3 Degrees Celsius Global Warming Would Devastate Planet

There’s a very real chance the planet will warm up an average of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) this century — and that would be disastrous.

In such a brutally hot world, scientists agree, deadly heat waves, massive wildfires, and damaging downpours will come far more often and hit much harder than they do today. The ocean will be hotter too and more acidic, causing fish declines and likely the end of coral reefs. In fact, a quarter or so of the Earth’s species may go extinct in such conditions or be headed that way. Our coastlines would be reshaped, a consequence of sea levels rising foot after foot, century after century, drowning places like Charleston, South Carolina’s Market Street, downtown Providence, Rhode Island, and the Space Center in Houston.

All of this, as climate scientist Daniel Swain of the University of California, Los Angeles, put it, would be bad: “Bad for humans. Bad for ecosystems. Bad for the stability of the Earth systems that we humans depend on for everything.”

Experts can’t say exactly how likely this future is because that depends on what humankind does to mitigate the worsening climate crisis, especially over the coming decade. But for world leaders gathering this weekend in Glasgow for the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), this future may well become an inevitability if they don’t agree to more aggressive and immediate measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

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Novak Djokovic Australian Open Visa Canceled

Djokovic’s beliefs and behavior have made headlines throughout the pandemic. In April 2020, he said he was opposed to vaccines and that he wouldn’t want to be required to receive a shot in order to travel. Just months later, he and his wife tested positive for COVID after he organized and played in exhibition matches that fluted social distancing recommendations. In October 2021, he said that questions about his vaccination status were “inappropriate.”

The tournament’s defending champion had surprised many Tuesday when he posted on social media that he had been granted an “exemption permission” to travel to Australia. But, as Melbourne’s Age newspaper first reported, it was not clear whether Djokovic had brought sufficient evidence to prove his exemption reason.

Under Australian law, foreigners traveling into the country must have a visa and be fully vaccinated. Tennis Australia and officials in Victoria, where Melbourne is located, made similar requirements for players who wanted to participate in the Open without first undertaking a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

But Australian immunization officials had outlined some temporary vaccine exemptions for its citizens, which include people who have had a PCR-confirmed case of COVID in the last six months. It is not clear if these apply to foreigners seeking to enter Australia, but tennis officials had pointed to these exemptions in their decision to allow Djokovic to participate.

That Djokovic was granted an exemption to play in Melbourne, which endured one of the longest lockdowns in the world as Australia sought to keep COVID

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Ukrainians Say Russian Enemy Troops Are Moving Into Their Abandoned Homes

A brief reprieve came in the early afternoon, when the Ukrainians went on the offensive.

“We’re hitting them because they’ve run out of artillery shells,” Anatoli, a 19-year-old Ukrainian soldier, told BuzzFeed News. “We can say that Irpin is theirs. But we will cut them off now that the people are out.”

Kyiv has tried to agree with Moscow on safe evacuation routes out of cities encircled by Russian forces where shelling is heaviest. But the agreements largely haven’t stuck, and civilians have been deliberately targeted by the Russian military as they try to flee.

There has been no agreement between the warring sides for a safe corridor out of Irpin, which is in northern Ukraine near the capital of Kyiv.

Until Sunday, residents were able to leave the town by train. But then the Russians bombed the tracks, destroying the safest and easiest escape route. On Tuesday, the only way out was through the rubble of a bridge blown up by the Ukrainian army to stop Russian forces from advancing with tanks and armored vehicles into Kyiv just 15 miles to the east.

Ukrainian soldiers were told BuzzFeed News that thousands of residents were being urged to leave immediately because Russian forces were not only pulverizing Irpin but were also moving in — stealing food, gas, and other supplies — and occupying whatever is left of it.

Anna, a woman in her 60s, told BuzzFeed News that if it weren’t for enemy soldiers breaking into her family’s home, “we

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