07 December, 2012

Bill McKibben talks about the fight against climate change | Arts Feature | Indy Week

Bill McKibben talks about the fight against climate change | Arts Feature | Indy Week: Well, we know that agriculture would be next to impossible. And we think at this point the data seems to indicate that every degree increase in global average temperature should cut grain yields about 10 percent. The ocean is already 30 percent more acid, and that's causing havoc already with marine creatures. One oceanographer last month at the close of the big conference on ocean acidification in California said that by century's end, at this pace, the oceans of the world will be "hot, sour and breathless." Which seemed to me a pretty powerful statement. Most frozen things will have melted or be in the process of melting. And we'll see a huge increase in severe weather, to the point where my guess would be that civilization will just be a series of emergency responses to things.