Climate Change Is Impacting Us Faster Than Expected

The world is experiencing the most severe effects of climate change sooner than anticipated. Here’s what you should know:

U.S. carbon emissions sharply increased in 2018 after three years of decline; this has been partly attributed to a three percent increase in the use of diesel and jet fuel.
Diesel and jet fuel are used to respectively power trucks and planes; trucking and air travel “grew rapidly” in 2018.
The research firm Rhodium Group reported the transportation sector has been the biggest source of U.S. carbon emissions for the past three years.
The October 2018 report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) turned out to be a conservative estimate. Oceans are warming 40 to 50 percent faster than the IPCC suggested.
This warming contributes to rising sea levels, increased rainfall intensity, the destruction of coral reefs, the weakening of ocean oxygen levels and a decline in ice sheets and glaciers.
Extreme weather, including hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes and droughts, has been a deadly and costly culprit of climate change; for example, researchers found the effect of Hurricane Harvey was probably made worse by warmer oceans.

Image taken from Pixabay