In a recent climate change study, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that a "rapid and deep" reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is required to keep global warming within the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold.
The 1.5 degree Celsius temperature goal was set during the 2015 Paris Agreement, but the analysis states that we are still a long way from meeting it.
According to the analysis, if climate regulations are not strengthened, greenhouse gas emissions will result in a median worldwide warming of roughly 3.2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
After the IPCC report, an estimated 1,000 scientists from more than 25 countries staged demonstrations demanding that world leaders do far more to reduce climate-warming emissions. A handful of researchers were arrested for blocking traffic on the I-395 highway in Washington, D.C., and locking themselves to the White House gate as well as the front door of the JPMorgan Chase bank in Los Angeles.
The events were part of a huge movement identified as the Scientist Rebellion, and the letter below was written by the group as a whole.
“Current actions and plans are grossly inadequate, and even these obligations are not being met. The rate of environmental destruction closely tracks economic growth, which leads to us extracting more resources from Earth than are regenerated.”
Peter Kalmus, a NASA climate scientist, was arrested along with three others in a Los Angeles protest on April 6. That day Peter expressed his fears for his children's future, as well as urged leaders to stop the expansion, and funding of fossil fuels.
Last week, in a letter to President Biden, Kalmus and more than 250 other scientists demanded that the administration immediately cease all new oil, gas infrastructure, and extraction in the United States.
Listen to Scientists now!
"I am not sure this is our last chance, but time is definitely running out," Jordan Cruz, an environmental engineer in Ecuador, writes to the AFP’s Marlowe Hood in an email.