If you really want some terrible truth...<p>China draws 70 percent of its electricity from coal and is building 300-500 new coal plants by 2030[0][1]. Nothing we do can offset this new CO2.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/716347646/why-is-china-placing-a-global-bet-on-coal" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/716347646/why-is-china-placin...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/03/28/china-new-coal-plants-2030-climate/" rel="nofollow">https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/03/28/china-new-coal-p...</a>
At least Google is doing something about the climate change. The most important people in the world (not you) are gathering in Palermo to tackle the terrible future, thanks to a Google workshop. With at least 114 private jets and yachts, we are digging our grave in a way that even looks beautiful.<p><a href="https://palermo.gds.it/articoli/economia/2019/07/28/effetto-google-camp-114-jet-privati-allaeroporto-di-palermo-1be6fa00-48d0-4efd-be60-f84d4d0a6fad/" rel="nofollow">https://palermo.gds.it/articoli/economia/2019/07/28/effetto-...</a><p><a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/114657574/graeme-hart-barack-obama-tom-cruise-attending-googles-climatefocused-camp-reports" rel="nofollow">https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/114657574/...</a>
> One common metric used to investigate the effects of global warming is known as “equilibrium climate sensitivity”, defined as the full amount of global surface warming that will eventually occur in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations compared to pre-industrial times.<p>The article bases its warning on this "equilibrium climate sensitivity" metric (aka "sensitivity"). This widely-used benchmarks allows the many different lines of evidence to be used together and translated into real-world effects.<p>The article cites a pre-industrial CO2 measurement of 280ppm, and a current measurement of 410ppm. If current trends hold, the doubling point (560ppm CO2) will occur in 2060.<p>The rest of the article deals with models that are predicting much higher sensitivity than earlier models. In 2013 the estimate was 1.5 - 4.5 degrees C. The new models are predicting 2.8 - 5.8 degrees C, with eight of the (unknown total) models predicting 5 degrees or higher. These results are scheduled to be published in the 2021 IPCC report.<p>For comparison, the Paris Agreement seeks to limit temperature increases to no more than 2 degrees C.<p>What would 5 degrees C warming mean for the Earth?<p>> The most comprehensive summary of conditions experienced during past warm periods in the Earth’s recent history was published in June 2018 ... by 59 leading experts from 17 countries. The report concluded that warming of between 1.5 and 2°C in the past was enough to see significant shifts in climate zones, and land and aquatic ecosystems “spatially reorganize”.<p>> These changes triggered substantial long-term melting of ice in Greenland and Antarctica, unleashing 6 to 13 metres of global sea-level rise lasting thousands of years.<p>To the extent that the models are right and the study of past warming incidents applies in the future, we can expect sea level rises in excess of 6 - 13 meters (lasting thousands of years) by 2060 and significant shifts in climate zones.
To be clear, this is a report by Joëlle Gergis, an IPCC contributor, one of Australia's expert contributors to the IPCC. She is reporting on new interim developments on the IPCC's simulations across Europe, Canada, the US and other modelling centres.<p>Basically, the last models and sims were run in 2013 and reported in 2015. They have since been updated (and will be officially reported in 2021).<p>As we have updated our scientific models, it looks like the old ones were quite optimistic. Seems very newsworthy.
> It was the realisation that there is now nowhere to hide from the terrible truth.<p>Sure there is:
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/26/senate-james-inhofe-snowball-climate-change" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/26/senate-james...</a>
Hmmm, from the article:<p>When the IPCC’s fifth assessment report was published in 2013, it estimated that such a doubling of CO2 was likely to produce warming within the range of 1.5 to 4.5°C as the Earth reaches a new equilibrium. However, preliminary estimates calculated from the latest global climate models (being used in the current IPCC assessment, due out in 2021) are far higher than with the previous generation of models. Early reports are predicting that a doubling of CO2 may in fact produce between 2.8 and 5.8°C of warming. Incredibly, at least eight of the latest models produced by leading research centres in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and France are showing climate sensitivity of 5°C or warmer.<p>...<p>Even achieving the most ambitious goal of 1.5°C will see the further destruction of between 70 and 90 per cent of reef-building corals compared to today, according to the IPCC’s “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C”, released last October. With 2°C of warming, a staggering 99 per cent of tropical coral reefs disappear. An entire component of the Earth’s biosphere – our planetary life support system – would be eliminated. The knock-on effects on the 25 per cent of all marine life that depends on coral reefs would be profound and immeasurable.<p>...<p>But these days my grief is rapidly being superseded by rage. Volcanically explosive rage. Because in the very same IPCC report that outlines the details of the impending apocalypse, the climate science community clearly stated that limiting warming to 1.5°C is geophysically possible.<p>Past emissions alone are unlikely to raise global average temperatures to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The IPCC report states that any further warming beyond the 1°C already recorded would likely be less than 0.5°C over the next 20 to 30 years, if all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions were reduced to zero immediately. That is, if we act urgently, it is technically feasible to turn things around. The only thing missing is strong global policy.
Accepting the fact that we're just like any other animal on this planet, merely along for the ride until the day we're done, will help curb the rage and grief felt towards the planet's reformation.<p>This is just what happens here. Species rise and fall, lands rise and sink, yet the Earth spins on until some other shit starts to happen on the surface. We just happened to fuck it up for ourselves faster. Humans have been good at that since day one.
And yet the terrible truth of the Methane Hydrate - Permafrost feedback loop is still being ignored. The arctic is already burning, exploding in some areas.
After reading the 2018 IPCC report for policymakers [1] the major thing I took from it was this:<p>The stated impacts of further warming aren't grave enough to justify nations taking the steps needed to mitigate them.<p>For example, the more immediate and impactful conclusions from the report are these:<p><i>In urban areas climate change is projected to increase risks for people, assets, economies and ecosystems, including risks from heat stress, storms and extreme precipitation, inland and coastal flooding, landslides, air pollution, drought, water scarcity, sea level rise and storm surges (very high confidence).</i><p><i>Climate change can indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts by amplifying well-documented drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks (medium confidence)</i><p>To which most readers would more or less shrug and move on because it's not tangible what these general impacts look like and unclear why they couldn't be mitigated or absorbed at the time of event.<p>Said another way, it would take a MASSIVE and unprecedented shift to the average, and an increasing portion of the global populations way of living, to slow warming significantly.<p>Namely, "to restrict global warming to 1.5°C, global ambition needs to increase fivefold." That implies that the current state of the global economy would effectively ground to a halt.<p>So what people hear is: We must completely change our lifestyles to prevent some chaos somewhere unknown down the line. I think all of social science tells us that humans are bad at this kind of long term planning.<p>The challenge here is that there is a huge gap between what is meant by climate scientists with statements such as "the very foundation of human civilisation is at stake" and what people can "touch and feel" making the sense urgency seem overblown.<p>Even things like "Cyclone Tracy is a warning" fall flat because "there have always been storms" and the causal relationship isn't direct - it's statistical and that's not something that politicians and the public generally can grok.<p>Contrast that with something like WWII which the US was staying largely removed from, until Pearl Harbor happened. That was a direct, causally linked, explicit and objective event that pushed an entire nation to change their behavior - but it was also time limited.<p>I'm not sure what needs to happen, but my guess is that until there is a "Pearl Harbor" for climate change, which I don't think is really possible, very little substantial will be done.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/AR5_SYR_FINA...</a>
As Australia's "left wing" shift further right after their recent election loss, and the most popular newpapers reflect a right wing Murdoch perspective that seems to sell well, one which frequently decries any green party in Australia as unreasonable, and the majority of political violence being enacted by the right (e.g. the Australian shooter who flew to New Zealand and killed 49 that was quickly moved on from, vs the "left" being repeatedly berated for dumping milkshakes on politicians), is it reasonable to say that we live in a deeply suicidal age? The will of the majority appears to me to be deeply right-wing, and power, both through violence and politics, seems to be permitted only if it is appropriately right-wing. Are we headed towards the end of the human era due to a continued slide rightwards?