According to Joshua Pearce from the University of Western Ontario, humans could be responsible for around one billion premature deaths in the next century should global warming go up or go beyond two degrees Celsius by 2100.
Human Mortality and Climate Change
Around 40% of carbon emissions can be attributed to the gas and oil industry, which covers some of the world's most powerful and profitable businesses. As such, this impacts billions of individuals' lives, several of whom are from the most low-resourced and remote communities in the world.
With this pressing problem, a study suggests that energy policies that are aggressive should be implemented. As such, these policies could facilitate substantive and immediate plummets in carbon emissions. They also advise more corporate, citizen, and government efforts to boost the global economy's decarbonization. This would generally aim to decrease the number of projected deaths.
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1,000-Ton Rule
Pearce, who serves as the John M. Thompson Chair of Information Technology and Innovation, explains that the projected massive deaths are clearly unacceptable and scary. With co-author Richard Parncutt from Austria's University of Graz, Pearce found that the carbon emission costs on human mortality converged based on the "1,000-ton rule." This rule serves as an estimate that poses that one premature death in the future is caused whenever 1,000 tons of fossil carbon gets burned.
If this 1,000-ton rule is taken quite seriously and used for running the computations, anthropogenic global warming becomes equivalent to around one billion premature human deaths happening in the next century. Pearce further stresses the need for immediate action.
Changing the Language and Metrics of Climate Change
Though energy numbers are familiar to specialists, such figures do not come in as important to most individuals. Some degree alterations in average temperatures may also not be as intuitive. However, if body count is the metric, this is something that is well understood.
Pearce, who is also an energy policy expert, is hopeful that by challenging and altering the metrics and language of climate change, more leaders in policy-making and industries could understand more about how much fossil fuels affect the world.
As such, the study also discovered that in order to reduce the potential liabilities and save individuals from dying, humanity must stop fossil fuel burning immediately. On top of this, it is also important to have more aggressive efforts when it comes to renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Pearce adds that it is hard to accurately predict what the future holds. The 1,000-ton rule only serves as a way to come up with the best estimate, adding that the actual number could be from a tenth of a person and 10 people for every 1,000 tons. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that action is imperative.
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