We’ve been hearing about the “climate emergency” for years because scientists who study it define it in those terms. The expression is not appreciated by some, who accuse scientists of exaggerating for the same number of years because these things have always happened: heat, cold, torrential rains, disasters… I wonder how many deaths additional losses due to extreme phenomena will occur. We will have to convince them of what constitutes a climate emergency.
I don’t even explain anymore why we are this way, how we got there, how climate change can be mitigated or what we are willing to sacrifice to get there; I’m not going into that deep debate that we need to consider as a society. I’m talking about giving a name to what’s happening: the climate emergency; and assume we’ll take risks we didn’t count on: “Climatologists have been warning for years that climate change will lead to more intense rains, and the tragic consequences show we have a long way to go to prepare for these types of events, and worse, in the future,” Liz Stephens, professor of climate risks and resilience at the University of Reading (UK), told us hours after DANA devastated the province from Valencia.
