This post is by Michael Oppenheimer, Ph.D., the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University. He also serves as science advisor to Environmental Defense.
We’re already seeing environmental changes from global warming, and some key ones are occurring more quickly than scientists expected. Consequently, many experts from diverse disciplines are uncomfortable with the slow pace of governments in addressing this issue. The growing sense of urgency arises from two concerns:
- Earth’s climate system may be rapidly approaching a point of no return where large, irreversible and destructive changes, like the gradual disintegration of an ice sheet, become inevitable.
- To achieve any given temperature goal, the longer we delay action, the steeper emissions reductions will need to be. It’s easier to cut emissions gradually than it is to slash them drastically.
Part of a series on the work of the Environmental Defense Action Fund to enact an effective climate law.