Code Red: We Must Act Now on Climate

We have 29 years left. EVERYONE must be a part of the solution.

On August 9, 2021, the United Nations released a report calling the Earth’s rising temperature “code red for humanity.” Despite the work of world leaders who sought to prevent an increased level of warming, the report predicts worsening climate disasters within the next decade.

“It’s just guaranteed that it’s going to get worse. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” Linda Mearns, the Director of the Weather and Climate Impacts Assessment Science Program at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, tells Seth Borenstein, science writer of the Associated Press. 

Published by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the report states that human activities are indisputably responsible for climate change, including the decrease of glaciers since the 1990s and the decrease of Arctic sea ice.  

“Each of the last four decades has been the warmest on record since preindustrial times,” Ko Barrett, IPCC vice-chair and senior climate adviser at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says in a statement to science reporter Rebecca Hersher of NPR. 

In addition to providing the appalling information in the report, scientists also offered, scientists also offered solutions to avoid additional climate catastrophes.    

To mitigate the worsening natural disasters, the report calls upon countries to achieve “net zero” emissions by 2050. “Our report shows that we need to be prepared for going into that level of warming in the coming decades. But we can avoid further levels of warming by acting on greenhouse gas emissions,” said co-chair of the report Valerie Masson-Delmotte in an interview with the Associated Press.

Senior Romilly Thomson, co-president of the Environmental Justice Initiative (EJI), shared her thoughts on the report and the student culture around climate change at the School.

“With the UN report, it is easy to be depressed about it all, and it is tricky to balance taking those emotions to encourage climate justice work and not getting discouraged by [the report],” says Thomson.

The School’s Green Mission works to “provide a healthy school environment while promoting ecological sustainability,” however, Thomson feels that the student community could do more to support this mission.

“Everyone knows about climate change, but it is not as much of a priority for students. For example, students do not think about sorting [lunch] trays as much as they should,” says Thomson.

“Climate change is an issue that affects all of us, we need all hands on deck,” says Thomson.