World Bank Issues Alarming Climate Change Report

On the 333rd consecutive globally warm month, a new report for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics bears the decise title "Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4 degrees C Warmer World Must be Avoided."

It focuses on the measured rise and projections of CO2 concentrations and Emissions, rising global mean temperature, increasing ocean heat storage, rising sea levels, increasing loss of ice in areas like Greenland, the Artic, and Antartica, ocean acidification, heat waves and extreme temperatures, droughts and aridity impacts on agriculture and other human welface impacts, and warns of culmination of extreme event synchronization as may have been witnessed with "superstorm" Sandy in the Northeastern U.S.

Bank President Jim Yong Kim sums up the report with this blunt headline in the UK Guardian: "The latest predictions on climate change should shock us into action. A world four degrees warmer could be too hot to handle, but the exciting prospect of low-carbon living could stop it happening."

Energy efficiency, conservation, and research to lower the costs of renewable and cleaner sources of power are important aspects of the Smarter Grid efforts of citizenry and the power, automobile, building management, industrial and large commercial and other sectors.

According the report, "we’re on track for a 4°C warmer world marked by extreme heat-waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, and life-threatening sea level rise.” Can we continue the power-hungry information age without risking these massive global adverse effects? Human ingenuity can meet the challenge.

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