Climate in Crisis: Mother Nature’s Urgent Warnings and Escalating Disasters, Part 7 of a Multi-part Series

From floods to droughts, hurricanes, and heat waves, global warming is causing a host of weather-related disasters. However, one of the most dangerous effects of climate change is rising sea levels, caused primarily by the melting of the world’s glaciers. In a recent study, scientists discovered that Antarctica’s enormous Thwaites Glacier is melting much faster than previously thought. Its collapse could cause catastrophic global flooding.

While rising sea levels are already profoundly concerning, scientists from the USA recently discovered another disastrous consequence of climate change: sinking cities. In some areas, it is sinking as much as five millimeters a year. Sea level rise is about three millimeters per year. A similar study recently conducted in China found that almost half of China’s cities, in which 406 million people live, are sinking. In Indonesia, Jakarta, home to 10 million people, is one of the world’s fastest-sinking cities. With the combined effect of the city sinking and sea levels rising, scientists estimate that 95% of Jakarta could be submerged by 2050. United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell warned that we have only two years to save the world.

Mounting scientific evidence indicates that raising animal-people livestock is the single largest contributor to climate change. Our Most Gracious Supreme Master Ching Hai (vegan) often reminds us that the only way to stop global warming is through a worldwide shift to the vegan lifestyle. “〔…〕So, in order to neutralize the effects resulting from the evermore severe climate, we must stop the raising of animal-people livestock to kill for food. We must live a vegan, animal-people-free, cruelty-free lifestyle according to Buddhist teaching and according to scientific evidence that this is the best way for us to stop the global warming and the fastest and the most efficient and the most long-lasting.”