5 ms·

Climate change Earth has 11 years to avoid the worst scenarios

20 points by dane-pgp 5y ago

cammikebrown 5y ago
I think it’s going to be very bad no matter what we do. Having to stay inside last year during the Oregon wildfires was worse than dealing with COVID. It’s definitely going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
- xwdv 5y ago
  It doesn’t necessarily have to get better than today though, only better than the worst at that time.
dudul 5y ago
I feel like it's been 20 years that we only have 5 years to fix it.
dane-pgp 5y ago
Maybe the estimate will be right this time, and maybe the previous estimates were right too, in some technical sense, but the people making these predictions need to ask whether their repeated contradictory-sounding warnings are doing more harm than good. For perspective: * 2021 - John Kerry says Earth has 9 years to avert the worst consequences of climate crisis: "There's no faking it on this one"[0] * 2019 - Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change, Speakers Warn during General Assembly High-Level Meeting[1] * 2018 - We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN[2] * 2012 - Two years left to curb climate change, Government warned[3] * 2011 - World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns[4] * 2009 - 'We have only four years left to act on climate change - America has to lead'[5] ------ [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-9-years-john-kerry/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-9-years-john-ker... [1] https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-w... [3] https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/two-years-left-curb-climate-2019481 https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/two-years-left... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-f... [5] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/18/obama-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/18/obama-cl...
- PikachuEXE 5y ago
  Don't "forget" about 1970 global freezing too. https://climatechangedispatch.com/120-years-of-climate-scares-1970s-ice-age-scare/ https://climatechangedispatch.com/120-years-of-climate-scare... Or just search "1970 global freezing".
  - argomo 5y ago
    This was a minority view inflated by poor journalism. Climate science as a whole was veering toward the "Earth gets warmer" conclusion.(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/25/huckabees-claim-that-global-freezing-theories-from-the-1970s-shows-the-science-is-not-as-settled-on-climate-change/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/...) I note your article also waves the "follow the money" insinuation that scientists are being bought writ-large by government grants even though these are but a trickle compared to the profits from selling fossil fuels.
  - Oletros 5y ago
    Still about that hoax?
- JoshTko 5y ago
  They are all right. It's just how much human suffering you consider to be worst case.
  - olalonde 5y ago
    If those are right, then logically so are these: "it's too late to curb climate change", "it's too late to act on climate change", etc. See the problem?
- mempko 5y ago
  It only does harm when people paid to spread global warming denial propaganda use predictions to show that there is nothing to worry about. Turns out, many people make all kinds of predictions all the time. Turns out predictions are random variables. Anyone understanding this would welcome as many predictions as possible because the aggregate paints the most accurate picture.
IntemerateApe 5y ago
it seems like if you tell people we only have X years left, then they will be more than happy to sit on their ass for X-1 years
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  And then at X+1 years claim "Well, I guess it's too late to do anything now".
  - CodeGlitch 5y ago
    This was me doing my homework in the 1990's.
- bamboozled 5y ago
  It's human nature to do this, why would you do something earlier than required if it takes effort? We only have a certain amount of energy / attention at our disposal.
bamboozled 5y ago
Been hearing something similar for the last 30. I think we're way too late to the game really, hope I'm wrong.
mbgerring 5y ago
There is a large and growing group of technology companies working to address and mitigate climate change. I work for one, and you can too. For me, discourse and persuasion around climate change has taken a back seat to making a rapidly decarbonizing electric grid an on-the-ground fact. If you’re tired of the endless arguments, join me in working every day to shift the material conditions of the debate. https://climatebase.org https://climatebase.org
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
civilized 5y ago
We get it. Every day we have one day left to keep climate change from getting worse.
hndamien 5y ago
It should be stated we need to do x starting today to improve by this rate to avoid X. Then we could update the rate. Less sexy, but more accurate.
cletus 5y ago
We can't even get people to wear a mask to help stop the spread of a respiratory disease let alone take a vaccine that may save their life and will unquestionably save the lives of others. So there are two possibilities here: 1. This claim, unlike all previous such claims, is true. In that case, we're screwed anyway, so what does it matter?; or 2. This claim is false, in which case we just further teach people to distrust science. I always wonder when I see these alarmist end-of-the-world predictions: Do those making these claims believe them? As in, are the claims made honestly or dishonestly? It could be either. A good way of thinking about any claim is to ask yourself who the audience is. So when a company or university makes a claim about new groundbreaking battery tech that if it ever reaches the market and all the naive assumptions hold true in the most optimistic way then it'll be 1,000x better than current batteries, the audience is investors, donors, those who provide research grants or decide tenure and so on. So we have climate deniers who won't believe any of this anyway and those who are to varying degrees believe in climate change who don't really need to be convinced. Additionally, extreme or alarmist predictions tend to have the opposite of the desired effect. It tends to entrench opposing views and alienate the more moderates. But I imagine there are certain political and academic circles where alarmist predictions and the associated publicity are good currency for "street cred" with their contemporaries. For the record, I believe humans are having an impact on climate change, that change is likely to have some hugely negative consequences but, most importantly, there's really nothing we can do about it altruistically. Any solution will be purely economic. Fossil fuels will be replaced when it becomes cheaper to do so and not a moment before.
- olalonde 5y ago
  > Additionally, extreme or alarmist predictions tend to have the opposite of the desired effect. It tends to entrench opposing views and alienate the more moderates. Bingo (I'm one of those). And your analogy with COVID is extremely interesting. It somewhat reinforces my belief that the negative impacts of climate change are probably overstated. 1) Most early COVID predictions by experts vastly overstated the deadliness of the virus and its impact[0]. 2) There is some evidence that wearing a mask helps prevent COVID transmission, but not by much. Is it worth wearing a mask 24/7 for the rest of our lives? Probably not. 3) Taking a vaccine does not "unquestionably save the lives of others". Recent studies have shown that vaccinated people are just as likely to transmit the virus.[1] I could go on. I believe in vaccination and am vaccinated. I believe in climate change. But I am very hesitant to accept broad doomsday predictions by climate scientists which involve a mix of economics, society, politics, etc. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7447267/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7447267/ [1] https://fee.org/articles/stunning-new-study-undercuts-the-case-for-vaccine-mandates/ https://fee.org/articles/stunning-new-study-undercuts-the-ca...
BLKNSLVR 5y ago
That's how long it will take the Australian Government to arrive at the "Carbon Capture and Storage technology is too expensive and ineffective" party, which many other governments have already attended, had a good time, and left for the next phase. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-09/cefc-fund-investment-scott-morrison-carbon-capture-storage/100607070 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-09/cefc-fund-investment-...
User23 5y ago
I can’t stop thinking about Von Neumann’s elephant[1][2] when I read articles like this. I’m not a “denier” (and what an intellectually ugly term that is), but I do have my doubts about the predictive value of overfitted models. [1] https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/06/21/how-to-fit-an-elephant/ https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/06/21/how-to-fit-an-elep... [2] https://demonstrations.wolfram.com/FittingAnElephant/ https://demonstrations.wolfram.com/FittingAnElephant/
yongjik 5y ago
Even if the research itself is legit, it's a meaningless summary. It just means: we labeled an arbitrary subset of the range of possible outcomes as "worst outcome", and ran simulations on a series of hypothetical future economic policies. The first model that crosses into our arbitrary boundary is labeled "acting 11 years from now." I have a hard time appreciating such headlines, when the boring truth is no less terrifying: We're in deep shit, we're constantly dumping more shit into the pool we're in, and every shit we're throwing in now, we will have to pay more later to get out of.
kodyo 5y ago
Go balls deep on nuclear, drop the climate justice stuff, propose a plan that doesn’t involve authoritarian elites preaching austerity, and I’m in.
dazag 5y ago
Resource based economy or this problem will never fade, we are just like chickens running around. If you have legacy code, you dont just patch it up to stop being inneficient, you either update the code to a new robust structure o create a new one. Our socio-economic system is legacy code, very old one, we either update it to a new structure or create a new one, and it seems a resorce based economy structure would be appropiate for the problems us humans have. In my opinion

20 points by dane-pgp 5y ago

I think it’s going to be very bad no matter what we do. Having to stay inside last year during the Oregon wildfires was worse than dealing with COVID. It’s definitely going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

xwdv 5y ago
It doesn’t necessarily have to get better than today though, only better than the worst at that time.

dudul 5y ago

I feel like it's been 20 years that we only have 5 years to fix it.

dane-pgp 5y ago

Maybe the estimate will be right this time, and maybe the previous estimates were right too, in some technical sense, but the people making these predictions need to ask whether their repeated contradictory-sounding warnings are doing more harm than good. For perspective: * 2021 - John Kerry says Earth has 9 years to avert the worst consequences of climate crisis: "There's no faking it on this one"[0] * 2019 - Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change, Speakers Warn during General Assembly High-Level Meeting[1] * 2018 - We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN[2] * 2012 - Two years left to curb climate change, Government warned[3] * 2011 - World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns[4] * 2009 - 'We have only four years left to act on climate change - America has to lead'[5] ------ [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-9-years-john-kerry/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-9-years-john-ker... [1] https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-w... [3] https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/two-years-left-curb-climate-2019481 https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/two-years-left... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-f... [5] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/18/obama-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/18/obama-cl...

PikachuEXE 5y ago
Don't "forget" about 1970 global freezing too. https://climatechangedispatch.com/120-years-of-climate-scares-1970s-ice-age-scare/ https://climatechangedispatch.com/120-years-of-climate-scare... Or just search "1970 global freezing".
- argomo 5y ago
  This was a minority view inflated by poor journalism. Climate science as a whole was veering toward the "Earth gets warmer" conclusion.(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/25/huckabees-claim-that-global-freezing-theories-from-the-1970s-shows-the-science-is-not-as-settled-on-climate-change/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/...) I note your article also waves the "follow the money" insinuation that scientists are being bought writ-large by government grants even though these are but a trickle compared to the profits from selling fossil fuels.
- Oletros 5y ago
  Still about that hoax?
JoshTko 5y ago
They are all right. It's just how much human suffering you consider to be worst case.
- olalonde 5y ago
  If those are right, then logically so are these: "it's too late to curb climate change", "it's too late to act on climate change", etc. See the problem?
mempko 5y ago
It only does harm when people paid to spread global warming denial propaganda use predictions to show that there is nothing to worry about. Turns out, many people make all kinds of predictions all the time. Turns out predictions are random variables. Anyone understanding this would welcome as many predictions as possible because the aggregate paints the most accurate picture.

IntemerateApe 5y ago

it seems like if you tell people we only have X years left, then they will be more than happy to sit on their ass for X-1 years

dane-pgp 5y ago
And then at X+1 years claim "Well, I guess it's too late to do anything now".
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  This was me doing my homework in the 1990's.
bamboozled 5y ago
It's human nature to do this, why would you do something earlier than required if it takes effort? We only have a certain amount of energy / attention at our disposal.

bamboozled 5y ago

Been hearing something similar for the last 30. I think we're way too late to the game really, hope I'm wrong.

mbgerring 5y ago

There is a large and growing group of technology companies working to address and mitigate climate change. I work for one, and you can too. For me, discourse and persuasion around climate change has taken a back seat to making a rapidly decarbonizing electric grid an on-the-ground fact. If you’re tired of the endless arguments, join me in working every day to shift the material conditions of the debate. https://climatebase.org https://climatebase.org

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

civilized 5y ago

We get it. Every day we have one day left to keep climate change from getting worse.

hndamien 5y ago

It should be stated we need to do x starting today to improve by this rate to avoid X. Then we could update the rate. Less sexy, but more accurate.

cletus 5y ago

We can't even get people to wear a mask to help stop the spread of a respiratory disease let alone take a vaccine that may save their life and will unquestionably save the lives of others. So there are two possibilities here: 1. This claim, unlike all previous such claims, is true. In that case, we're screwed anyway, so what does it matter?; or 2. This claim is false, in which case we just further teach people to distrust science. I always wonder when I see these alarmist end-of-the-world predictions: Do those making these claims believe them? As in, are the claims made honestly or dishonestly? It could be either. A good way of thinking about any claim is to ask yourself who the audience is. So when a company or university makes a claim about new groundbreaking battery tech that if it ever reaches the market and all the naive assumptions hold true in the most optimistic way then it'll be 1,000x better than current batteries, the audience is investors, donors, those who provide research grants or decide tenure and so on. So we have climate deniers who won't believe any of this anyway and those who are to varying degrees believe in climate change who don't really need to be convinced. Additionally, extreme or alarmist predictions tend to have the opposite of the desired effect. It tends to entrench opposing views and alienate the more moderates. But I imagine there are certain political and academic circles where alarmist predictions and the associated publicity are good currency for "street cred" with their contemporaries. For the record, I believe humans are having an impact on climate change, that change is likely to have some hugely negative consequences but, most importantly, there's really nothing we can do about it altruistically. Any solution will be purely economic. Fossil fuels will be replaced when it becomes cheaper to do so and not a moment before.

olalonde 5y ago
> Additionally, extreme or alarmist predictions tend to have the opposite of the desired effect. It tends to entrench opposing views and alienate the more moderates. Bingo (I'm one of those). And your analogy with COVID is extremely interesting. It somewhat reinforces my belief that the negative impacts of climate change are probably overstated. 1) Most early COVID predictions by experts vastly overstated the deadliness of the virus and its impact[0]. 2) There is some evidence that wearing a mask helps prevent COVID transmission, but not by much. Is it worth wearing a mask 24/7 for the rest of our lives? Probably not. 3) Taking a vaccine does not "unquestionably save the lives of others". Recent studies have shown that vaccinated people are just as likely to transmit the virus.[1] I could go on. I believe in vaccination and am vaccinated. I believe in climate change. But I am very hesitant to accept broad doomsday predictions by climate scientists which involve a mix of economics, society, politics, etc. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7447267/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7447267/ [1] https://fee.org/articles/stunning-new-study-undercuts-the-case-for-vaccine-mandates/ https://fee.org/articles/stunning-new-study-undercuts-the-ca...

BLKNSLVR 5y ago

That's how long it will take the Australian Government to arrive at the "Carbon Capture and Storage technology is too expensive and ineffective" party, which many other governments have already attended, had a good time, and left for the next phase. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-09/cefc-fund-investment-scott-morrison-carbon-capture-storage/100607070 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-09/cefc-fund-investment-...

User23 5y ago

I can’t stop thinking about Von Neumann’s elephant[1][2] when I read articles like this. I’m not a “denier” (and what an intellectually ugly term that is), but I do have my doubts about the predictive value of overfitted models. [1] https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/06/21/how-to-fit-an-elephant/ https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/06/21/how-to-fit-an-elep... [2] https://demonstrations.wolfram.com/FittingAnElephant/ https://demonstrations.wolfram.com/FittingAnElephant/

yongjik 5y ago

Even if the research itself is legit, it's a meaningless summary. It just means: we labeled an arbitrary subset of the range of possible outcomes as "worst outcome", and ran simulations on a series of hypothetical future economic policies. The first model that crosses into our arbitrary boundary is labeled "acting 11 years from now." I have a hard time appreciating such headlines, when the boring truth is no less terrifying: We're in deep shit, we're constantly dumping more shit into the pool we're in, and every shit we're throwing in now, we will have to pay more later to get out of.

kodyo 5y ago

Go balls deep on nuclear, drop the climate justice stuff, propose a plan that doesn’t involve authoritarian elites preaching austerity, and I’m in.

dazag 5y ago

Resource based economy or this problem will never fade, we are just like chickens running around. If you have legacy code, you dont just patch it up to stop being inneficient, you either update the code to a new robust structure o create a new one. Our socio-economic system is legacy code, very old one, we either update it to a new structure or create a new one, and it seems a resorce based economy structure would be appropiate for the problems us humans have. In my opinion