This RealLifeLore video is sponsored by the upcoming film, An Inconvenient Sequel. You've probably heard news, at some point in your life, that the Earth is warming, and as result is that the Arctic ice is melting. There is no debate that Earth is warming up.
The planet's average temperature as increased 1. 1 °C since 1880. And 16 out of the 17 of the hottest years, ever on record, have been since 2001.
NASA estimates there is 95% probability that this current warming is a direct result of human activities since the mid 20th century And 97/100 active publishing climate scientists agree that human activity is extremely likely to blame As a result of this, ice around the world is melting and raising the planet's sea level The oceans already rose 6 cm during the course of the 19th century. But they rose by 19 cm during the 20th century, over 3 times faster than they rose in the previous century. NOAA estimates that global sea level could rise by up to 2.
5 meters by the year 2100. Which would have devastating consequences. If this happens entire island countries like the Maldives, Marshall Islands Kiribati, and Tuvalu would be submerged beneath the ocean and cease to exist Their entire population has to be transplanted somewhere else And this will create a situation in which hundreds of thousands of state-less people would find a new home 150 million total climate refugees from around the world may exist by 2050, and by 2100 that number could rise to 2 billion people 18% of the global population at that time.
But in an even worse case scenario than this, however what would happen if all the ice on earth melted? If all the ice on Antarctica, Greenland, and the world glaciers melted in to the ocean it would rise global sea level by an incredible 68. 3 meters Such a catastrophe would take 5,000 years of the current rate of the ice melting to happen, but it would severely alter the geography of our planet, in North America, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and most of San Diego, and Los Angeles would be underwater.
San Francisco would be an island and San Jose would be destroyed by the waves. The San Francisco Bay would greatly expand in size, to completely swallow Sacremento. The Gulf of California would expand so far North, that Palm Springs would become a coastal city.
While on the Atlantic Coast, the ocean would expand to swallow the cities of Corpus Christi, Houston, New Orleans, the entire state of Florida, as well as the entire state of Delaware, almost all of Long Island, and the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D. C. , and Boston.
South America would also be severely flooded with two new inland seas existing on the continent. And the cities of Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Rio de Janeiro, would all be underwater. Europe would be one of the most devastated areas of the world.
The entire country of the Netherlands would be underwater. And so would nearly all of Denmark and half of Belgium. The British Isles will become more of an archipelago.
And London would be TOTALLY buried beneath the sea. And Northern Germany would also be entirely underwater including the city of Berlin. And Venice in Italy would be long since be claimed by the Adriatic Sea.
Istanbul would also be underwater. The Crimean Peninsula would become the Crimean Island. And the Black and Caspian Seas would be connected with one another.
Which would mean that Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan, would no longer be landlocked countries. Africa would be perhaps the least severely effected continent. But Egypt would be severely damaged by having both Alexandria and Cairo going underwater The Persian Gulf, meanwhile, would swallow the entire the entire countries of Qatar, and Bahrain, and the city of Baghdad.
India and Pakistan would be badly damaged. But the entire country of Bangladesh would cease to exist in this catastrophe. Hundreds of millions of people would be underwater in China, including Beijing and Shanghai.
In addition to the cities of Seoul, Pyongyang, and Tokyo. Australia would be home to a new inland sea. And finally, Antarctica would become more of an archipelago.
But unlike the Antarctica of today, this Antarctica would likely be habitable and easily colonize-able by future humans. So what can we do to prevent this nightmare future from happening? Reducing humanity's usage of fossil fuels is perhaps the best way of mitigating our warming climate.
These following countries produce At least 75% of their power from renewable energy resources, like solar, wind, hydro-power. Global investments in renewable energy rose by 57% between 2008 and 2015. The European Union alone more than doubled it's renewable energy production between 2000 and 2013.
And recently 195 different countries signed the Paris Climate Accord in which they all agreed to cooperate in combating global warming. While the stakes have never been higher, we are close to seeing a true energy revolution. If you want to learn more about climate change, or want to take action yourself, then I strongly encourage you to go watch the upcoming film, "An Inconvenient Sequel".
Watching the film is taking action, and it goes into far more depth than I ever could in a short YouTube video. The film will be released in New York and Los Angles on July 28th and will be released nation-wide on August 4th. Please go to the description below for more detail.
Be inconvenient.
