If we need any sobering up after all our Christmas and New Year celebrations, take a look at The World Counts. It contains many poignant figures; here’s a screenshot of two of those at the end of 2018:
Here are the corresponding 'live' counters, showing relentless and depressing increases so far in 2019:
Christian Aid recently reported that extreme weather events linked to climate change cost thousands of lives and caused huge damage throughout the world in 2018:
The charity's report identified ten events that cost more than $1bn each, with four costing more than $7bn each.
"Climate change is something still often talked about as a future problem, not least because we know the consequences of the warming climate are so devastating and don't want to face up to what is already happening," said Dr Kat Kramer from Christian Aid.
"This report shows that for many people, climate change is having devastating impacts on their lives and livelihoods right now. The great injustice of climate breakdown is that the people that suffer first and worst, are the world's poor that have done the least to contribute to the crisis."
Scientists warn that "Decisions made from now to 2020 will determine to what extent Earth remains habitable". Even the financial community is urging us to wake up, with warnings of dire consequences if we don't:
A global group of 415 investors managing $32 trillion in assets are warning that ignoring action against climate change could cause permanent economic damage up to four times the size of the 2008 financial crisis.#ActOnClimate #KeepItInTheGround https://t.co/iVUH26ds42— Paul Dawson on Climate Change (@PaulEDawson) December 27, 2018
But whilst we're talking about sobering numbers, here are two more from The World Counts for 2019:
In the UK, our consumption is even more unsustainable; we effectively need 3 Earths to provide what we consume – or, put another way, we consume resources 3 times faster than the Earth can renew. The World Counts puts that into frightening context:
If Earth’s history is compared to a calendar year, modern human life has existed for 23 minutes and we have used one third of Earth’s natural resources in the last 0.2 seconds.
