There's more to climate change than just less snow at Christmas
Since the 194 countries signed the Paris agreement in 2015, the media keeps reminding us to keep the temperature rise below 2 °C. Although we hear about rising temperatures and disasters caused by global warming, we still hear comments like "I don't mind a warmer climate". Therefore, we believe it's time to educate the world about how just a few degrees warmer hemisphere could lead to a +10-degree jump in temperature and the dire consequences that would bring.
A few degrees of global warming might not seem like much, but one thing can easily create a chain reaction leading to irreparable damage.
Climate tipping points
Melting the permafrost is one of them. There's a 14 million square kilometers area of frozen ground (1.5 times the size of the USA) thawing. Some permafrost is hundreds of thousands of years old and contains the remnants of past life on earth. These remnants are known today as carbon and carbon gases, frozen and encapsulated in the permafrost. Permafrost holds upwards of 1 500 billion tonnes of carbon, equalling 150 years of greenhouse gas emissions. It holds 2.5 times as much carbon as the entire global atmosphere and 3 times as much as forest biomass. The key question is how fast it will come out.
When the stored carbon gets exposed by thawing, it’s decomposed into either carbon dioxide or methane gas.
One problem starts another or creates a new one
When the permafrost thaws (which happens at 0 degrees C, the atmosphere temperature can bump up 10 degrees in a very short time. There are big consequences for communities along rivers and coastlines. But even more alarmingly, the emissions from permafrost will warm the climate even more, making droughts and wildfires worse, disrupting ocean currents, and making more places uninhabitable. This will, for example, result in massive movements of people fleeing the heat and moving closer to the North Pole. As you can see, one problem starts another or creates a new one. Climate disasters might soon become a vicious circle. The 2 degrees warmer…we wish that it didn’t trigger next-level problems, but it does.
With great innovations comes great responsibility - we must scale now!
Our generation has a clear mission, and there's no time to waste. To reduce emissions and avoid the vicious circle, all sustainability companies need to scale as quickly as possible. There are people and teams out there with great sustainability innovations and tech solutions. Still, they need to get their solutions up and running for them to have the chance to generate a positive impact and counter global warming. Scaling commercially is likely the missing link for this to be successful.
For anyone in sustainability looking to scale or struggling with scaling your innovation, please reach out to us.
Other ways to contribute – please check out Protect Our Winters POW.
We at Megadeals Advisory support, invest in and promote companies building a sustainable future by applying the Megadeals Discipline and framework to make them scale faster.
* Source, National Academy of Sciences (See the video)
