Inevitable regardless of action

Even if we turned it around right this second the sea levels would still rise. Also: we’re not turning it around right this second. We’re not even slowing it.

Research based on satellite measurements of ice losses from Greenland and the shape of the ice cap from 2000-19 has allowed scientists to calculate how the climate crisis has pushed the ice sheet from an equilibrium where snowfall matches the ice lost.

They found that a minimum 10.6in sea-level rise is inevitable regardless of action to limit carbon emissions after 110tn tonnes of the Greenland ice cap melted. A multi-metre sea-level rise also appears likely as the trajectory of environmental damage continues.

“The minimum of 27cm is the sea-level rise deficit that we have accrued to date and it’s going to get paid out, no matter what we do going forward,” said Dr William Colgan, from the National Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (Geus). “Whether it’s coming in 100 years or 150 years, it’s coming. And the sea-level rise we are committed to is growing at present, because of the climate trajectory we’re on.”

We’re too clever and not clever enough. We’re so clever we invent all these technologies, and we’re so unclever we can’t stop using them even when it becomes clear we’re destroying our own habitat.

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