Do we have the solutions for climate change?

For four decades UC San Diego atmospheric scientist Veerabhadran “Ram” Ramanathan has warned that carbon dioxide and other emissions from human activity are heating up the planet. One of the first scientists to predict global warming, his models of rising temperatures have proved remarkably accurate.

Ramanathan prefers the term “climate disruption” to climate change because it more accurately describes the severity of what we are observing.

“Drought, heat waves, forest fires — we are already seeing this,” he says.

The planet is on target to warm by 2 degrees Celsius in 2050 and by 4 degrees in 2100, triggering serious large-scale problems by the end of the century; Ramanathan accurately predicted this trend back in 1980. After decades of writing various “obituaries” for the planet — Ramanathan has authored more than 200 papers over the course of his career — the lack of action on the issue around the world started to make him wonder if all his work had been worth it.

In the video below he explains how solutions we’ve already come up with today could be the answer to reducing the effects of climate change in the future.