Unbearable heat

A new study which appeared in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that unbearable heat may lie just 50 years away. This would not be because we have been sent to hell but because a billion people around the Earth will either be displaced or forced to endure immense suffering as a result of the rise in the global temperature. With emissions increasing, areas which currently house a third of the world’s population may become as hot as the hottest parts of the Sahara within 15 years, scientists warn.

The best outcome would be that 1.2 billion people will fall outside the comfortable climate zone in which humans have thrived for 6,000 years and which stands at around 6 degrees centigrade to 28 degrees centigrade. This temperature is considered ideal for human health and food production. But due to man-made global heating, there is a possibility that the majority of humanity could end up living in conditions which the authors of the scientific study suggest are ‘near unlivable’. They say that they were themselves stunned by the magnitude of the findings and the fact that there could be more change in the next 15 years than in the past 6,000. This would obviously have a huge impact on human habitats, crop patterns and the ecology. While a small number of people may have the use of air conditioning, climate adaptable clothing and other means to cope with the change, the majority will live inside a climate niche that is rapidly moving towards creating an entirely new situation on our planet.

While there have been warnings of global warming for many years and by many different scientific organisations, this latest study draws attention to the speed and scale at which the change could come. We should try to imagine, as the heatwave hits many of our cities, what the situation would be like if climates were to rise by another ten or more degrees. The authors say policymakers must work together to accelerate emission cuts because each degree of warming that can be avoided could save a billion people from falling out of humanity’s climate comfort zone. They point out that only if we begin now would it be possible to protect our children against the potentially enormous social tensions the projected change could invoke as mass migration and conflict for livable space increases. Of course, the projected climate change would also result in the extinction of species and would envelope 1.2 billion people in India, 485 million in Nigeria and more than a 100 million each in Pakistan, Indonesia and Sudan. Enormous pressures will be placed on the food production system. The study should shock the world and its leaders into taking action. If they do not, it seems Hell may just be created by humans themselves.