KILLING THE WORLD // Collective
From 8th may 2018
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Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time and puts additional pressure on our societies and the environment. From changing weather patterns, which threaten food production, to rising sea levels, which increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the effects of climate change are global and unprecedented in scale.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was created by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide an objective source of scientific information, concluded in 2013 that: climate change is real and human activities are its main causes.
2017 was, in climate terms, a year of disasters and extreme events. The summer was one of the hottest since data was available and the record for the highest temperature ever set was broken: the 47.3 degrees Celsius that they suffered on July 19 in Montoro, Cordoba (the previous record was highest in 1994 in Murcia, with 47.2 degrees). It was not the only day that was suffocating, nor was Spain the only country to break its records. Australia, especially Sydney and Brisbane, reached unusually high temperatures. Also California, in the United States. On the other hand, at the end of December, the United States and Canada froze to unprecedented levels. A fierce cold snap in the Arctic caused the thermometer in Minnesota to drop to -42 degrees.
At this point, almost all experts agree that all of these phenomena, including three top-tier hurricanes, are due to climate change.
We may believe that these changes will not affect us, that they will not be that bad, but the brutal reality of what we have done and are doing to the planet has reached us.
Cape Town, South Africa, the second largest city in the South African country, with four million inhabitants, set off the alarm by announcing, in February of this year, that it is a few months away from becoming the first city in the world without running water for the daily supply of its population.
The city’s been on the countdown to day zero for months. Four million people will be supplied with water by 180 tanker trucks with a daily capacity of 25 litres. A very small amount, considering that only a 2-minute shower consumes 20 litres and another 5 litres are needed to feed itself.
