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Aug 20, 2019 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
Remember:

1. The Amazon is burning
2. The Arctic's on fire
3. The Oceans are boiling
4. The Coral reefs are dying
5. Greenland is melting
6. Permafrost is collapsing
7. Antarctica is heating
8. Ecosystems are crashing
9. Earth is turning to desert
10. Emissions are accelerating
The planet we think we're living on no longer exists.👇

Go through this insane thread to learn about the 6th mass extinction, climate breakdown & ecological collapse, all caused by the destructive madness of corporate capitalism.

System change required👇
The only way to react positively to this terrifying cataclysm is by joining in solidarity to achieve #ClimateJustice.

Fourteen threads which explain everything you need to know:
👇
1. The Amazon is burning, and all tropical rainforests are being destroyed.

Indigenous communities are under attack. The horrors of colonialism continue under corporate capitalism which is on course to wipe out billions. Create an alternative.

See thread
2. The Arctic's on fire. It will become ice free (summer) by the 2020s. All ice could be gone by the early 2030s. This means climate chaos. Only profound political-economic system change will help now.

1

2

3
3. The oceans are boiling, and it's not just global warming that's killing marine life. The oceans are threatened with extinction by deep-sea trawler bulldozing, pollution, overfishing and more. Humans can't survive with a dying Ocean.

Thread of threads:
4. The Coral reefs are dying.

Climate breakdown is already severe enough to kill the Great Barrier Reef, over half of which is already dead. As global warming spirals out of control in the 2020s, survival appears impossible.

⚠️ Most reefs will soon die:
5. & 7. Greenland & Antarctic ice is melting more rapidly than predicted. This will lead to extreme, dangerous weather events (particularly in the Northern Hemisphere) in the 2020s, and calamitous sea level rise affecting millions. The cataclysm is here.

6. Permafrost is collapsing with terrifying implications.

A feedback loop of melting permafrost is speeding up, causing amplifying feedbacks in a climate death spiral. It's set to trigger a vicious cycle of warming that will be impossible to stop.

See:👇
8. Ecosystems are crashing.

A focus on the 6th mass extinction can lead to a misimpression that Earth isn't immediately threatened, but it is.

Massive population declines are an existential threat to humanity as well as the species themselves.💔

Thread:
9. Earth is turning to desert.

The 2020s will be a decade of mega-droughts, extreme heat, crop failure and severe water shortages.

Does this map show the collapse of civilisation and the deaths of 7 billion humans and trillions of animals by the 2050s?

10. Emissions are accelerating.

Why? The whole global energy system is wrapped up in the geopolitics and economics of oil & gas. Fossil fuel companies & governments are committing crimes against nature & humanity.

Transform capitalism immediately, or die.
Criminal business as usual is putting billions in the Global South at immediate risk of mass death and suffering, what 20,000 scientists described as vast human misery. We must rethink growth.  New political-economic systems could yet prevent total horror.

• • •

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More from @ClimateBen

Ben See Profile picture
Feb 11
Do climate and energy experts often ignore the fact we're in a mass extinction that's now accelerating during 21st century capitalism because it disrupts their visions of 'solutions'?

THREAD. 🧵
1. We're in a mass extinction due to habitat destruction, pollution, and many other factors including abrupt climate change: 20% (30-50%?) of species face extinction by 2050, and 75% of mammals as early as 2300.

We don't know which species can survive 1.75°C-2.75°C by the 2040s.
2. It seems many climate and energy experts say climate change won't lead to human extinction within decades or centuries, without acknowledging that extinction threats to species come from a range of activities likely to be maintained in a 'green' growth, 'clean' energy economy.
Read 14 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Feb 11
The global economy threatens 20%-50% of species with extinction by 2050.

Global use of materials is outpacing population growth:

1972: 29 billion tonnes
2000: 55 billion tonnes
2019: 100 billion tonnes
2050: 184 billion tonnes

It's the *system* that's killing everything.🧵
1.'Material extraction & use are climbing year on year
In only 50 years, global use of materials has nearly quadrupled—outpacing population growth. In 1972, as the Club of Rome’s report Limits to Growth was published, the world consumed 28.6 billion tonnes'
2. Abrupt climate change isn't the only reason we may consider ourselves in a terrible predicament. Extinction is escalating due to deforestation, logging, road-building, pollution..

Only system change action may limit the damage and/or protect us. Thread:
Read 5 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Feb 10
Today's economic system is taking us to 1.6°C-2°C by the 2030s with emissions now rising towards epic new extreme record highs compounding the extinction-ecosystem collapse crisis.

These tenths of a degree mean mass death, a truth which must be faced if we want effective action.
It's disheartening we're not facing the fact that 1.75°C-2.5°C, likely by the end of the 2040s, would mean billions of peoples' lives either turned upside down or taken from them without profound system change.

Mass animal deaths are on the rise.

Thread:
The impacts at 1.75C-3C would be shattering for species and billions of people.

IPCC aurhors have made clear there are definitely impacts we can't cope with from 2C.

1.25C is already putting enormous strain on our food systems. 1.75C would be awful.
Read 4 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Feb 8
According to scientists, economic growth cannot prevent us exceeding somewhere between 1.6°C and 2.4°C of global warming by the 2040s, when a staggering 20% of species face extinction.

When you listen to the scientists, you realise economic system change is the only way. 🧵
1.
'The most optimistic scenario has global temperature nudging past 1.5°C by mid-century but then dropping back by late century. Such a relatively short excursion above 1.5°C might not trigger the worst outcomes, according to the panel.'

'might not'..

yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/08/key-ta…
2.
Of course, a lot of climate scientists still cling to the "don't reduce emissions so fast that it disrupts the economy" idea.

But plenty recognise that 10%-30% of species threatened within 25 years by the growth economy signals a need for change.

Read 5 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Feb 5
US sanctions and extreme drought exacerbated by abrupt climate change are threatening 23 million people facing acute food insecurity in Afghanistan. 🧵
1.
'There are 22.8 million Afghans facing acute food insecurity. By March, 8.7 million of those are expected to slide into critical levels of food insecurity'. news.un.org/en/story/2022/…
2.
'22.8 million people will face "high levels of acute food insecurity." This is 55 percent of Afghanistan's population, the highest ever recorded in the country. An estimated one million children are suffering from "severe acute malnutrition" this year.'commondreams.org/views/2022/02/…
Read 4 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Feb 4
BREAKING: climate change since 1980 is nearly twice as bad as previously calculated 🧵
1.

From 1980 to 2019, the world warmed about 0.79°C. But taking energy from humidity into account, the world has warmed and moistened 1.48°C. And in the tropics, the warming was as much as 4°C.

To try to avoid total catastrophe will take total change.

abcnews.go.com/Technology/wir…
2.
The extreme climate danger zone appears to be around 0.75°C-1.25°C. We're now into 1.25°C-1.75°C.

This economic system can't take us off the extinction path - making electric cars & planes for the rich will finish off ecosystems.

Profound change now.
Read 6 tweets

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