The impacts of climate change being felt on Earth are getting worse, with extreme heat, more violent storms, more floods, and more ferocious forest fires. But if conditions get worse, can climate change make humans extinct?
Scientists have predicted various bad scenarios that will occur if climate change cannot be controlled. If only consider the direct impact, fortunately climate change will not cause mass extinction of humans.
"There is no evidence of a climate change scenario that would make humans extinct," said Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric sciences at Penn State University.
But there is a possibility that climate change will threaten hundreds of millions of people, for example by depleting food and clean water supplies, which has the potential to trigger rifts in society and even global conflict.
According to Mann, global temperatures that rise up to 3 degrees Celsius can cause the collapse of community infrastructure to riots and conflicts. It is not impossible that conditions on Earth will be as shown in Hollywood dystopia movies.
In addition, the collapse of life in society can also be caused by depleting food sources. A warmer planet has many negative impacts, including increasing water deficits and reducing crop yields.
According to Luke Kemp, a researcher from the Center for the Study of Existential Risk, one of the ways climate change could directly cause human extinction is uncontrolled greenhouse gases. This scenario occurs when a planet absorbs more heat than it emits, until the oceans evaporate and can no longer support life.
Fortunately, this is not a possible climate change scenario on Earth. To reach this point, the planet needs carbon dioxide levels of up to two thousand ppm, whereas Earth only has about 400 ppm. Another factor that can cause this scenario to occur is the release of very large amounts of methane gas.
Kemp also studied the collapse of ancient civilizations millions of years ago and the effects of climate change. He said catastrophic extinctions are always influenced by several factors, but if humans are threatened with extinction, the most likely cause is climate change.
"If I had to say, what do I think is the biggest potential contributor to future human extinction? Climate change, no doubt about it," said Kemp.
Kemp cited several mass extinction events on Earth involving climate change, including global warming in the Triassic-Jurassic epoch about 200 million years ago that killed 80% of species. Climate change is also predicted to have a role in the extinction of close human species such as Neanderthals.
The final scenario to consider is social and political conflict caused by climate change. Kemp said that if resources are running low due to climate change, it is not impossible that there will be a big war that threatens human existence.
Even though the above scenario is dire for humanity's future on Earth, scientists say there's still hope for now. Experts say humanity still has time to avoid the worst-case scenario due to climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions significantly.
"It's up to us. If we fail to reduce carbon emissions substantially over the next decade, we are likely to exacerbate already dangerous extreme weather, rising coastlines due to melting ice and rising sea levels, greater pressure on resources. limited as a growing global population competes for less food, water and space due to the impacts of climate change," said Mann.
"If we act boldly now, we can avoid the worst impacts," he concluded.
