Earth will be OK, but for us it's not so good

摘要

It made for disturbing reading when we asked scientists to speculate on what the world would be like if the global average temperature rose by 4 ℃. They were happy to oblige, and the results formed the basis of the cover story for our 28 February issue. Now climate scientists have firmed up their speculations with modelling studies, and their conclusions are, if anything, more worrying (see page 14). A 4 ℃ rise would be a disaster.rnIt is not hard to imagine that if we fail to get a grip on the climate, civilisation will collapse altogether. So we asked another question: if we consume ourselves back to the Stone Age, what happens next? Would Earth recover? The answers paint a strangely comforting picture of our planet's future (see page 32) - but they don't leave a lot of room for us or our descendants.