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Here is an excerpt from Climate Change: No Denying It written by Sister Sharon Zayac, OP the Director of Jubilee Farm. To read the whole article click here or click on the image below.
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Social Analysis
A new study looking at 11,000 years
of climate temperatures shows the
world is in the middle of a dramatic
U-turn, lurching from near record cooling
to an unprecedented heat spike in the
20th century. (Union of Concerned Scientists,
www.ucsusa.org)
Every one of the past 35 years has been
warmer than the 20th century average.
The 12 warmest years on record have all
occurred since 1998. 2012 was the hottest
year ever recorded for the contiguous
United States.
The principal driver of long-term
warming is the total emissions of CO2.
At current rates, CO2 emissions will
hurtle us past a planetary climate rise of
2 degrees Celsius in less than 50 years,
conservatively assuming that emissions
rates do not continue on their current
upward trajectory of approximately 3%
per year.
Climate change is not a new reality.
The long-predicted dramatic effects we
are experiencing have been building
for years and are now literally in our
faces as we, even in our country, endure
floods, fires, dust storms, droughts, E-5
tornadoes, massive blizzards, melting
glaciers, ocean level rise, the expansion
of disease vectors, and off-the-scale
pollen counts. In the words of Martin
Luther King, “We are living in the fierce
urgency of now.”