There was an interview on the BBC with Sir David King, the science advisor to Tony Blair, which discussed India specifically. India's monsoon is dependent on a very small range of fluctuation. If the monsoon is 10 percent less intense in one year, it can lead to agricultural famines.
If the monsoon is 10 percent more severe, there can be heavy flooding and the large number of fatalities that arise from flooding in rural areas. At a population of more than a billion of the world's seven billion people, India's climate change could affect 15 percent of the world's population in a possible scenario that could occur in the next 50 to 100 years. Monsoons affect 70 percent of India, and affected almost one million people during the 2003 season.
There is another consideration about global warming. The difference between the sea level in the ice age and the medieval warm period was 120 meters. In scientific terms the difference in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between the ice age (200 parts per million) and the warm period (270 parts per million) was 70 million parts and 120 meters of sea level.
The medieval warm period (MWP) had a rise in temperature that occurred around 1000 to 1400 CE primarily in the northern hemisphere. By burning fossil fuels we have increased carbon dioxide levels to 370+ parts per million. At a change of 100 million parts we have to expect, at the very least, an increase in temperature and sea level.
If we as a global culture do not take immediate action, our world will suffer irreversible consequences. The most immediate concern is sustaining the global economy. Oil levels have already peaked worldwide according to multiple research studies. As the supply dips prices will begin to rise dramatically. We may see the unthinkable occur - light, sweet crude selling for $100 a barrel. As this price increase occurs, the economy will start to slow down as more and more money needs to power the transportation sector. Our world not able to meet its energy demand and will begin a slow decline back towards a less modern age.
The economy of the world is the immediate problem, but the long term effects are even more devastating. If our global economy crashes, the world will be a very different place but life will go on. If the climate shifts rapidly, either towards an ice age or a warm period, life as we know it will eventually end. An ice age would make life difficult, but this is not as scary a scenario as the polar ice caps melting. If this happened, the usable landmass of the world would decrease by half.
Coupled with overpopulation and the fact that most of the human population is located along the coastlines, this would create an enormous amount of causalities and an irreparable amount of damage. In a hotter climate, insect populations would flourish bringing with them pestilence and disease. We need to urgently stop using fossil fuels today to ensure that the ecosystem, which we desperately need to thrive, continues. The alternative is to replace our current climate with a much different ecosystem, one with an ambient temperature of either 30 degrees Fahrenheit above the current temperature or about 80 degrees below it. We need immediate action now before it's too late.
