... Climate Change can no longer be stopped?

Global Warming and Climate Change has been up and down the news all along the past few years. In fact, it is already known for more than a century that certain gases in the air trap and slow down heat that would otherwise escape to space.

We also know that through the emission of those gases we, the humans, are solely responsible for the Climate Change. And the third thing we know is that we have to act soon to prevent it

The effects of it are serious threats. To our climate, as extreme weather will become the norm. To us, as the rising oceans will flood most of the world's costal cities and large areas of the world become unhospitable. And finally it is a threat to all other lifeforms on Earth, as the Global Warming will most certainly trigger a mass extinction of plants and animals.

Global Warming is under way, since 1880 the temperature of Earth has risen by more than 1 degrees Celsius (as of early 2017). It doesn't sound much, but as the average temperature of the surface of an entire planet, it is high. Because of this, much of the world's land ice is starting to melt and the sea level already rises at an accelerating pace. And the hotter it gets, the more severe effects occur, to the point of undermining the planet's capacity of supporting a large human population.

A recent study of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States suggests that there is a certain threshold in the planetary temperature that, if crossed, would lead to a uncontrollable domino effect in Climate Change. This means that an event that has been provoked by the rising temperature, such as the progressive melting of the polar icecaps further accelerates the Global Warming. Which implies triggering another event, so that slowly, these self-reinforcing effects glide out of our ability to control them effectively. And when this happens, even completely stopping the human emission of greenhouse gases would no longer stop Climate Change.

We do not know for certain if this chain-reaction exists, but there is evidence that it does. And this evidence also shows that we are either close to tipping the first piece of domino, or we already have done so.

Let us hope that we did not and that our leaders realise the seriousness of this threat soon, but in the end, it is the responsibility of us all to realise.