The world’s largest sources of freshwater will be severely depleted by 2029, with catastrophic consequences for all of humanity.
[THREAD]
Timebomb:
Regions most sensitive to changes in climate include humid and wet areas, such as the Amazon, Indonesia and parts of central Africa. In some of these areas, it could take *less* than 10 years for climate change to fully impact groundwater flows. carbonbrief.org/climate-change…
Groundwater response times:
The map below:
Yellow shows areas where groundwater is likely to fully respond to stresses in under 10 years. ⚠️
Light green shows where the response time is 10-100 years.
Areas with the shortest groundwater response times include wet, humid regions: the Amazon, the Congo Basin, Indonesia, and low-lying regions, such as the Asian mega-deltas and the Florida Everglades.
2 billion living with absolute water scarcity by 2025👇
Most over-stressed is the Arabian Aquifer System, which supplies water to 60 million people in Saudi Arabia & Yemen; the Indus Basin aquifer in northwest India & Pakistan is the second-most threatened; the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa the third. nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/07/w…
Today:
🔺1.9 billion people live in countries facing extremely high water stress
e.g India, Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE
🔺Another 2.5 billion people face high levels of water stress
The likelihood of conflict:
'most regions of the world face significant hydropolitical vulnerabilities that, in a number of hot-spot basins, may turn into serious water conflict in the decades to come'
* hard/impossible to survive
* hard/impossible to prevent
* likely by 2069-2092
* plausible by 2045
* just one of many existential threats that mean a total rethink of economic growth is mandatory to protect species and everyone
Journalists:
Capitalism has set up the early deaths of billions of people.
Has capitalism left it too late to avoid unsurvivable 2/2.5°C of global warming and rising?
Yes.
Has the scientific community issued major consensus reports indicating only political-economic systems changes may end biodiversity destruction and limit abrupt climate chaos?
The factory food, fossil fuel, and arms industries are all thriving. Cement, plastics, steel.. This capitalist Extinction Economy is the worst-case scenario. It won't stop emissions. It has condemned us to essentially unsurvivable warming at 1.9-2°C and rising by 2029-41. 🧵
1. Mass media journalists are silent on 2°C by 2032-41 as warming hits 1.38-1.5C increasing by 0.35-0.45C per decade.
'12 months after the peak of the El Niño event and global temperatures are still exceptionally high'
BREAKING: World Meteorological Organization issues Red Alert to humanity as accelerating global warming of 1.4-1.7°C and rising heralds essentially unsurvivable conditions within years not decades 🧵
1. The January –September 2024 global mean surface air temperature was 1.54°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ±0.13°C) above the pre-industrial average boosted by a warming El Niño event according to an analysis of six international datasets used by WMO.
BREAKING: scientists hold back tears and shake their heads sadly as they explain utterly compromised COP29 climate conference was meant to be the last chance to organise rapid and deep emissions cuts for any chance of staying well below essentially unsurvivable 2°C 🧵
1. Time has run out to avoid 1.5°C (now sure to hit in the 2020s) and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. 1.75°C will be exceeded soon after with dire 2°C expected by 2030-2050
2. Abrupt climate change is just one compounding factor in extinction catastrophe.
Biodiversity destruction is a core part of the reality of industrial capitalism.
Change this Doom Economy now while it's still too late to protect species and everyone.🧵⬇️