Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2015-12-01, 11:33:23 | version 1.43.00
akzente 3/15 19 » Nowadays, only a small and marginalised group of cli- mate sceptics question whether this process will impact on the planet’s energy balance. Of around 14,000 sci- entific articles published between 1991 and the end of 2012 and listed in the Web of Science online database, just 581 cast doubt on the concept of human-induced climate change, and only a tiny fraction – 0.17 per cent – reject it completely. Global warming is ‘beyond doubt’ and there is no longer anything abstract about it: its im- pacts are being felt in ever more regions of the world. US atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe recently coun- ted 26,500 independent indicators of a warming planet all around us, showing that climate change is already happening. For example, coral growth rates in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have decreased by 40 per cent since the mid-1970s due to ocean acidification driven by rising levels of atmospheric CO2 , which affects the chemistry of seawater and causes it to become more acidic. This in turn impairs calcification and threatens reef-builders. It’s the same scenario off the coast of Thai- land and in the Red Sea. ‘Climate change (…) represents one of the principal chal- lenges facing hu- manity in our day.’ Pope Francis in his new Encyclical Letter ‘On Care For Our Common Home’ 15,000extreme weather events occurred between 1994 and 2013, mostly in developing countries – and the figure is rising. Source: Germanwatch In many cities, air pollution is a visible and tangible presence; Santiago de Chile is regularly affected by smog. akzente 3/1519