We do not take it lying down, even if the White House officially warns that every corner of the USA is already suffering from the effects of climate change. The University Secretary of the World Meteorological association , Michel Jarraud, has warned that it is no longer valid to say that we were not warned, a new atlas has been presented to governments with the aim of disseminating information buried in the agency's technical documents and turning it into "something that can be used directly by decision-makers". This atlas maps the intersection of health and climate in this era of global warming, clearly showing examples such as meningitis spikes and sandstorms or dengue outbreaks with rainfall.

The so-called climate exiles already exceed 50 million people, they have had to leave their areas of life, victims of diseases or harassed by food shortages, they are and will be one of the manifestations of a change that we have accelerated with our activities and a model life based on the burning of fossil fuels, however much we may want to ignore it. But how have we reached this point? The influence of human-induced climate change in relation to a number of natural arrangements is being observed, as has been reported to scientists and governments, through a wide variety of environmental adjustments and changes in atmospheric patterns. The most immediate is already a new "El Niño" that could form this summer: subsurface temperatures of tropical Pacific waters have risen to levels that precede such an episode subject.

But the White House warns us that these changes are already affecting both the hydrosphere and the atmosphere. And we go further: several of us scientists who disseminate a holistic and interconnected vision of the planet's activity also know that the deeper zones that sustain our cities and therefore our personal and cultural relationships are also being influenced. The great change in which we are already immersed concerns all physical and immaterial relationships on the planet.

Since the last ice age, a staggering 52 million cubic kilometers of water have been redistributed across the planet, ice sheets have melted and previously depleted global sea levels have risen by more than 130 m, offsetting the weight distribution of the huge masses of solid water. The rebound effect continues today and is accelerating at an alarming rate. Not only are the oceans warming, they are acidifying by absorbing CO2, corals are dying, animals must adapt in other contexts.

For example, between 2001 and 2010 most countries broke known records for extreme weather events, sea levels rose twice as fast during the 20th century as in the 19th century. The last decade has left us with a decrease in Arctic ice without known geological precedents, the acceleration of ice loss in Greenland two years ago set off alarm bells, but no less so in mountain glaciers such as the Pyrenees, where new species are beginning to conquer new ecosystems on the surface at the same time as the response to the readjustment of the deep layers is seismic.

The latest UN report warns us that change already affects all continents and nations, no corner of the planet is spared from a radical transformation that affects environmental and cultural conditions. The entire civilization and therefore the society of each country, needs to invest in research, assume this reality and plan accordingly; the entire planet needs to allocate sufficient means to scientists to provide us with useful weapons capable of resisting the onslaught of Nature on cities, seen as the planetary structural units of the XXI century society, since since 2010 more than half of the population already live in cities and within 20 years we will be more than 60%.

The natural environment and the human environment are more than ever condemned to know and understand each other. When we speak of "Natural Heritage" we are displaying a profoundly modern character, but also an act of seizure of something that we are just beginning to understand, and even less able to control. Therefore, the immediate future lies in advancing scientific, urban, industrial and energetic proposals for an effective distribution of the territory so that both environments are not devastated.

In this way, we will also be ahead of events, assuming reality; already ensyando the necessary idea that certain elements and configurations of the human environment, can offer resistance to the negative effects of a catastrophe, and much better if we begin to develop the best tools to achieve it: science, culture and urbanism of the XXI century.