2020-04-07
39 分钟If you can, cast your mind back a few months.
Can you remember a time when toilet roll wasn't a prized possession,
or when going out meant more than a trip to the supermarket?
You may recall talk of another crisis, one that threatened millions of lives and livelihoods.
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic,
this episode turns its attention back to this other threat to our world, climate change.
One of the few positives to emerge from the pandemic is a dramatic decline in greenhouse gas emissions.
Both China and Europe are forecast to emit 25% less greenhouse gases in 2020,
and in New York, carbon monoxide levels have already dropped by 50%.
As city smogs lift, fewer people are predicted to suffer strokes, contract heart disease or lung cancer.
While this drop will only be temporary, does the pandemic point to how bold action on climate change is possible?
Or is it inevitable that hundreds of millions of people will face hunger, drought and flooding?
In this episode of LSIQ, I explore the question, are we doomed, or can the climate crisis be averted?
And the extinction rate is up to 10,000 times faster than what is considered normal,
with up to 200 species becoming extinct every single day.
Erosion of fertile topsoil, deforestation of our great forests, toxic air pollution,
loss of insects and wildlife, the acidification of our oceans.
These are all disastrous trends being accelerated by a way of life that we here in our financially fortunate part of the world see as our right to similarly carry on.
While scientists have spoken for many years about the dangers of climate change,
in recent years it's been youth activists,