Chart of the Century: Cooking The Planet

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What happens if we do nothing about greenhouse gas emissions and end up in a worst case climate change scenario a century from now?  A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences takes a look at the likely effects of very high global warming and concludes that large swathes of the world — including the East Coast of the United States — would become pretty much uninhabitable. In the map below, that’s all the yellow and light purple areas.

Stuart Staniford has the details. But don’t worry. It’s only 5% likely that things will ever get this bad. Or the scientists might have miscalculated. It might only be 1% likely. Those are pretty good odds, right?

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Our news will always be free to read, watch, and listen to online. But what is its value?

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It IS free for you and every reader, viewer, and listener to utilize. But it’s not free for our team to make. So, what’s it worth to you? Let us know by making a donation: Make a one-time donation today to support this work. Or make a monthly sustaining donation to help us plan for the future.

Whatever you choose, know that you’re supporting more independent, investigative journalism in a time when we need it most.

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