly or indirectly paying for the many growing consequences of the global warming emergency. (Estimates for how much of a nation's total GDP will be spent on dealing with rising global warming consequences run from about 5% within a decade to as high as 30% within about 30 years.)
16. increased ocean acidification, (Ocean heating and ocean acidification from carbon from global warming will eventually kill off much of the oceans' oxygen-producing plankton. These plankton are responsible for as much as 50% of all oxygen produced on the planet.)
17. decreased albedo from reduced snow cover, ice, and sea ice extent. When enough sunlight and atmospheric heat reaches ice it melts the ice. This also causes more Arctic, Antarctica, and global heat because of the lowered albedo effect of less ice being present. This decreased albedo effect also increases ice, wetland, or permafrost melting. (See Albedo effect illustration below.)
This is very bad because melting permafrost contains truly massive amounts of carbon and the much worse than carbon methane gas that would also be released into our atmosphere, raising average global temperatures and pushing us much closer and far faster into a self-accelerating runaway global heating scenario.
If you hear about far more artic ice being melted or melted far sooner or longer than expected, this is another mega warning sign because the ice presence and its albedo effect have a powerful influence on global weather, weather seasonality, and critical ocean currents. If you see the preceding happening faster than expected, you can rely upon all types of weather becoming more extreme, unpredictable, and frequent.
The primary phase three climate change consequences and warning signs:
18. as the preceding consequences occur, real estate prices will drop and then begin steeper declines in the areas most affected by global warming consequences. In the areas most affected by global warming consequences, related insurance coverage prices will keep rising, and cancellations will also increase.
Simultaneously, real estate prices will rise and continue rising in the few areas that will be least affected by accelerating global warming consequences. As the listed global warming consequences increase in frequency, severity and scale, the described destabilizing real estate pricing and the unsettling insurance changes will increase at even faster rates.
19. as the preceding consequences occur, home and business insurance rates will rise steadily in the areas most affected by global warming consequences. At some point, insurance companies will begin canceling existing home and business insurance within all global warming high-risk areas. At the same time, home and business insurance rates will be much more favorable in the few places that will be least affected by accelerating global warming consequences.
As more global warming consequences occur, home and business insurance rates and insurance cancelations will increase at even faster rates. When home and business owners can't get fire, flood, and other critical insurances at manageable rates, it becomes far more challenging to maintain or sell existing homes or businesses. This growing uninsurability eventually causes the resale prices of homes or businesses to crash.
20. increased clean drinking water scarcity,
21. forests that were a major stabilizing force absorbing carbon become neutral in their carbon absorption. This means these forests will stop taking in carbon from the atmosphere.
Some forest locations like the Amazon and the Boreal die-back/collapse are already releasing their vast carbon stores, pushing temperatures higher even faster. As global warming worsens, many more forests will begin releasing carbon instead of absorbing it. (It is not just forests that take in carbon from the atmosphere. Other global vegetation can do the same thing. This new study estimates that the ability of our global vegetation to take in atmospheric carbon will drop by 50% by 2040. This is decades ahead of earlier predictions.) This change from forests and vegetation taking in carbon to releasing mass amounts of carbon is another mega warning sign.
22. mass human migrations to the global warming safer zones. In 2019 the United Nations estimated 100 million individuals migrated from high-risk areas to safer countries or areas because of their homelands' deteriorating climate. Look for future climate migrations to soar to billions of people over the following decades. These massive accelerating migrations will create a whole series of new problems and emergencies unseen in human history. (You will also hear about these mass migrations more frequently in the news. They will often be described as "conflict" migrations. These actually are mass migrations initially caused by the global warming consequences you are reading about, which making living conditions impossible or unbearable. These dire conditions then cause the local population to react or rebel because of their many accelerating global warming-enhanced hardships.),
The primary phase four climate change consequences and warning signs:
23. The runaway melting of ALL global ice on Earth is the second major global warming tipping point. It is estimated to occur when we reach carbon 500 ppm sometime from 2042 to 2067.
When we cross the carbon 500 ppm level, ALL ice and ALL glaciers on Earth will enter a near-unstoppable process of a complete meltdown! Yes, you read that right! At carbon 500 ppm we begin the melting of all global ice.
Crossing the carbon 500 ppm threshold has, in fact, repeatedly happened in Earth's geological history. When it has occurred, the sea level inevitably rose to the 70 meters (230 feet) range. At our current annual carbon ppm emission rates, we will reach this catastrophic carbon 500 ppm range in just 20-25 more years. Worse yet, this global melting tipping point may not reverse itself for centuries to thousands of years once we stop carbonizing our atmosphere.
If we cross that critical tipping point passing the atmospheric carbon level of 500 parts per million (ppm), our average global temperature will eventually soar to 4°C (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit). At 4°C, a large portion of humanity (hundreds of millions to billions) will die of global warming caused by crop failure and other global warming-related caused starvation (or die and suffer from increased heat's 19 other related consequences) and, governments and society will collapse in most areas of the world between the 35th parallel north and the 35th parallel south.
Even though it will take many centuries for the seas to rise the full 230 feet, there still will be shocking spurts of sea-level rise within those centuries where the sea level rise up to 10 feet or more in just a few decades as it also has done repeatedly in Earth's past.
Take a moment to visualize the seas eventually but steadily and in spurts rising 230 feet and what this will mean to our coastal cities, our national borders, and the generations that follow us. Take a moment to visualize the ever-increasing massive worldwide crop failures because of the ever-increasing heat and the consequent mass suffering of slow starvation as we approach and pass the carbon 500 ppm level.
To read the precise, detailed, and complex climate processes, steps, actions, and reactions that take place as we cross the carbon 500 ppm tipping point, please go to this page and go to the section called, "The second global warming tipping point that we will cross as soon as 2042-2067 or earlier: It creates a runaway global ice melt." (We are currently in 2021 at about carbon 420 adding an average of 3 new carbon PPM per year.)
Long before the world reaches the carbon 550 ppm extinction-accelerating tipping point, there will be smaller but key melting glaciers to watch for in the news. One of them is the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica, often called the Doomsday glacier. Scientists recently predicted Thwaites could break away into the sea in as little as the next five years.
Suppose Thwaites does soon cross key internal tipping points and breaks off and slides into the sea, and the glaciers behind it start breaking off into the sea. In that case, it will lead to as much as a 10-foot sea-level rise in just a matter of decades.
This 10-foot sea-level rise will not happen because of the immense size of the Thwaites glacier itself. Instead, it will happen because once the Thwaites glacier is in the ocean, it will no longer hold and prevent other large glaciers from sliding off the Antarctic mountains into the sea in an unstoppable chain reaction.
When the Thwaites glacier slides into the ocean, we have crossed a major climate destabilizing tipping point. When Thwaites breaks off, it is your mega warning sign that global warming consequences will get far worse very fast, and many other climate tipping points will soon be crossed! It is a final warning to get your emergency preparations or relocation adaptations in order unless you want to try to prepare or adapt in the middle of an emergency when everyone else is also desperately trying to get whatever they need. So take a second, and try to imagine what a sudden 10-foot global sea rise over a few decades will do to coastal communities and cities worldwide.
There are other dangerous large melting Antarctica glaciers (Larson A, or Larson B) and other melting Greenland glaciers that individually or collectively can of themselves or collectively raise global seal level from a few inches to several feet. These glacier events will also lead to increasing coastal global catastrophes.
When you hear about even these smaller glaciers reaching their tipping points, are just about to break off, or do break off, it is time to get VERY concerned. These events signal that the interconnected and interdependent "soup" of global warming-related consequences you are reading on this page is about to get a whole lot worse very fast!
Giant Melting glaciers sliding off of their landmasses into the sea is most likely the first and near the worst set of crossed tipping points, you will soon hear more about in the news. Worse yet, there is no fix for these sudden and glacier-driven unstoppable sea level rises once they occur.
It is important to remember that whenever you hear about a tipping point being crossed in one part of the climate system, you can count on it feeding, pushing, and triggering other climate tipping points over their tipping points. (For an overview of the 11 key climate tipping points and how tipping points occur and unfold, click here.
24. increased animal and insect migrations,
25. loss of biodiversity through more extinctions,
26. at some point, the "big single consequence," major crossed climate tipping point, or a group of global warming consequences will occur. This group of global warming consequences will be so enormous that the extinction emergency can no longer be ignored. It will take a single global warming catastrophe in a developed country that will cause that society 1/2 to 1 trillion dollars in total damages for the world to finally take this seriously and act.
When this 1/2 to 1 trillion dollar catastrophe happens, far more people globally will take notice and finally begin preparing for further predicted worsening disasters or migrating if needed. Once this single incident financial critical cost point is reached, the facts of the escalating Climageddon that we all will face will no longer be able to be hidden from the average citizen.
Be sure to watch for this critical financial mega warning signal because once it occurs, many things relating to managing global warming and its consequences will begin to change at a much faster pace. But unfortunately, it will likely be far too late to resolve the worst threats.
27. jet stream disruption, (additional disruption of seasonal weather patterns,) Shifting jet streams will act to significantly change long-established weather patterns. This is already being witnessed in many areas of the world where the normal rains, snowfall, and seasonal temperatures are becoming more unpredictable and extreme.
In what may sound like a paradox, global warming will also produce cold waves in some areas due to the changing location of jet streams and ocean currents. In some areas, winter storms have already become more frequent and intense.
28. oceans overheating and instead of absorbing atmospheric carbon, they begin releasing it (which also further increases global heating, all of which results in more heat speeding up the whole process of more positive feedback loops, more points of no return, and more crossed tipping points.)
29. soils overheating and instead of absorbing atmospheric carbon, this will cause the soils to also begin releasing more carbon back into the atmosphere further increasing heat,
30. slowing continues in the Atlantic Current. This further destabilizes global weather and our normal hot, cold, rainy, winter, summer seasons. (8.6.2021 update: New research shows the Atlantic current has destabilized. This current destabilization will radically change stable weather patterns, particularly in Europe, but also in other areas near the current.) This is also a mega warning sign because of the radical weather and seasonal temperature changes this current slow down will bring.
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31. increasing amounts of methane are already being continuously released from methane clathrate crystals on coastal shelves because of ever-warming oceans. This will be the third major global warming tipping point. This third tipping point is also the point where we begin the process of total extinction!
This methane release from methane clathrate crystals further increases heat, and probable ocean current changes, which will result in even more extreme weather changes, all of which once again results in more global heat speeding up the whole process of more positive feedback loops, more points of no return, and crossing more dangerous tipping points.
The carbon 600 ppm level creates the beginning of a runaway mass methane release tipping point from methane clathrate crystals and the beginning of our total extinction. It is estimated to occur sometime from 2063-2072 or when we reach carbon 600 ppm, whichever comes sooner.
When we cross the carbon 600 ppm final extinction level, it will result in raising the average global temperature to 5°C (9 degrees Fahrenheit) and bring about even more massive methane clathrate releases from ocean coastal shelves as it has done before in the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum 56 million years ago, and most notably the Permian–Triassic extinction event, when up to 96% of all marine species became extinct, about 252 million years ago.
Please click here to watch a short video that brilliantly explains the methane extinction process once we start releasing methane clathrate from our coastal shelves.
New research shows we actually begin this new ocean shelf methane release process once we reach just 5°C and by 6°C, it is in full bloom.
To make matters even worse, additional methane releases from the permafrost will also increase at significantly faster rates at these higher global temperatures.)
Because methane, when released as a gas from permafrost, coastal shelves or fracking is 86 times more potent than carbon as a temperature-increasing greenhouse gas, it will once again rapidly spike up the average global temperatures.
See how we have also radically increased the amounts of methane we have released into the atmosphere just like we have done with carbon in the graph below. (CH4 is the chemical name of methane.)
The above is a methane graph (found at https://www.methanelevels.org) in which you can see how total atmospheric methane levels from all sources have exponentially skyrocketed particularly during the last 50 years up until the current date and month. Increasing atmospheric methane may be the most dangerous mega warning sign that our governments are not adequately tracking or making public!
(Please take the time to read the precise, detailed, and complex processes, steps, actions, and reactions that take place as we cross the carbon 600 ppm tipping point. Go to this page and go to the section called, "The third global warming tipping point we will most probably cross as soon as 2063-2072 or earlier: It creates runaway methane releases accelerating the total extinction threat," or click the global methane level (CH4) image above.
When massive methane clathrate releases from ocean coastal shelves start occurring we are looking at the beginning of near-total or total human extinction unfolding before on near 2070.
32. massive tectonic plate weight change from weight changes in melting ice and rising seas above the tectonic plates causing increased earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, all of which except the earthquakes and volcanoes results in more heat speeding up the whole process of more positive feedback loops, more points of no return and crossing more tipping points.
33. The runaway global warming total extinction and final global warming tipping point. This global warming extinction tipping point is estimated to begin when we reach carbon 750 ppm sometime from 2070-2090. (Please read the precise, detailed, and complex climate processes, steps, actions, and reactions that take place as we cross the carbon 750 ppm tipping point. Go to this page and go to the section called, "The fourth and most dangerous global warming total extinction tipping point, that we will begin crossing into sometime after 2070: It creates the runaway greenhouse gas effect global and total extinction," or click the image of the atmosphere being ripped off the planet below.
We strongly recommend that you copy the above global warming emergency warming signs and consequences and post them on a wall. As you hear new media reports you will be able to see the consequence patterns evolving and this will assist you to adjust your emergency preparations.
What happens when most of our 12 global crises "feed" into each other's consequences and are amplified by global warming
Welcome to the rapidly unfolding first great global collapse.
The future is not just a single global crisis getting worse. It is most of the 12 crises getting worse simultaneously, and these individual global crises pushing other global crises faster and faster toward their internal tipping points. This cumulative and synergetic process of most of the 12 interconnected and often interdependent global crises pushing each other over their individual internal tipping points will produce a sudden and abrupt global collapse that will be all but impossible to recover from for almost all existing nations.
This worsening situation means that those living today (and future generations) will face a cascading convergence of worsening global catastrophes. These catastrophes collectively will crush the possibility of having a stable, predictable, or liveable future.
If left poorly managed as they are now, hundreds of millions then billions will suffer and die. Paradoxically, because so many will die, many of the above global crises will lessen dramatically or be radically reduced because there will be so few people left competing or fighting for survival or using fossil fuels.
There also could be a point where most of the coming mass human die-off will not be coming solely from starvation, global warming, or other global challenges. It will most likely come from scarce resources or border wars that could go nuclear, biological, or chemical as the remaining stable nations try to protect their boundaries and survival.
Take a few moments at this point. Ask yourself the following questions. How long do you think humanity can muddle on into the 21st century without effectively resolving the global warming doomsday emergency and the 11 other critical global challenges? Will we last until 2030, 2040, 2050, 2060, 2070, or the end of the 21st century? Most well-informed people think humanity will be lucky to make it into the 2040s or 2050s.
Now ask yourself, are our leaders and governments effectively handing all, most, or even any of these 12 critical global crises to our future?
The reality is that no existing emergency preparedness program, government, NGO, or international organization is even remotely close to being prepared for or capable of recovering from the convergence of Earth's greatest global crises fueled and accelerated by the great disruptor and keystone threat multiplier of accelerating global warming.
The "Great Convergence" of these 12 global challenges creates a whole planetary system emergency never before seen or experienced in human history. This "Great Convergence" is also the 'perfect storm of perfect storms' and the most likely spiraling initiator and combined cause for the extinction of the human species and the collapse of civilization within a few decades. (The latest 2004 update of the Club of Rome study anticipated that by around 2050, with a "business as usual" industry and the world population growth, over 70% of humanity could perish. Additionally, everyone left on the planet would be severely impacted.)
To help you understand only the global warming side of "Great Global Collapse," review the following global warming cascading meltdown illustration starting from the bottom up! Starting from the bottom, this illustration reflects the unfolding natural progression of ever-worsening and interacting consequences and tipping point processes that will occur as global warming continues to escalate pushing us toward our extinction.
The top of the illustration shows you the later phase Climageddon Scenario extinction model consequences. The bottom shows you the earlier consequences. For now just get a general idea of all the global warming consequences, tipping points, and human system factors that will be interacting and colliding as well as amplifying and multiplying each other as the Climageddon extinction scenario unfolds in phases and waves. (Full explanations of each tipping point and consequence are found here, the 11 key global warming tipping points and, here the 20 worst global warming consequences.)
Remember to start reviewing this illustration from the bottom up beginning with the heating of global warming escalating!
The above illustration help to illuminate how the Great Global Collapse will likely unfold and how it will affect everyone in its path In one way or another, directly or indirectly, as the above list of heat-driven global warming-related consequences increase in severity, frequency, and scale (because of our failure to meet the life-critical 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets.)
How human system related secondary global warming consequences will interact with, accelerate, and amplify our other 11 major global crises
The following more detailed secondary consequences will also occur as we grow closer to our doomsday for humanity and the collapse of global civilization. While you are reading the following secondary consequences, again imagine how these consequences might control or destroy essential areas of your life, family, business, or nation.
Most of the following secondary consequences are contextually interconnected and interdependent. Some also exist in transformational relationships and processes which will also amplify or multiply each other's consequences, or disrupt our abilities to control these consequences.
Many of the following secondary global warming consequences are already occurring today at some level. When reading the following global collapse secondary consequence list, keep in mind that the primary consequences listed earlier on the list are occurring now or will be occurring first. The secondary consequences listed near the end of the following list will take longer to unfold.
The more humanized secondary consequences listed below are also critical warning signs to watch for in the news for you to know that the global collapse process is worsening or accelerating in your area. Many of the following secondary global warming consequences are also powerful drivers that will accelerate mass migrations from high-risk areas.
The secondary more dangerous, quality-of-life consequences, warning signals, and predictions for your immediate and long term future
For most people, it is painful and challenging to grasp that "as bad as the primary consequences of global warming are (listed above,) the secondary consequences below (driven directly or indirectly by accelerating global warming) will be far worse!" This is because the secondary consequences will more directly affect and destabilize your day-to-day personal life.
Many of these secondary consequences are already occurring or will occur concurrently with many of the later primary consequences as they unfold! Imagine your worst visions of an expanding Mad Max-like dystopian world as the mass human extinction deepens. Imagine a world where police, mental health, prison, medical, governmental systems, and governments are collapsing or have collapsed.
Imagine roaming warlords, criminal gangs, and starving people fighting for survival, taking whatever they want whenever they want. That is a glimpse of the descending hell of the worsening secondary consequences that will unfold while the primary global warming consequences are also unfolding.
Here are the secondary and indirect consequences and warning signals of accelerating climate change:
1. Because of increased global warming and other global challenge-related work disruptions and stresses, the total human capacity to work outside of enclosures and even inside will go down significantly. This will cause more business and product distribution interruptions, business and personal uncertainty as well as more unemployment and homelessness.
2. As we experience the worsening of climate change-related consequences as described on this page, there will be more shortages of necessary raw and manufactured resources. Because of increasing climate-related work interruptions and the other climate consequences listed on this page, the dependable production and distribution of food, medical supplies, and other essential supplies will continue to be significantly reduced or break down entirely.
The critical thing to understand about shortages of raw and manufactured resources is that they bring out the worst in people. Resource shortages in populations have been shown in numerous studies to produce more competitiveness, aggression, polarization, "othering," and blame. When a population goes under the duress of resource shortages, they look for scapegoats to blame for their conditions and often target those "othered" scapegoats for severe retribution. These natural resource scarcity reactions will further make living conditions considerably worse.
Social, economic, and political polarization, which is already significant and widespread worldwide, may, of and by itself, use other worsening consequences on this page as a trigger for initiating massive civil disorder long before the worst climate consequences can unfold. To say the world is highly volatile right now and that many of its existing economic and political systems (listed above in the global crises section) are already weakened and that it won't take much of a match to explode global societal stability is a huge understatement.
As a result of the coming anticipated resource shortages and other problems listed, individuals, businesses, and nations will need to store far more emergency backup supplies, become far more resilient and adaptable, and in many cases begin directly producing their food and other critical supplies locally. (During the Covid pandemic, we saw this resource supply and distribution crisis occur in global, national, and even local manufacturing, supply, and distribution chains.)
3. There will be less food available from failed and shrinking food crops due to accelerating and escalating climate consequences. The factors that will wreak havoc on crops are; extreme heat lasting 30 days or more during the growing season; hail; wildfires; droughts; fields flooding for extended periods after planting or during the growing season due to rain bombs; high wind events like Derechos or hurricanes; nonseasonal weather; and other extreme weather which will continue to increase in frequency, severity, and scale. It cannot be emphasized enough that starvation far beyond anything we can envision today will be a leading and ever-escalating cause of increasing human death as we approach mid-century.
4. Food prices will rise considerably more than the normal cost of living increases. Most food costs will go up by an estimated 30% or more in the next 3-9-7 years! (For example, fish prices will rise considerably as the remaining over-stressed fish stocks are depleted to near extinction.
5. More and more people will be starving worldwide. No charity, NGO, or government agency responsible for emergencies and disaster recovery will ever be able to keep up with the costs of the food, housing, medical or other needs created by continuously escalating climate catastrophes as they continue to increase frequency, severity, and scale.
This starvation and increasing shortages of medical and other critical supplies will drive people to unfathomable violence to meet their survival needs. There will be intense anger because those who previously had adequate food and other essentials will no longer have those basic needs and stability. These starving individuals will also begin violent attacks on any groups, businesses, or governments they blame for their predicament.
6. The cost of living, for repair, maintenance, building, or rebuilding in the very limited global warming safer areas will continue to rise significantly. There will be more homelessness everywhere.
7. There will be increasing and more frequent pandemics, disease outbreaks, and epidemics as conditions worsen and health services are stretched thin.
8. There be rapidly increasing mass migrations of hundreds of millions then billions of starving, sick, and unemployed people fleeing from the many growing climate consequences and an ever-increasing number of unstable or collapsed economies or nations. (These individuals will soon accelerate their migrations out of Central and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia as temperatures continue to rise and conditions worsen faster in those areas.)
9. There will be widespread, survival-driven criminality by larger and larger portions of a starving, unemployed poor, homeless, or migrant population. (Imagine increasing numbers of desperate individuals and groups trying to stay alive by any means possible. Now imagine your favorite dystopian movie like Mad Max. This will give you a small taste of what the future struggle to stay alive will be like as most of the global challenges mentioned earlier continue to worsen.
10. Because of the growing survival-driven violence and criminality, migrations, and social and political chaos, governments will impose states of emergency, new draconian migration regulations, and martial law resulting in increased severe restrictions, suffering, and the loss of many hard-won human rights. Nations will be forced to become more military and totalitarian in their control of the population to deal with the growing starvation, chaos, and shortages of essential resources. Political society will regress to more authoritarian or tribal warlike leaders and governments as fear increases.
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The global warming safer nations above the 45th parallel will increasingly fortify their borders will walls and other defensive barricades. They will enhance and expand all other methods to keep the ever-rising hoards of starving desperate climagees from crossing their borders. Do not be surprised to see in the news that global warming safer nations start enacting increasing fines and prison sentences for anyone aiding, sheltering, or employing illegal climagees.
It is important to be aware that democracies can only exist and grow with an environmental surplus or sufficiency. Because of the many accelerating climate change-related consequences, democracies worldwide will be forced to become less democratic and more authoritarian. This political change in democracies will happen because climate change will continue to destroy valuable resources. With more destroyed or unusable resources, the world's population also will become significantly more competitive, more aggressive, and even more polarized than it is now.
11. As the social, economic, and political chaos spreads, it will trigger more regional, national, and international conflicts and conventional wars. Governments will eventually declare martial law as things deteriorate, and more human rights will be suspended. People in fear will rally behind any "strongman" or dictator who promises them food and security. In this chaotic environment, injustices and inequities will rise exponentially and make the atmosphere even worse. (Think of almost any current injustice or inequity and imagine what will happen to them in an even more unstable and resource-scarce social climate.)
After governments break down, warlords, tribes, clans, and criminal gangs will take control, and chaos will grow even greater.
As conflict conditions worsen, it also is highly probable that remaining regional, national, or international conflicts will also become nuclear, biological, or chemical conflicts. These conflicts will be directly due to increasing food and other resource scarcity, the scarcity of global warming-safe land, unstoppable mass migrations, and the many other consequences listed on this page. Desperate nations' nuclear, biological, or chemical warfare will probably end humanity long, long before the worst global warming extinction consequences can fully unfold.
Intensifying global conflicts due to the direct or indirect effects of global warming is another critical mega warning sign.
12. Things will get so bad that national and international courts worldwide will begin convicting and severely punishing individuals, corporations, and even governments of acts of commission or omission that directly or indirectly caused, contributed to, or enabled the ongoing climate change-related financial losses and mass human and biological extinction.
13. Because of both the worsening of the primary and secondary consequences in this document and the every-rising percentage of the GDP of countries having to go towards global warming consequence recovery and repair, first local, then regional, and then the national banks in the weaker nations will fail. Next, banks and national reserve banks in stronger national will also fail. Finally, even the largest multinational banking institutions will fall as smaller banks fail. As we approach the end, not even the World Bank, the IMF, or the richest national sovereign wealth funds and reserves will remain stable.
14. When all of the above items are taken collectively, it will cause even the strongest nations' economies and political systems to begin the economic and political collapse process.
15. Once many of the national governments have collapsed, the nuclear reactors, chemical, and biological weapons, and their manufacturing, service, and storage facilities will become compromised. This is because there will be no or few functioning national governments to maintain basic safe operations or security for these sites. Hundreds of millions will sicken and die as nuclear reactors go critical and meltdown spewing toxic radiation worldwide. Millions more will sicken as die from the additional releases of insecure biological weapons and toxic industrial chemicals. If too many nuclear reactors go critical and meltdown, the resulting radiation circling the planets will kill off everything.
16. As all of the above intensifies, human suffering and global deaths will continue to rise exponentially! Human deaths will eventually reach mass extinction and begin approaching the total extinction levels. What we have known to be national or global civilizations will collapse.
17. If there are any unlucky survivors after the Great Global Collapse, they will most likely enter a new Dark Age. But, this will not be like the Dark Age that occurred during the Middle Ages. It will be far worse because most of the natural resources that were available during the original Dark Age already will have been depleted, and much of the planet will be toxic. And finally,
18. If we do not experience total extinction in a complete runaway global warming event, and we make it through the post-collapse new Dark Ages. In that case, it will take centuries to thousands of years for nature and the climate system to come back into balance. Only then will the conditions suitable for humans to thrive once again exist-- if any humans are left at that time.
Hopefully, at this far distant time, any surviving bands, clans, tribes, or communities still functioning will have learned the first great global collapse lessons, and they will have changed their behaviors. They will now model the needed new behaviors, such as the principles of sustainable prosperity and the principles of evolutionary success, among other new possible policies to finally resolve all of the issues raised in the global challenges described above.
If these survivors have genuinely learned the lessons from the first great global collapse of civilization, they will develop a new worldview and new fairer economic, political, and social systems. This new worldview will provide the tools and opportunity for a tremendous new re-building and reboot of humanity.
Humanity will have an opportunity to experience a unique renaissance where humankind and nature come into a balance that allows both to flourish once again. Whatever is left of humanity will hopefully once again, restart the greatest evolutionary adventure in our history.
No one in their right mind would even want to try to survive all of the physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma that the above climate consequences will rain down on those unlucky enough to survive the first levels of this extinction process. The above is not survivable in any way one could call living, and the above will become unsurvivable and unbearable long before the worse consequences occur.
Yet, despite everything you have read so far, some ultra-wealthy individuals still believe they can somehow survive all of the above climate change-triggered or climate-interconnected consequences. Click here to see the special place of suffering in climate change hell that these foolish individuals will be creating for themselves!
Fasten your seat belts. Strap on your shoulder harness and put on your helmets. We are entering the extreme turbulence of the beginning of a global collapse process. The COVID-19 pandemic and the current global recession/depression are just a very small beginning of it.
Unfortunately, it is going to get a whole lot worse before our governments take our current emergency situation seriously and act! The baby boomers (born from 1946 to 1964) are likely to be the last generation that will experience any near-continuous measure of stability, security, and safety during their lifespans. But even they will have a very rough ride as they approach the end of their years.
One could easily call all of the primary and secondary consequences of the global warming emergency a perfect definition for the new emotional malady many are calling a feeling of climate doom. And finally, we strongly recommend that you copy these global collapse warming signs and consequences and post them on a wall. As you hear new media reports you will be able to see the patterns evolving and this will assist you to adjust your emergency preparations. This will help manage any feelings of climate doom you might be feeling.
What you can still do about what you have just read
Click here and read about the four most common decision options that individuals make once they understand the consequences of climate change. This four-option decision tree will also lead you to different climate action strategies tailored to your circumstances and resources.
For More Consequence Information
See this page for longer explanations of many of the primary consequences of climate change.
Click this page for the specific climate change consequence predictions for 2022.
Additional References
Reference Topic 1: We have been given the far lower incorrect global fossil fuel reduction targets by fossil fuel compromised "trusted" authorities. Learn why you can't believe the so-called world's leading authority on climate change (the UN IPCC) for legitimate global fossil fuel reduction targets or their consequence predictions and timetables:
Click here to understand the long-term history of the IPCC underestimating the consequences, timeframes, and the needed global fossil fuel reduction targets by as much as 20-40% or more.
Click here to see the eleven key climate change tipping points that have been mostly excluded from the IPCC calculations on how much fossil fuel use we must reduce each year globally.
Click here to see the four key reasons why the IPCC's 26 global climate conferences have failed to produce results or legitimate global fossil fuel reduction targets.
Click here to see the REAL 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets and why we must get close to a 75% reduction in total global fossil fuel use (oil, natural gas, coal, etc.) by 2025, not the far, far less net-zero emission levels they have pledged by 2050 or 2040! (In the technical notes at the bottom of the 2025 fossil fuel reduction specification page, you will see each calculation and compensation for the various factors that make up the required correct global fossil fuel reduction numbers.)
Click Here to learn about the IPCC's most dangerous of all deficiencies called the climate change computer modeling Perfect Day problem.
Click here to see precisely how the IPCC "cooked the books" and grossly skewed the current IPCC global fossil fuel reduction calculations by including unproven and non-existent "carbon sucking unicorn" technology into their projections.
To see the many mass mobilization actions our governments must now take to get close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets and save humanity from near-total extinction, click here.
Reference Topic 2: How can the probability (or even the possibility) of a soon-arriving near-total human extinction be accurate?
Click here to see a detailed "big picture" catastrophic meltdown of our global warming consequences and tipping points. Their interactions with our other 11 major global crises will produce starvation and extinction for much of humanity by mid-century and near-total extinction beginning as soon as 2070.
Click here to see the four major global warming extinction-evoking tipping points and how close we are to crossing them. The first tipping point of carbon 425-450 ppm will explain precisely why climate change consequences will start growing exponentially in about 3-9 years.
Reference Topic 3: What governments must do to save the future
It is time to also call for global warming legal accountability, the immediate termination of all global fossil fuel subsidies, and placing a worldwide price for all corporations on their carbon, methane, and other greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.
Click here to learn more about the Fee and Dividend carbon pricing and other critical actions our governments and corporations must immediately take to reach the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets.
Reference Topic 4: The deep causes of this whole climate catastrophe mess
To understand the most profound reasons behind our current global warming emergency and our 11 other most dangerous global crises, please get the book Overshoot. In it, you can learn about the concept of the Earth's carrying capacity (the land and sea acreage available and needed for any given population's critical survival needs.)
Reference Topic 5: Miscellaneous
Click here to see the 10 most important facts about climate change.
Click here to see the 10 most misunderstood and dangerous facts about climate change.
Click here and read our Job One for Humanity policy on the necessary disruption of all false or dangerous climate, global warming, and environmental acts or ideas.
Please continue to educate yourself about these life-critical climate issues by exploring the documentation and analysis found on this website.
To help do something about the climate change and global warming emergency, click here.
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