Climate change: should we be worried?

Abstract

The Earth’s climate has changed in the past due to natural changes in some of the factors that influence it, always on long time scales. Currently, the climate is changing quickly for anthropic reasons. Even though the future climate cannot be precisely predicted, the momentum of the system enables us to assert that the average global temperatures will continue to rise, which has environmental and ecological consequences—most of them negative—for human societies. The urgency with which we need to address climate change and the impacts it entails justifies considering it a climate emergency. Mitigation measures must be undertaken, and adaptation actions must be started. They all have major social implications, as they entail leaving behind the paradigm of constant growth based on the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources. This article is a summary of the author’s talk at the plenary session of the Philosophy and Social Sciences section of the IEC.