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In March 2020, the most detailed study yet on how sea level rise could alter the San Francisco Bay Area, titled Adapting to Rising Tides, was published. The study speculated that the 48-inch increase in the bay’s water level in coming decades could cause more 100,000 Bay Area jobs to be relocated, 30,000 lower-income residents might be displaced, and 68,000 acres of ecologically valuable shoreline habitat could be lost. We can also expect the waters to rise not only along our coast and bayshore, but in local creeks and groundwater too. 

This study is further evidence that the race against the climate change clock is all but lost. The international community has too long ignored the overwhelming empirical evidence showing that the climate crisis is real and is largely caused by man. This is not a theory; it is a fact. In short, the international response has been too little, too late.  

In addition, a study in Nature, reported that climate change could result in the collapse of many animal species starting in the next decade if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated international economies. When the pandemic ends, enormous economic resources will be needed for recovery. I doubt there will be a stomach for spending the resources needed to even mitigate the climate change consequences: rising sea levels, raging forest fires, thawing permafrost, flooding, drought and extreme weather. Like the pandemic, we will again be mostly reactive, rather than proactive. The cost of mitigation will end up being more costly than if we had acted sooner. 

Earth formed around 4.54 billion years ago, humans have only existed about 200,000 years. Planet Earth will survive climate change, but man might not.