90 percent of global warming’s excess heat: Peter J. Gleckler et al., “Industrial-Era Global Ocean Heat Uptake Doubles in Recent Decades,” Nature Climate Change 6 (January 2016): pp. 394–98, https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2915.
absorbing three times as much: Ibid.
90 percent of the energy needs: Australian Government Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, “Managing the Reef.”
Great Barrier Reef: Robinson Meyer, “Since 2016, Half of All Coral in the Great Barrier Reef Has Died,” The Atlantic, April 2018.
from 2014 to 2017: Michon Scott and Rebecca Lindsey, “Unprecedented Three Years of Global Coral Bleaching, 2014–2017,” Climate.gov, August 1, 2018, www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/unprecedented-3-years-global-coral-bleaching-2014%E2%80%932017.
“twilight zone”: C. C. Baldwin et al., “Below the Mesophotic,” Scientific Reports 8, no. 4920 (March 2018), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-23067-1.
threaten 90 percent of all reefs: Lauretta Burke et al., “Reefs at Risk Revisited,” World Resources Institute (Washington, D.C., 2011), p. 6, https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/pdf/reefs_at_risk_revisited.pdf.
as much as a quarter of all marine life: Ocean Portal Team, “Corals and Coral Reefs,” Smithsonian, April 2018, https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/corals-and-coral-reefs.
food and income for half a billion: “Coral Ecosystems,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, www.noaa.gov/resource-collections/coral-ecosystems.
worth at least $400 million: Michael W. Beck et al., “The Global Flood Protection Savings Provided by Coral Reefs,” Nature Communications 9, no. 2186 (June 2018), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04568-z.
oysters and mussels will struggle: Kate Madin, “Ocean Acidification: A Risky Shell Game,” Oceanus Magazine, December 4, 2009, www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/ocean-acidification--a-risky-shell-game.
fishes’ sense of smelclass="underline" Cosima Porteus et al., “Near-Future CO2 Levels Impair the Olfactory System of Marine Fish,” Nature Climate Change 8 (July 23, 2018).
32 percent in just ten years: Graham Edgar and Trevor J. Ward, “Australian Commercial Fish Populations Drop by a Third over Ten Years,” The Conversation, June 6, 2018, https://theconversation.com/australian-commercial-fish-populations-drop-by-a-third-over-ten-years-97689.
by a factor perhaps as large as a thousand: Jurriaan M. De Vos et al., “Estimating the Normal Background Rate of Species Extinction,” Conservation Biology, August 26, 2014.
an era marked by ocean acidification: A. H. Altieri and K. B. Gedan, “Climate Change and Dead Zones,” Global Change Biology (November 10, 2014), https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12754.
with no oxygen at alclass="underline" “SOS: Is Climate Change Suffocating Our Seas?” National Science Foundation, www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/deadzones/climatechange.jsp.
a dead zone the size of Florida: Bastien Y. Queste et al., “Physical Controls on Oxygen Distribution and Denitrification Potential in the North West Arabian Sea,” Geophysical Research Letters 45, no. 9 (May 2018). See also “Growing ‘Dead Zone’ Confirmed by Underwater Robots” (press release), University of East Anglia, April 27, 2018, www.uea.ac.uk/about/-/growing-dead-zone-confirmed-by-underwater-robots-in-the-gulf-of-oman.
Dramatic declines in ocean oxygen: Peter Brannen, “A Foreboding Similarity in Today’s Oceans and a 94-Million-Year-Old Catastrophe,” The Atlantic, January 12, 2018. See also Dana Nuccitelli, “Burning Coal May Have Caused Earth’s Worst Mass Extinction,” The Guardian, March 12, 2018.
trip can take a thousand years: National Ocean Service, “Currents: The Global Conveyor Belt,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_currents/05conveyor2.html.
depressed the velocity of the Gulf Stream: Stefan Rahmstorf et al., “Exceptional Twentieth-Century Slowdown in Atlantic Ocean Overturning Circulation,” Nature Climate Change 5 (May 2015), https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2554.
“an unprecedented event”: Ibid.
two major papers: L. Caesar et al., “Observed Fingerprint of a Weakening Atlantic Ocean Overturning Circulation,” Nature 556 (April 2018): pp. 191–96, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0006-5; David J. R. Thornalley et al., “Anomalously weak Labrador Sea convection and Atlantic overturning during the past 150 years,” Nature 556 (April 2018), pp. 227–30, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0007-4.
“tipping point”: Joseph Romm, “Dangerous Climate Tipping Point Is ‘About a Century Ahead of Schedule’ Warns Scientist,” Think Progress, April 12, 2018.
Unbreathable Air
cognitive ability declines: Joseph Romm, Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 113.
almost a quarter of those surveyed in Texas: Ibid., p. 114.
deaths from dust pollution: Ploy Achakulwisut et al., “Drought Sensitivity in Fine Dust in the U.S. Southwest,” Environmental Research Letters 13 (May 2018), https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aabf20.
a 70 percent increase: G. G. Pfister et al., “Projections of Future Summertime Ozone over the U.S.,” Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 119, no. 9 (May 2014): pp. 5559–82, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JD020932.
2 billion people globally: Romm, Climate Change, p. 105.
10,000 people die: DARA, Climate Vulnerability Monitor: A Guide to the Cold Calculus of a Hot Planet, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 2012), p. 17, https://daraint.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/CVM2-Low.pdf. James Hansen himself has made this comparison in a number of venues, including in an interview with me published in New York as “Climate Scientist James Hansen: ‘The Planet Could Become Ungovernable,’ ” July 12, 2017.
researchers call the effect “huge”: Xin Zhang et al., “The Impact of Exposure to Air Pollution on Cognitive Performance,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 155, no. 37 (September 2018): pp. 9193–97, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1809474115. Coauthor Xi Chen made the “huge” comment to a number of news outlets, including The Guardian: Damian Carrington and Lily Kuo, “Air Pollution Causes ‘Huge’ Reduction in Intelligence, Study Reveals,” August 27, 2018.
Simple temperature rise: Joshua Goodman et al., “Heat and Learning” (National Bureau of Economic Research working paper no. 24639, May 2018), https://doi.org/10.3386/w24639.
increased mental illness in children: Anna Oudin et al., “Association Between Neighbourhood Air Pollution Concentrations and Dispensed Medication for Psychiatric Disorders in a Large Longitudinal Cohort of Swedish Children and Adolescents,” BMJ Open 6, no. 6 (June 2016), https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-010004.
likelihood of dementia in adults: Hong Chen et al., “Living near Major Roads and the Incidence of Dementia, Parkinson’s Disease, and Multiple Sclerosis: A Population-Based Cohort Study,” The Lancet 389, no. 10070 (February 2017), pp. 718–26, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)32399-6.