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Global Warming Facts
Ingredients > Footprint > Global Warming
To reduce annual global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by the year 2050, we need to reduce emissions by 30.3 gigatons a year.
It is estimated that cutting global emissions in half by 2050 would cost $45 trillion.
Average temperatures have already climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Much of this change has happened in recent decades.
—Goddard Institue for Space Studies
Industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases that help trap heat near Earth's surface. Plants and oceans are unable to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) at the rate at which humans are putting it into the atmosphere.
With habitats disappearing, ecosystems changing, and oceans acidifying, more than a million species face extinction.
According to an April 2007 report, global warming could lead to large-scale food and water shortages and have catastrophic effects on wildlife.
—International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
According to a February 2007 report, it is possible that sea level will rise anywhere between 7 and 23 inches (18 to 59 cm) by the end of the century.
—International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
It is reported that health issues are already presenting themselves through deaths from intense heat waves, fatal parasites that prosper in heat and mosquitoes that carry malaria in areas where they've never been seen before.
