Climate
change
can really turn into a catastrophe for the whole of humanity: we must therefore prepare for
the worst scenarios
, ranging from the decimation of the world population to the extinction of man, focusing research efforts on
four crucial issues
, namely
hunger and malnutrition
,
extreme weather events
,
wars
and vector-
borne diseases
(such as ticks and mosquitoes).
This appeal is launched by an international group of experts led by the University of Cambridge, in the study published in the journal of the American Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The researchers in particular ask the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to dedicate a report to their most extreme consequences, to
spur the scientific community
and
inform citizens
.
"There are many reasons to believe that climate change can become catastrophic, even at modest warming levels," says the study's first author, Luke Kemp of the University of Cambridge.
“Climate change has played a role in every mass extinction event.
It favored the fall of empires and shaped history.
The modern world also seems to have adapted to a particular climatic niche.
Disaster is not achieved only by the direct consequences of high temperatures, such as extreme weather events.
Ripple effects
such as
financial crises
,
conflicts
and
new epidemics
could trigger other calamities and prevent recovery from potential disasters such as nuclear war. "
The
models
used by experts indicate that
areas of extreme heat
(those with an average annual temperature of over 29 degrees, where today about 30 million people live between the Sahara and the Gulf coast) could extend so far as to affect as many as two billion people. by 2070. "These temperatures and their social and political consequences will directly affect two nuclear powers and seven maximum containment laboratories that house the most dangerous pathogens: there is a strong possibility of disastrous knock-on effects", underlines one of the authors of the study, Chi Xu of the University of Nanjing.
