Has Climate Change Reached A Crisis Point?

CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE BIGGEST THREAT WE’RE FACING—PERIOD.

by Heather Goldstone

AN EMERGENCY IS AN URGENT life-threatening situation that is actionable. If you have an extreme threat and it’s completely unactionable, it’s not an emergency. It’s just a tragedy. That’s a really important distinction when it comes to climate change, which is an actionable emergency. Recently, a group of about 14,000 scientists published a signed re-declaration that we’re in a climate emergency.

There is extensive science that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are completely unprecedented. Carbon dioxide levels have not been this high in over 800,000 years. Modern humans have been around for a little bit less than half that. If you look at the last 10,000 years,