6 ms·

Are there any compelling papers or presentations on the impact and science of climate change? Virtually all reporting presents/qualifies it as 'what scientists

Are there any compelling papers or presentations on the impact and science of climate change? Virtually all reporting presents/qualifies it as 'what scientists say'. Since the convention in journalism is to create doubt for the reader by phrasing something as 'person says' I find these articles easy to ignore.

myspy 7y ago
Google Scholar offers a wide range of papers about papers around that topic. Maybe there are a couple must read papers or meta studies.
ptah 7y ago
this is a pretty compelling survey: http://lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf http://lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf
- hannob 7y ago
  Unfortunately this is not based on real science. The main argument relies on a source called "arctic news", which is a crank blog. These doomsday messages aren't helpful. The situation is bad. The real science is grueling. Telling people that there's nothing to be done any more isn't helpful.
  - ptah 7y ago
    it is generally agreed that doing everything we can now will only give us a 50/50 chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. seeing as we will not do everything we can, it is reasonable to think that it is too late https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/carbon-cuts-only-give-5050-chance-of-saving-planet-1640154.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/car...
    - hannob 7y ago
      "Catastrophic climate change" is not a binary thing where you either have it or you don't. We'll almost certainly have catastrophic climate change. It will still make a huge difference if we try to limit it as much as possible or if we just go on without caring.
      - ptah 7y ago
        it is in fact binary. there is a tipping point, a point of no return, where what we do will not make a difference as the momentum is too big. EDIT: at this point there is still a chance but the odds are not in our favour. EDIT: 10 years ago we had a 50/50 chance as that article quotes UK Met Office
        basch 7y ago
        its a spectrum of "not bad, bad, really bad, really really bad" Its not just "itll happen" without a degree of how bad.
        ptah 7y ago
        i'm not talking about how bad it will be, i am talking about how much of a difference changes made by us will make. there is a point where even if we stopped all carbon emissions it will not stop climate change
        basch 7y ago
        it's not a "will it flood or not" it's "how many miles from the coast will we lose to the ocean" Is the water going to come 2 miles in or 30? Both are catastrophic, but to different degrees.
hannob 7y ago
You mean like the IPCC reports? The latest big IPCC report is unfortunately already a bit dated: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ The SR15 (Special report on 1,5 degree target) is more up-to-date, but less generic: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
AndrewDucker 7y ago
There's the UN Intergovernmental Reports. https://research.un.org/en/climate-change/reports https://research.un.org/en/climate-change/reports particularly this, most recent, one: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/ https://science2017.globalchange.gov/
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
You could do worse than read an IPCC report - https://www.ipcc.ch/ https://www.ipcc.ch/ - which aims to distil the agreed impacts. In aiming to present only that which is most certain they err on the side of benign conservatism, which has attracted criticism. A more readable view on possible impacts, which is the result of one journalist's attempt to understand the science, is David Wallace Wells' The Uninhabitable Earth. Whilst well cited throughout he may have included studies and impacts that are less concrete. For a balanced presentation BBC's Climate Change - The Facts with David Attenborough gives all you should need in an hour.
- mrpopo 7y ago
  Reminder that every single sentence in the IPCC report must be approved unanimously by a panel of government-appointed authors from various countries, including e.g. Saudi Arabia. Therefore IPCC reports are to be considered as quite conservative (the seriousness of the situation is often leveled down). Nonetheless, that's what makes them an irrefutable source. Anyone discrediting the IPCC reports findings can and should be dismissed immediately from the discussion.
  - qnsi 7y ago
    []
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Being an intergovernmental body, they also include representatives from the oil states and administrations who are "wilfully unconvinced" by any science that might impact profit or industrial dominance. Yet IPCC reports still require unanimity. Here's a report of Saudi leading a push to tone down reports to protect their oil interests, which I see as substantively different to making a mistake: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/may/15/ipcc-un-climate-reports-diluted-protect-fossil-fuel-interests https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/m...
zubspace 7y ago
"Change" by Graeme Maxton [1]. I read it recently and highly recommend it to non-scientists. It gives you an accessible forecast of the next 50 to 100 years, based on scientific research. [1] https://www.graememaxton.com/gpm/2018/03/30/change/ https://www.graememaxton.com/gpm/2018/03/30/change/

myspy 7y ago

Google Scholar offers a wide range of papers about papers around that topic. Maybe there are a couple must read papers or meta studies.

ptah 7y ago

this is a pretty compelling survey: http://lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf http://lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf

hannob 7y ago
Unfortunately this is not based on real science. The main argument relies on a source called "arctic news", which is a crank blog. These doomsday messages aren't helpful. The situation is bad. The real science is grueling. Telling people that there's nothing to be done any more isn't helpful.
- ptah 7y ago
  it is generally agreed that doing everything we can now will only give us a 50/50 chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. seeing as we will not do everything we can, it is reasonable to think that it is too late https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/carbon-cuts-only-give-5050-chance-of-saving-planet-1640154.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/car...
  - hannob 7y ago
    "Catastrophic climate change" is not a binary thing where you either have it or you don't. We'll almost certainly have catastrophic climate change. It will still make a huge difference if we try to limit it as much as possible or if we just go on without caring.
    - ptah 7y ago
      it is in fact binary. there is a tipping point, a point of no return, where what we do will not make a difference as the momentum is too big. EDIT: at this point there is still a chance but the odds are not in our favour. EDIT: 10 years ago we had a 50/50 chance as that article quotes UK Met Office
      - basch 7y ago
        its a spectrum of "not bad, bad, really bad, really really bad" Its not just "itll happen" without a degree of how bad.
        ptah 7y ago
        i'm not talking about how bad it will be, i am talking about how much of a difference changes made by us will make. there is a point where even if we stopped all carbon emissions it will not stop climate change
        basch 7y ago
        it's not a "will it flood or not" it's "how many miles from the coast will we lose to the ocean" Is the water going to come 2 miles in or 30? Both are catastrophic, but to different degrees.

hannob 7y ago

You mean like the IPCC reports? The latest big IPCC report is unfortunately already a bit dated: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ The SR15 (Special report on 1,5 degree target) is more up-to-date, but less generic: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

AndrewDucker 7y ago

There's the UN Intergovernmental Reports. https://research.un.org/en/climate-change/reports https://research.un.org/en/climate-change/reports particularly this, most recent, one: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/ https://science2017.globalchange.gov/

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

You could do worse than read an IPCC report - https://www.ipcc.ch/ https://www.ipcc.ch/ - which aims to distil the agreed impacts. In aiming to present only that which is most certain they err on the side of benign conservatism, which has attracted criticism. A more readable view on possible impacts, which is the result of one journalist's attempt to understand the science, is David Wallace Wells' The Uninhabitable Earth. Whilst well cited throughout he may have included studies and impacts that are less concrete. For a balanced presentation BBC's Climate Change - The Facts with David Attenborough gives all you should need in an hour.

mrpopo 7y ago
Reminder that every single sentence in the IPCC report must be approved unanimously by a panel of government-appointed authors from various countries, including e.g. Saudi Arabia. Therefore IPCC reports are to be considered as quite conservative (the seriousness of the situation is often leveled down). Nonetheless, that's what makes them an irrefutable source. Anyone discrediting the IPCC reports findings can and should be dismissed immediately from the discussion.
- qnsi 7y ago
  []
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Being an intergovernmental body, they also include representatives from the oil states and administrations who are "wilfully unconvinced" by any science that might impact profit or industrial dominance. Yet IPCC reports still require unanimity. Here's a report of Saudi leading a push to tone down reports to protect their oil interests, which I see as substantively different to making a mistake: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/may/15/ipcc-un-climate-reports-diluted-protect-fossil-fuel-interests https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/m...

zubspace 7y ago

"Change" by Graeme Maxton [1]. I read it recently and highly recommend it to non-scientists. It gives you an accessible forecast of the next 50 to 100 years, based on scientific research. [1] https://www.graememaxton.com/gpm/2018/03/30/change/ https://www.graememaxton.com/gpm/2018/03/30/change/