‘A Code Red for Humanity’ With Worse Climate Impacts to Come Unless Greenhouse Gas Pollution Falls Dramatically

Boulder - On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its latest and most dire assessment about the state of the planet, detailing how humans have altered the environment at an “unprecedented” pace and cautioning that the world risks increasingly catastrophic impacts in the absence of rapid greenhouse gas reductions.

Let us be clear here increasingly devastating climate catastrophes are caused and exacerbated by humans and our addiction to using fossil fuels and petrochemicals. This results in the desertification, wildfires, and subsequent degradation of air quality, water availability, depleted land and physical health and well being, rising ocean acidification and temperatures, and further destruction of our planet.

Mark Magana, the Founding President & CEO of GreenLatinos released the following statement in response to this terrifying new report:

“We are no longer at a crossroads when it comes to climate change. Without aggressive, unprecedented, previously unfathomable action, the future of humanity is at high risk. Now is the time for this generation to take the actions needed to solve this crisis. The Latino community, along with other frontline communities, is already disproportionately suffering amidst unprecedented levels of preventable climate related weather disasters. We are undeterred in our commitment to come together to take action now, for our families, our communities, and, as is increasingly clear, the future of humanity.”

Lydia Cardona, Climate and Clean Air Program Manager at GreenLatinos released the following statement in response to the IPCC report:

“The timeline for when we start seeing the truly catastrophic potential of climate change has moved up, according to the IPCC report. Luckily, science also tells us that we can still mitigate these impacts with achievable goals like cutting methane by 65% in the next five years. There’s still time and there are solutions--what we need is political will and for community voices to be prioritized today. We will not deliver the future we owe our children without acting today.”

About the Report:

• The report, compiled by 234 authors relying on more than 14,000 studies from around the globe, is the most up-to-date understanding of the physical science on climate change.

• Released during a multi-year season of deadly fires, floods, droughts, and heat waves, it arrives less than three months before a critical summit this November in Scotland, where world leaders face mounting pressure to move more urgently to slow the Earth’s death spiral.

• The report states unequivocally that there is no remaining scientific doubt that humans are fueling climate change and global degradation. The only real uncertainty that remains, its authors say, is whether the world can muster the will to stave off a darker future than the one it already has carved in stone.

GreenLatinos is an active comunidad of Latino/a/x leaders, emboldened by the power and wisdom of our culture, united to demand equity and dismantle racism, resourced to win our environmental, conservation, and climate justice battles, and driven to secure our political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation.

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Press Contact: Comms@greenlatinos.org