Climate alarm: 12 places that are in danger of disappearing
Who will save the planet? Scientists say we have 18 months to transform our destructive habits and avoid environmental meltdown. Meanwhile, 12 places are at risk of disappearance.
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Eighteen months to save the Earth: this is the time left for all the inhabitants of the planet to transform their destructive habits into a precious aid to the restoration of environmental conditions. The news is a drastic correction to the chance of 12 years, maximum time to stop climate change, foreseen by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and is spread by distinguished scientists. The IPCC, in fact, in 2018 had aimed at a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, equal to 45% by 2030, to stop the climate meltdown, but apparently this measure would not be enough, given that "although the world cannot being healed in the next few years could be fatally wounded by our negligent behavior as early as 2020, ”as the founder of the Potsdam Climate Institute, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber underlined.A race against time
The shrill alarm bell rings as the Amazon forest burns, immediately after the fires in Siberia, Angola and Congo, and as life goes on throughout the world, vampirizing environmental resources and reducing the regenerative forces of nature to the limit. All in the name of the global demand for natural resources which, unscrupulous, operates deforestation for industrial purposes, without worrying too much about implementing the provisions dictated by the climate agreement, signed in Paris in 2015 by 195 countries and containing the operational plan aimed at stem dangerous climate change.
Fire in the Amazon rainforest - August 2019
Between saying and doing - On paper, the intentions are excellent, but it is the transition to implementation that encounters heavy difficulties, obstacles generated by ignorance and indifference, in that disgusting attitude of timid tolerance or guilty distraction from wrong and tremendously harmful habits for the future of the Earth and its inhabitants. The images of the Amazon forest in flames have gone viral, the deaths of the animals that lived there before the gigantic fire that scourged it have tore heartfelt comments and contrite looks, yet far from that hell nothing has changed. Mother Nature is there watching and almost seems to admonish with impressive examples. The most famous is certainly the Pacific Trash Vortex, the plastic island known for being an impressive accumulation of garbage formed in the Pacific Ocean by the spiral movement of the North Pacific subtropical vortex that collects enormous quantities of waste produced and abandoned by the 'man.
Earth Day -
Attention to the environment and the protection of the planet are not new issues. They are the fulcrum of a constant commitment that every year since 1970, one month and two days after the spring equinox, celebrates Earth Day, an international event aimed at raising awareness of environmental problems. Destruction of ecosystems, with the consequent extinction of numerous animal and plant species, pollution of water, air and soil, immeasurable exploitation of natural resources: these are the macroscopic problems that threaten the survival of the Earth whose heritage is entrusted to the responsibility of individuals, but above all governments that should try their hand at reformulating environmental protection protocols, without giving absolute and exclusive priority to economic interests. There's no time. Long-term strategies cannot be made. We need to act quickly and well to recover what is increasingly ruinously compromised and risks disappearing definitively.

Anthropocene - The profound changes to which our planet has been subjected are new and radical, unknown in previous millennia, so much so that they are referred to as the anthropocene. A new name to indicate the contemporary era that witnesses the conditioning of the terrestrial environment by human actions. The damage done to the environment is concentrated in the exaggerated emission into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and methane, the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. The increase in temperature represents a continuously growing figure and, according to data released by the World Meteorological Organization, the last 5 years are to be considered the hottest of the modern era, while of the 19 warmest years ever recorded, 18 are this century.
Environmental disasters and resource deficits - Rising temperatures cause glaciers to melt and, consequently, rise in water, dangerous changes that add to the damage of extreme climatic events such as droughts, fires, floods, cyclones and hurricanes. Observation of biodiversity shows a 60% reduction in vertebrate populations in fifty years, which is joined by the risk of extinction for almost nine thousand species, all due to climate change, pollution, over-exploitation of resources and alteration of natural environments. Paying attention to the signals that nature offers punctually would help the formation of an environmental awareness thanks to which to restore hope for the rebirth of the planet. Earth Overshoot Day, the day when the Earth goes beyond the margin of environmental sustainability, always comes earlier and this means that we consume the natural capital available too quickly compared to the time it takes for the Earth to recreate it. Reducing food waste would be the first step towards moving the Overshoot day by 4 and a half days every year, so as to rebalance the reproduction and consumption cycles by 2050.
Productivity at any cost is obviously the cause of pollution and the emission of toxic or in any case harmful substances for the environment. What does not poison causes climate change which, between being too hot and too cold, in addition to disrupting the biological cycles of animals and plants, causes enormous and irreparable damage to the environment, putting the survival of many places at risk.

1. Dead Sea: without a quick and decisive intervention by man, the Dead Sea risks disappearing, as has already happened to the Aral Sea and Lake Chad. The huge basin - it is properly a lake -, located in the deepest point of the earth and full of water 10 times saltier than that of all the other seas, is officially at risk of survival. In fact, its level has dropped by as much as 27 meters in recent decades. An alarming fact that is explained by the loss of balance between the quantity of water that evaporates and that which arrives from the Jordan River and other tributaries in the northern area of the lake. This lack of compensation has its origin in the intervention of man who, in order to provide for the water needs of their agricultural activities, have diverted the flow of rivers, greatly reducing their flow. Added to this is the excessive use of the waters of the Black Sea by industries dedicated to the extraction of minerals for their business.
2. Kivalina: a flood in the next 8 years could permanently erase the existence of this small island located between Alaska and the Arctic ice cap. The rise in temperatures in the Arctic and the consequent retreat of glaciers cause continuous and severe coastal erosion. The consequence of this process is the reduction of the surface of the islet which now has only a thin strip of sand that separates the sea from the village located in the central part of the territory and inhabited by a few hundred Eskimos. The continuous and progressive approach of the sea will force the inhabitants of Kivalina to abandon their island and move to the mainland, having no alternatives to put in place to stem the phenomenon of erosion and its catastrophic consequences. The island in the first half of the nineteenth century had an area three times greater than the current one and at the beginning of the last century it began to be populated thanks to the fish resources present in the surrounding waters. The inhabitants grew in number and settled permanently. A school was also built in the town. Now the future of the island is linked to the resistance of the ice: the faster they will continue to melt and the sooner they will deprive the territory of the protection necessary to withstand the storms.
3. Belize coral reef: rising water temperatures, mass tourism and ocean pollution had seriously jeopardized its survival. This ecosystem, very rich in biodiversity, has also been threatened by the reckless authorizations to search for oil just 10 kilometers away from the barrier, which were then defaced by the local government which issued strict regulations for the protection of the area. The damage reported by the Belize coral reef mainly concerned the bleaching of the corals which, since 1998, have been damaged for 40% of their totality. The danger of an imminent disappearance is temporarily averted, but it requires constant monitoring to prevent other threats from reoccurring.
4. Australian Great Barrier Reef: climate change is also the cause of the risks run by the Great Barrier Reef, which has reached a rather high level of extinction risk. Five times in the last three thousand years she has risked dying under the stress of climate change, but she has managed to do it. The damaged parts of the reef take thousands of years to reform and this is the negative point for its survival given the advanced state of coral bleaching, which has affected two thirds of the entire reef, and the continuing threats caused by global warming. , it is not certain that once again it will be able to survive. The climatic changes that also affect the Great Barrier Reef are so fast as not to facilitate recovery times and it seems that the changes are already irreversible. In practice, the time necessary for the life forms of the barrier to reform is lacking because global warming and the acidification process advance too quickly. Without a drastic reduction in the temperature of the waters, the Great Barrier Reef risks its definitive disappearance.
5. Amazon Forest: the fires of the last few days have also arrived to aggravate the conditions of the green lung of the world. And so the Amazon's biodiversity was further compromised after continuing deforestation had already destroyed more than a fifth of its surface. The data released are alarming: every sixty seconds a piece of forest as big as a football field disappears due to the pressure of economic and employment progress in the name of which Brazil has clearly said it wants to eliminate the positions of environmental protection. The laws to protect the forest have been loosened, leaving the field open for deforestation operations to obtain areas for other uses. The WWF alarm draws attention to the risk of losing about 40% of the remaining forest in the next fifty years, without a brake on these far from sustainable policies that favor environmental destruction to obtain new land to cultivate or to build paved roads.
6. Southern Australia - Sub-Saharan Africa: Desertification consumes about 6 million hectares of land worldwide every year. Particularly exposed to this risk are the territories of southern Australia and sub-Saharan Africa, victims of climatic factors worsened by global warming and the excessive exploitation of natural resources. The particularly arid nature of these lands becomes a dangerous reality due to the progressive drying up of water resources with the consequent drying up of large areas. The worsening of this condition increases the risk of fires with serious consequences for the animals that populate these regions, but also for urban settlements and villages, as well as for agricultural activities scattered over the territories. In African territories in particular, the threat to food security and nutrition is growing given the poverty of places oppressed by the consequences of climate change which also compromises basic crops, literally starving local populations.
7.Kiribati, New Year's Island: by the end of the century, much of the territory of this state of Oceania could disappear submerged by the Pacific Ocean due to the rise in sea level. The coral archipelago, which is practically in the center of the world due to its geographical position, is a victim of climate change that threatens the atolls with a particularly defenseless conformation in the face of rising sea levels. The disappearance of Kiribati seems inevitable given the trend of global climate change and within a few decades the inhabitants of the islands will find themselves homeless. In the general panorama, no solution seems possible, unfortunately, and even here only a reversal of the trend in the emission of greenhouse gases could stop the climate worsening and, therefore, the rise in sea and ocean levels, saving Kiribati from being covered.
8. Maldives: 2120 could also be the year of the disappearance of the Indian archipelago which is known to be the lowest state in the world. As much as 80% of the more than a thousand islands that make up the Maldives archipelago are located less than one meter above sea level and the alarm deriving from the rising waters of the oceans due to overheating is therefore understandable global. The local government has developed a campaign to purchase territories from other nations in order to provide for the transfer of the inhabitants of the Maldives when conditions no longer allow them to live on the islands. In about a century, this scenario for now only hypothetical will become reality and another place will succumb to the environmental damage caused by man and by his arrogant desire for progress against Mother Nature.
9. Glacier Montana Park (United States-Canada): the 150 glaciers present in the 16 thousand square miles of the park at the beginning of the last century have now reduced to 37 and are destined to disappear permanently by 2030. Current climate change causes the The melting of the glaciers will continue to cause their retreat until their complete disappearance with the consequent destruction of the fauna and flora typical of these environments and, therefore, inextricably linked to the cold climate of these places. Same fate for the glaciers of the Alps, condemned to drastically shrink by 2050 and disappear by 2100 again due to global warming that causes the continuous retreat of glaciers, also facilitated by the relative height of these mountains compared to others.
10. Bangladesh: the environmental disasters resulting from global warming threaten the future of the Asian state. at risk of disappearance like all coastal areas of the world. Frequent floods destroy all types of buildings making the places unlivable and lacking the minimum necessary for the survival of local populations and, above all, of children. The coastal areas are those most exposed to the risks of rising ocean waters already estimated at over one meter, while the hinterland suffers from the consequences of drought. The appeal launched by Unicef is aimed at all countries to put in place useful initiatives to protect the lives of children from the disastrous consequences of climate change. Once again, therefore, an appeal to stop global warming thanks to the real commitment of all the states of the world.

11. Venice: what is defined as the most beautiful and romantic city in Italy seems to have its destiny sealed. The Venice lagoon, in fact, would also be destined to what is defined as the "fastest marine ingress" or the rising of the sea waters which rapidly submerge more or less extended stretches of coast causing serious damage to the environment. The Mediterranean Sea is destined to see its level rise which, according to experts, will register an increase of about 20 centimeters by 2050 and between 37 and 50 centimeters by 2100. The Venice lagoon, at this rate, will suffer a increase in the water level between 60 and 82 centimeters, values really too high and already very impressive on paper. The phenomenon of high water typical of the lagoon city is becoming more and more frequent and worrying, a sign that the process of rising water is proceeding very quickly, more than had been hypothesized in past centuries.
12. Grand Canyon, Arizona: Important areas of this historic site in the United States are destined for progressive destruction due to frantic human intervention to exploit its natural and landscape resources. The increase in the number of projects to be carried out for the exploitation of local mineral resources adds to the already substantial one relating to the construction of tourist accommodation facilities. Human invasion in the name of progress and profit represents a serious threat to the Grand Canyon which, without an actual date, even if only an indicative one, risks seeing large portions of its landscape and the Colorado River disappear, a very important water reserve of the entire territory. .
Switzerland first in the class for sustainability
The Environmental Performance Index indicates poor air quality as a major public health hazard. The Epi-Environmental Sustainability Index, therefore, assesses the environmental impact and commitment of individual countries to improve performance to protect the environment and, therefore, public health. The ranking was drawn up by researchers from Columbia and Yale Universities, considering the 24 indicators that allow us to identify how and in what context countries are committed to protecting the environment. Out of the 180 countries evaluated, Switzerland came first in the ranking, thanks to its attention to the greatest number of global issues and, above all, to climate protection and air quality. In second place is France followed by Denmark, Malta and Sweden. Thirteenth place for Germany, sixteenth for Italy, twentieth for Japan and twenty-seventh for the United States. Lagging behind were China and India, in 120th and 177th place respectively

Tipress
Environmental disasters and resource deficits - Rising temperatures cause glaciers to melt and, consequently, rise in water, dangerous changes that add to the damage of extreme climatic events such as droughts, fires, floods, cyclones and hurricanes. Observation of biodiversity shows a 60% reduction in vertebrate populations in fifty years, which is joined by the risk of extinction for almost nine thousand species, all due to climate change, pollution, over-exploitation of resources and alteration of natural environments. Paying attention to the signals that nature offers punctually would help the formation of an environmental awareness thanks to which to restore hope for the rebirth of the planet. Earth Overshoot Day, the day when the Earth goes beyond the margin of environmental sustainability, always comes earlier and this means that we consume the natural capital available too quickly compared to the time it takes for the Earth to recreate it. Reducing food waste would be the first step towards moving the Overshoot day by 4 and a half days every year, so as to rebalance the reproduction and consumption cycles by 2050.
Twelve pearls destined to disappear
Productivity at any cost is obviously the cause of pollution and the emission of toxic or in any case harmful substances for the environment. What does not poison causes climate change which, between being too hot and too cold, in addition to disrupting the biological cycles of animals and plants, causes enormous and irreparable damage to the environment, putting the survival of many places at risk.

1. Dead Sea: without a quick and decisive intervention by man, the Dead Sea risks disappearing, as has already happened to the Aral Sea and Lake Chad. The huge basin - it is properly a lake -, located in the deepest point of the earth and full of water 10 times saltier than that of all the other seas, is officially at risk of survival. In fact, its level has dropped by as much as 27 meters in recent decades. An alarming fact that is explained by the loss of balance between the quantity of water that evaporates and that which arrives from the Jordan River and other tributaries in the northern area of the lake. This lack of compensation has its origin in the intervention of man who, in order to provide for the water needs of their agricultural activities, have diverted the flow of rivers, greatly reducing their flow. Added to this is the excessive use of the waters of the Black Sea by industries dedicated to the extraction of minerals for their business.
2. Kivalina: a flood in the next 8 years could permanently erase the existence of this small island located between Alaska and the Arctic ice cap. The rise in temperatures in the Arctic and the consequent retreat of glaciers cause continuous and severe coastal erosion. The consequence of this process is the reduction of the surface of the islet which now has only a thin strip of sand that separates the sea from the village located in the central part of the territory and inhabited by a few hundred Eskimos. The continuous and progressive approach of the sea will force the inhabitants of Kivalina to abandon their island and move to the mainland, having no alternatives to put in place to stem the phenomenon of erosion and its catastrophic consequences. The island in the first half of the nineteenth century had an area three times greater than the current one and at the beginning of the last century it began to be populated thanks to the fish resources present in the surrounding waters. The inhabitants grew in number and settled permanently. A school was also built in the town. Now the future of the island is linked to the resistance of the ice: the faster they will continue to melt and the sooner they will deprive the territory of the protection necessary to withstand the storms.
3. Belize coral reef: rising water temperatures, mass tourism and ocean pollution had seriously jeopardized its survival. This ecosystem, very rich in biodiversity, has also been threatened by the reckless authorizations to search for oil just 10 kilometers away from the barrier, which were then defaced by the local government which issued strict regulations for the protection of the area. The damage reported by the Belize coral reef mainly concerned the bleaching of the corals which, since 1998, have been damaged for 40% of their totality. The danger of an imminent disappearance is temporarily averted, but it requires constant monitoring to prevent other threats from reoccurring.
4. Australian Great Barrier Reef: climate change is also the cause of the risks run by the Great Barrier Reef, which has reached a rather high level of extinction risk. Five times in the last three thousand years she has risked dying under the stress of climate change, but she has managed to do it. The damaged parts of the reef take thousands of years to reform and this is the negative point for its survival given the advanced state of coral bleaching, which has affected two thirds of the entire reef, and the continuing threats caused by global warming. , it is not certain that once again it will be able to survive. The climatic changes that also affect the Great Barrier Reef are so fast as not to facilitate recovery times and it seems that the changes are already irreversible. In practice, the time necessary for the life forms of the barrier to reform is lacking because global warming and the acidification process advance too quickly. Without a drastic reduction in the temperature of the waters, the Great Barrier Reef risks its definitive disappearance.
5. Amazon Forest: the fires of the last few days have also arrived to aggravate the conditions of the green lung of the world. And so the Amazon's biodiversity was further compromised after continuing deforestation had already destroyed more than a fifth of its surface. The data released are alarming: every sixty seconds a piece of forest as big as a football field disappears due to the pressure of economic and employment progress in the name of which Brazil has clearly said it wants to eliminate the positions of environmental protection. The laws to protect the forest have been loosened, leaving the field open for deforestation operations to obtain areas for other uses. The WWF alarm draws attention to the risk of losing about 40% of the remaining forest in the next fifty years, without a brake on these far from sustainable policies that favor environmental destruction to obtain new land to cultivate or to build paved roads.
6. Southern Australia - Sub-Saharan Africa: Desertification consumes about 6 million hectares of land worldwide every year. Particularly exposed to this risk are the territories of southern Australia and sub-Saharan Africa, victims of climatic factors worsened by global warming and the excessive exploitation of natural resources. The particularly arid nature of these lands becomes a dangerous reality due to the progressive drying up of water resources with the consequent drying up of large areas. The worsening of this condition increases the risk of fires with serious consequences for the animals that populate these regions, but also for urban settlements and villages, as well as for agricultural activities scattered over the territories. In African territories in particular, the threat to food security and nutrition is growing given the poverty of places oppressed by the consequences of climate change which also compromises basic crops, literally starving local populations.
7.Kiribati, New Year's Island: by the end of the century, much of the territory of this state of Oceania could disappear submerged by the Pacific Ocean due to the rise in sea level. The coral archipelago, which is practically in the center of the world due to its geographical position, is a victim of climate change that threatens the atolls with a particularly defenseless conformation in the face of rising sea levels. The disappearance of Kiribati seems inevitable given the trend of global climate change and within a few decades the inhabitants of the islands will find themselves homeless. In the general panorama, no solution seems possible, unfortunately, and even here only a reversal of the trend in the emission of greenhouse gases could stop the climate worsening and, therefore, the rise in sea and ocean levels, saving Kiribati from being covered.
8. Maldives: 2120 could also be the year of the disappearance of the Indian archipelago which is known to be the lowest state in the world. As much as 80% of the more than a thousand islands that make up the Maldives archipelago are located less than one meter above sea level and the alarm deriving from the rising waters of the oceans due to overheating is therefore understandable global. The local government has developed a campaign to purchase territories from other nations in order to provide for the transfer of the inhabitants of the Maldives when conditions no longer allow them to live on the islands. In about a century, this scenario for now only hypothetical will become reality and another place will succumb to the environmental damage caused by man and by his arrogant desire for progress against Mother Nature.
9. Glacier Montana Park (United States-Canada): the 150 glaciers present in the 16 thousand square miles of the park at the beginning of the last century have now reduced to 37 and are destined to disappear permanently by 2030. Current climate change causes the The melting of the glaciers will continue to cause their retreat until their complete disappearance with the consequent destruction of the fauna and flora typical of these environments and, therefore, inextricably linked to the cold climate of these places. Same fate for the glaciers of the Alps, condemned to drastically shrink by 2050 and disappear by 2100 again due to global warming that causes the continuous retreat of glaciers, also facilitated by the relative height of these mountains compared to others.
10. Bangladesh: the environmental disasters resulting from global warming threaten the future of the Asian state. at risk of disappearance like all coastal areas of the world. Frequent floods destroy all types of buildings making the places unlivable and lacking the minimum necessary for the survival of local populations and, above all, of children. The coastal areas are those most exposed to the risks of rising ocean waters already estimated at over one meter, while the hinterland suffers from the consequences of drought. The appeal launched by Unicef is aimed at all countries to put in place useful initiatives to protect the lives of children from the disastrous consequences of climate change. Once again, therefore, an appeal to stop global warming thanks to the real commitment of all the states of the world.

11. Venice: what is defined as the most beautiful and romantic city in Italy seems to have its destiny sealed. The Venice lagoon, in fact, would also be destined to what is defined as the "fastest marine ingress" or the rising of the sea waters which rapidly submerge more or less extended stretches of coast causing serious damage to the environment. The Mediterranean Sea is destined to see its level rise which, according to experts, will register an increase of about 20 centimeters by 2050 and between 37 and 50 centimeters by 2100. The Venice lagoon, at this rate, will suffer a increase in the water level between 60 and 82 centimeters, values really too high and already very impressive on paper. The phenomenon of high water typical of the lagoon city is becoming more and more frequent and worrying, a sign that the process of rising water is proceeding very quickly, more than had been hypothesized in past centuries.
12. Grand Canyon, Arizona: Important areas of this historic site in the United States are destined for progressive destruction due to frantic human intervention to exploit its natural and landscape resources. The increase in the number of projects to be carried out for the exploitation of local mineral resources adds to the already substantial one relating to the construction of tourist accommodation facilities. Human invasion in the name of progress and profit represents a serious threat to the Grand Canyon which, without an actual date, even if only an indicative one, risks seeing large portions of its landscape and the Colorado River disappear, a very important water reserve of the entire territory. .
Switzerland first in the class for sustainability
The Environmental Performance Index indicates poor air quality as a major public health hazard. The Epi-Environmental Sustainability Index, therefore, assesses the environmental impact and commitment of individual countries to improve performance to protect the environment and, therefore, public health. The ranking was drawn up by researchers from Columbia and Yale Universities, considering the 24 indicators that allow us to identify how and in what context countries are committed to protecting the environment. Out of the 180 countries evaluated, Switzerland came first in the ranking, thanks to its attention to the greatest number of global issues and, above all, to climate protection and air quality. In second place is France followed by Denmark, Malta and Sweden. Thirteenth place for Germany, sixteenth for Italy, twentieth for Japan and twenty-seventh for the United States. Lagging behind were China and India, in 120th and 177th place respectively
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