Is climate change humanity’s greatest ever risk management failure?
The Guardian newspaper
Climate change. Global warming. These are the ‘new normal’ or the ultimate ‘Horsemen of the Apocalypse’. U.S. intelligence said:
“Global environmental and ecological degradation, as well as climate change, are likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond. Climate hazards such as extreme weather, higher temperatures, droughts, floods, wildfires, storms, sea level rise, soil degradation, and acidifying oceans are intensifying, threatening infrastructure, health, and water and food security.”[i]
Risk likelihood as well as direct risk consequences are increasing. Extreme heat is impacting global food supplies, all supply chains, housing near the ocean, increases in cancer, and many other factors. Are you a denier? According to a recent report, there’s 95% likelihood that people are the drivers of climate change through carbon dioxide emission.[ii] OK, is human extinction too strong of a prediction? The New York Times said:
“Humans are transforming Earth’s natural landscapes so dramatically that as many as one million plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, posing a dire threat to ecosystems that people all over the world depend on for their survival .”[iii]
You may be a green believer or even an evangelist. Or, you may be a heretic. It really doesn’t matter. We’re in a heating global environmental and a changing political environment. So, pay attention to sustainability. I was a green skeptic until I saw first-hand major environmental changes occurring over a few years. I fish for salmon on the Columbia River in Oregon, USA., which is a beautiful and pristine environment. The problem is that over the last 30 years, salmon fishing changed. Fewer fish. Smaller fish. Not good. As an engineer, I thought that we were going through a macro weather cycle from warm to cold.
Work Lessons Learned: So, what does this have to do with your work? As traditional industries adapt to the changing environment, consider working in emerging green businesses to save human kind. You’re having fun. You’re doing good. You’re saving the planet.
[i] ‘2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community’, US government publication, 2019.
[ii] ‘Is Climate Change from Humanity’s Greatest Ever Risk Management Failure?’, The Guardian, August 22, 2013.
[iii] ‘Humans Are Speeding Extinction and Altering the Natural World At An Unprecedented Pace’, New York Times, May 6, 2019.