Social Science - Sociology Assignment 11

Climate change could ruin Southern Louisiana

© AP Photo/Dave Martin

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Large swaths of Southern Louisiana, potentially including New Orleans, “could be lost” over the next half century even if the world curbs fossil fuel emissions  enough to keep average warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), according to Nola.com  

Predictions from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — released by the United Nations last Monday — read like “plot lines from a dystopian disaster movie,” the New Orleans outlet reported.   

Among other chronic and acute crises, Southern Louisiana can expect more big, slow and devastating hurricanes like Katrina, Rita and Ida, as well as storm surges and increased flooding that will wreck infrastructure.  

The storm surge will occur alongside rising temperatures and saltwater intrusion that will drive fish away from Louisiana fisheries, Nola.com reported. Other impacts will include an invasion of tropical diseases, as well as deadly heat and humidity that will make other physical and mental diseases worse.  

Today we’ll survey attempts by Western democracies to head off the economic impacts of banning Russian oil. Then we’ll look at how urban wildlife markets in the global South could be incubating the next pandemic. 

For Equilibrium, we are Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Please send tips or comments to Saul at [email protected] or Sharon at [email protected] . Follow us on Twitter: @saul_elbein and @sharonudasin .     

Let’s get to it.