PHOENIX — After a startling new climate report released this week by the United Nations, more than a thousand scientists protested around the world on Wednesday, including a climate scientist at NASA.
According to Truthout, one of the few media publications that covered the protests, scientists chained themselves to the doors of oil-friendly banks, blocked roadways and occupied government buildings.
Twitter posts show scientists causing havoc in places like Spain, Germany and Washington D.C.
“The scientists of the world are being ignored and it’s got to stop,” said Peter Kalmus, a California-based father of two and NASA climate scientist. “We’re going to lose everything. We’re not joking. We’re not lying and we’re not exaggerating.”
Kalmus delivered an emotional plea at the doorway of the JP Morgan Chase building in downtown Los Angeles. He was arrested with colleagues who chained themselves to the bank’s doors. Kalmus wrote an op-ed about his experience for The Guardian.
“If everyone could see what I see coming,” Kalmus wrote, “society would switch into climate emergency mode and end fossil fuels in just a few years.”
The latest U.N. report written by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warns the civilized world is nowhere near its CO2 emission goals. It states that dramatic, deep emissions reductions are urgently needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the century’s end.
According to NASA’s official position on climate change, carbon dioxide from human activity is increasing more than 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last ice age.
“The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today, and will worsen in the decades to come,” NASA states on its website.
The effects include changes in precipitation patterns, more droughts and heatwaves, stronger hurricanes, and rising sea levels between 1-and-8 feet before the end of the century.
As 12 News reported in February, there is consensus among scientists worldwide that widespread damage to wildlife, ecosystems and civilization is already happening at a faster rate than previously predicted.
“It’s the 11th hour in terms of Earth breakdown, and I feel terrified for my kids and terrified for humanity,” Kalmus said.