19 ms·

UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

206 points by open-source-ux 4y ago

wollsmoth 4y ago
Yeah we're along for the ride at this point. The time to organize and get it together has long past.
makerofspoons 4y ago
An assessment of climate tipping points that are likely to be triggered at 1.5C degrees of warming: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950 The main threats would be near-term coral reef die-offs and ice sheet collapses.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  reading reports for the last years, surprising to me was to find out the huge changes in sea level in fairly short time spans. Not "geological time" like some distant multi-hundred thousand year units, but instead more like sixty thousand years ago.. that is not so many human generations.. secondly, overall, the profound beauty of living ecosystems will be reduced brutally in the coming age. Monotonous and harsh regions will replace large areas, with ecosystem die-offs -- maybe slightly analogous to coral reef death. It has been two solid decades of science reports for me, probably many others. Certainly some appreciation is called for, for the hard work of a few boomer scientists who have seen this unfold, and are now basically facing "geezerhood" with the toothless and feeble reality of that, while the Earth systems continue to degenerate at such a pace.
Proven 4y ago
nprateem 4y ago
No comments because no one's shocked any more
- zapdrive 4y ago
  [flagged]
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  Still a few ostriches about, pulling their heads out of sand to tell everyone they're wrong though.
pier25 4y ago
No surprises here. We've known for years we're going to shoot beyond 2C with very high certainty. Even if a miracle happened and we reached zero emissions today, the climate will keep warming at least for some more decades due to climate lag and feedbacks.
- radford-neal 4y ago
  No, this is not known with "very high certainty". The most recent IPCC report (AR6) gives the "very likely" (90% probability) range for "equilibrium climate sensitivity" - the eventual effect on temperature of doubling CO2 - as between 2C and 5C. Current CO2 levels are less than double pre-industrial levels, so the "baked in" warming could well be less than 2C. Also note that reaching the equilibrium temperature takes more like centuries than decades, making the concept somewhat academic, since lots of other things will change over that time period. Also note that 2C warming over pre-industrial temperatures would just take us back to about what the temperature was 8000 years ago, when conditions were good enough for agriculture and civilization to start.
  - thebooktocome 4y ago
    Eight thousand years ago we didn’t need the Haber process to keep several billion people fed.
  - taylodl 4y ago
    Ah, the ol' earth has been as warm or warmer before claim. This is true - absolutely true, but it misses one critical, I daresay crucial, point: earth's climate has never changed this rapidly in the past few million years. It's the rate of temperature change that's the problem, not necessarily the actual temperature itself since, as you've pointed out, earth has had these temperatures before. Given time, the biosphere will respond positively. If not given sufficient time, as measured in geological time units, the biosphere responds poorly. That fact is the crux of the problem. Also, with regards to your claim that earth was warmer 8,000 ago, that's a bit nuanced. You should check out this article for more details. https://reason.com/2013/03/07/earths-average-temperature-lower-than-it/ https://reason.com/2013/03/07/earths-average-temperature-low...
canadiantim 4y ago
Maybe then we should consider not kneecapping our economy and driving people into poverty? The worst thing for the environment is poverty. I'm convinced most of the measures put in place to fight climate change have been a net negative to the environment, when you consider how much they are impoverishing people and thus driving more people to disregard environmental concerns for survival.
- pjc50 4y ago
  This argument might be valid in Brazil but definitely isn't in Canada.
  - canadiantim 4y ago
    Canada is tripling its carbon tax meanwhile residents e.g. in Newfoundland are suffering extremely under the cost of fuel prices for heating their home, so much so that even liberal mps are voting to exempt home heating from the tripling of the carbon tax. So this argument definitely still valid in Canada, though I do agree that it is more valid is more developing countries.
    - VancouverMan 4y ago
      It's such a convoluted situation in Canada. The same politicians forcing insane "carbon taxes" are also putting in place immigration policies that bring in an absolutely massive number of people each year. This, of course, drives up the demand for electricity, housing (including heating, as you mention), infrastructure, transportation (of goods and people), food, and so forth, all of which contribute to "carbon emissions". The "green belts" that have been imposed by government around major cities just end up pushing urban sprawl farther out, beyond those belts. This, in turn, increases the time and energy spent commuting and travelling, which is usually done by car, since public transit in Canada is very limited and impractical, and the distances are quite far. Thanks to significant and overbearing government bureaucracy and regulations, building high-rise residential buildings in the densest cities takes ages. The actual construction phase is very rapid compared to sorting out the bureaucratic details. If these politicians really wanted to limit or cut "carbon emissions", the first thing they'd be doing is halting pretty much all immigration into Canada, to at least let the situation stabilize.
rob74 4y ago
The appropriately apocalyptic soundtrack to accompany this article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi0q0O4V5Qs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi0q0O4V5Qs
zb1plus 4y ago
I wish humanity could discard narrow-minded nationalist/short-sighted capitalist tendencies and unite against this threat. Imagine a climate pact between the US, EU, China and India where each society placed a similar focus on pivoting to renewables and developing reliable fusion energy as the Allies devoted to winning ww2 and developing atomic weaponry. Amusingly, the end of our dependency would also resolve many geopolitical concerns. However, governments across the globe are run by people who lack the proper morals or intelligence to see what needs to be done.
- jcbrand 4y ago
  However, governments across the globe are run by people who lack the proper morals or intelligence to see what needs to be done. So we should just put you in charge and then you'll sort it out? Have you considered the possibility that it's not about morals or intelligence but that it's actually an intractable problem?
  - a_shovel 4y ago
    > So we should just put you in charge and then you'll sort it out? Have you considered this is exactly the kind of narrow-mindedness they're probably talking about? If I had written the parent post, that's what I would mean by that. This simple-minded paranoia that any proposal from anyone else is secretly an evil plot to take over the world is ridiculous.
    - embeng4096 4y ago
      >> Have you considered the possibility that it's not about morals or intelligence but that it's actually an intractable problem? I don't think they're saying, "this person is secretly plotting to take over the world". I think they're saying, "have you considered that this is actually a hard problem and not as simple as you make it out to be?"
    - mistermann 4y ago
      To be fair, thinking and writing without error (on topics like this) is hard, and it's rather culturally frowned upon here and elsewhere.
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
Not a surprise, since co2 is an oxide, and therefore very stable in the athmosphere. It would take a huge amount of energy to remove it, and we don't even stop putting it in there. Janvici had a nice way to put it: the 1.5C are already signed for, which means we won't ever see the climate of today again in the next 5000 years.
- Tuna-Fish 4y ago
  > Not a surprise, since co2 is an oxide, and therefore very stable in the athmosphere. It would take a huge amount of energy to remove it, There is an exothermic reaction that removes CO2 from the atmosphere, the formation of carbonates from weathering of silicate rocks. As this is naturally very slow, there is currently ongoing research into multiple different ways to speed it up.
  - macspoofing 4y ago
    That doesn't change anything. You need a huge amount of energy to remove CO2 from the atmosphere because CO2 is a tiny constituent part of Air (~400ppm) - that means one has to move a million molecules of air across a collector (whatever that is) to remove 400 molecules of CO2. You can't do that without huge amounts of energy and a huge surface area for your collector ... on any human timescale.
    - blueflow 4y ago
      Plants do. And they only need the sunlight they have where they grow.
      - tomtomistaken 4y ago
        I think that’s the “huge surface” op is talking about.
        abyssin 4y ago
        And we’re busy decreasing the surface of woodlands on the planet.
fulafel 4y ago
The title is somewhat out of context, the abstract says "the international community is falling far short of the Paris goals, with no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place". So it's not saying we can't do it, it's saying we're failing and take action. (Not to downplay it at all, we really need to get things happening right now on the policy decisions level)
- netsharc 4y ago
  The HN title is a summary of the subtitle (the first text after the picture and the byline)... It's a better title than the article, as far as attention grabbing is concerned.
  - fulafel 4y ago
    BBC did the mistake in summarizing the abstract of the UN report, HN title repeated it. At least BBC linked to it ( https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022 https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022)
the__alchemist 4y ago
Neal Stephenson's most recent novel, Termination shock describes a near-future world where climate change's effects are becoming more visible and obvious. Without spoiling too much, it explores the politics of aerosol (sulpher) injection into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from the planet.
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  I'm going to have to read that book, because that's exactly the path we're going down. Without geoengineering, we're looking at a world probably ~ 4c warmer by 2100, and when developed nations start feeling real pain, I guarantee you this will be tried.
- jmugan 4y ago
  I started reading that book but was disappointed. I live in central Texas, and I didn't recognize the picture he painted. Yeah, it's hot and often terrible, but his terrible didn't ring true and took me out of the novel. E.g, Waco as a big forest and fire ants eating electrical wires (that's crazy ants that do that).
criddell 4y ago
> This analysis finds that new efforts to cut carbon would see global emissions fall by less than 1% by 2030, when according to scientists, reductions of 45% are needed to keep 1.5C in play. I'm reminded of that scene in Dumb & Dumber when Mary has just told Lloyd his chances of ending up with her are one in a million: "So you're telling me there's a chance. YEAH!"
Moissanite 4y ago
Fighting climate change is, and probably always has been, a losing battle. The upside is that one of the remedies to the problems caused by climate upheaval is greater energy independence - which naturally steers us towards renewables. So, we might eventually end up with a net zero carbon economy anyway - but it'll be because of a desire for local stability, rather than to help save poor people in the developing world from environmental collapse.
- Zigurd 4y ago
  The fact it is a "losing battle" for the next centuries has consequences. But not all of those consequences is despairing. Even if geoengineering is the only possible, yet dangerous and uncertain, way to make a dent in our CO2 "credit card debt" we still need aggressive investment in CO2 reduction. Continuing to bear down on the causes of anthropogenic climate change is the most effective way to reduce risk from geoengineering.
Ninjak8051 4y ago
Such pathways require global cooperation and will fail unless all major nations are on board. In particular, Russia is making no effort, and has no incentive or motivation to make any effort due to their vast tundra landscape. Step 1 is to get Russia on board by some means, without Russia any of these goals are senseless.
- ThalesX 4y ago
  > without Russia any of these goals are senseless This is an absurd take... Russia emits 4.65% of world output and has been decreasing last year the most out of the top 10 [0]. Could you base your arguments? I'd like to understand where this is coming from. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Ninjak8051 4y ago
    Here is what I am basing my arguments on: https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russian-federation/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russian-federatio... More generally, if Russia (or any party) has incentive, means, motivation to create climate change, do not be surprised if they actively work to make it happen. Russia can literally light things on fire and come out way ahead.
    - kotlin2 4y ago
      Ok, but what about the other 95% of emissions. We could just ignore what Russia does and still make a big impact.
- taylodl 4y ago
  If your solution involves Russia getting on board then you've already failed. Russia is actually encouraging climate change because it opens up more shipping in the arctic circle. This is to illustrate that in the short term climate change leads to winners and losers. In the long term we probably all lose, but we're not known for our long term thinking.
mmmpop 4y ago
newswasboring 4y ago
> "Into the classrooms, into the boardrooms, into the voting booth, over the dinner table. We cannot let go of climate change." I wonder if this is the right approach. It certainly is the approach we have been following for years. But I think that has just lead to empathy fatigue. Edit: added empathy
- happytoexplain 4y ago
  I'm not sure it's appropriate to call it an "approach". These are just the things a human does when they care about a society-scale issue that seems important. Yes, there surely may be a reason to modify this attitude as part of a strategy based on a somewhat pessimistic/realistic view of human psychology, but that modification is probably not a realistic goal.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  That quote sounds like a religion to me.
  - happytoexplain 4y ago
    That's pretty uncharitable, and really only makes sense as a criticism if you think the proponents don't really believe this is a critical, concrete issue for society (i.e. if you think they are just being political, or ignorant).
    - mistermann 4y ago
      There is no shortage of evidence that human beings have a strong conversion to fundamentalist, religious-like language. Additionally, be careful to not overlook the unknown.
    - newswasboring 4y ago
      > really only makes sense as a criticism if you think the proponents don't really believe People who push religion often believe in it though. The question isn't whether one believes it, but whether one is dogmatic about it. The closed mindedness towards new ideas is what makes this sound like religion.
bobsmooth 4y ago
I'm rich and live in a Western country. This won't affect me so I don't care.
- leducw 4y ago
  A mindset that is unfortunately too common.
- stuaxo 4y ago
  Do you live far away enough from the coast ? Rising costs of food and energy won't be a problem ?
  - aww_dang 4y ago
    Isn't it the warmist agenda of restricting energy production and consumption which is driving increased energy costs? As for living far enough from the coasts, are you referring to a meaningful sea level rise in the poster's lifetime?
- undersuit 4y ago
  I live in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains and I'm terrified.
Yizahi 4y ago
1.5*C ? What kind of fictional reality are living in? We are way past 2.4*C projection and are actually on track for 2.9*C or so. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/09/cop26-sets-course-for-disastrous-heating-of-more-than-24c-says-key-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/09/cop26-se...
- benj111 4y ago
  That's what the article says. We aren't doing enough to limit global warming to just 1.5c. we could do more a possibly limit warming to 1.5c but it becomes an ever greater challenge the longer we leave it.
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    At some point we have to stop talking about the 1.5° number as if it were anything but a ludicrous pipedream by now. Even ten years ago it was an entirely hypothetical "if the entire global economic system magically turned around overnight then it might be possible". Now it's "if we had a literal time machine and could go back and magically turn around the global economy overnight".
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      Indeed, it promotes inaction because the goal is so impossible you might as well not even try. Better to set a goal we can still actually achieve and take the consequences of that level for granted.
      - tejohnso 4y ago
        A goal we can actually achieve results in the collapse of civilization. But that doesn't sell well. Not many want to take that for granted. Any better consequence than that requires very significant changes from BAU and so lots of short term pain. Especially for the wealthy. And so we're back to impossible.
        4y ago
rubyist5eva 4y ago
It was a ludicrous notion that it was possible to begin with.
zosima 4y ago
Seems that we are already 1C degree above preindustrial levels. https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-pre-industrial-climate-and-why-does-it-matter-78601 https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-pre-industrial-climate... Doesn't seem unlikely that temperature will increase 1C more. Wonder if it's going to be just as destructive as the first 1C of warming holocaust?
macspoofing 4y ago
There is no chance of removing existing CO2 from Air to make any sort of difference. There is no chance of meaningfully reducing CO2 emissions, because outside of Nuclear (and hydro/geothermal but only if you have the geography for it) there is no alternative to replacing fossil fuels. At some point the public will realize the lie of solar/wind as a replacement. We lost 50 years of greatly reduced emissions had nuclear power continued to be rolled out at the same rate as it did in the 60s/70s. There is possibility of geoengineering (e.g. emitting some sort of sun-light reflecting gas into the atmosphere to cool the climate) but that suffers from a potential "law of unintended consequences". It seems like we're going to have to deal with it.
- doublerabbit 4y ago
  > there is no alternative to replacing fossil fuels. At some point the public will realize the lie of solar/wind as a replacement. What lie exactly? Scotland had produced enough to power itself twice on Wind alone. [1] How is nuclear a better alternative than Wind or Hydro when - Nuclear is extremely dangerous with toxic waste needing special storage facilities. Criminal & Environmental contamination risks. - Disaster if the plant is to be damaged - Chernobyl / Fukushima / Ukraine-Russia war - You need an external power source to kick-start a nuclear station on top of requiring uninterruptible power supply - Fossil Fuels - You need a large water source for cooling, extracting, processing - Limited Resource Thorium reactors are a dream away, nice but not feasible as of the moment. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/scotland-wind-power-on-shore-renewable-energy-climate-change-uk-a9013066.html https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/scotland-w...
  - macspoofing 4y ago
    >What lie exactly? Scotland is producing enough to power Scotland twice itself on Wind alone. No they aren't. This is at best misleading, at worst, a blatant lie. What is happening is that on days with strong winds, they are overproducing wind energy but ONLY at certain times of the day. When they overproduce this energy, they cannot store it for later (because there is no battery technology today, or in the near-to-mid future that is able to store that amount of energy), and they cannot give it away, so they lose it. This kind of headline is very very common. This is how the public is continually lied to and thinks that wind/solar is just around the corner. It isn't. It's never going to be. >Nuclear is extremely dangerous with toxic waste needing special storage facilities. Destruction if the plant is to melt-down. (chernobyl)? You need an external power source to power a nuclear plant. Nuclear also requires uninterruptible power. If you don't like nuclear ... fine, but there is nothing else. So now what? >Thorium reactors are a dream away, nice but not feasible as of the moment. Agreed. Also Fusion is a pipe-dream at this point in time. So now what?
yodsanklai 4y ago
Yet most people (including our leaders) are still expecting constant growth and innovation. At least we should have a plan B.
almost_usual 4y ago
> "Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster," she said. Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
tuvi13 4y ago
What is Deloitte saying about that? https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/gx-global-turning-point-report.pdf https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Docume... and a short analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--QS_UyW2SY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--QS_UyW2SY
- tgv 4y ago
  They're just trying to extract a few more dollars out of it.
  - kolinko 4y ago
    My GF works and Deloitte, and they are really, honestly, pushing fighting climate change agenda.
- boringg 4y ago
  Why would you ever use Deloitte as an example for something as a public good?
globular-toast 4y ago
I used to be really depressed about this sort of thing. It caused me to severely limit my lifestyle out of a desire to "do the right thing". I didn't own a car. Very low consumption and minimal waste (no takeaway food, coffee etc., very frugal, didn't use things like paper towels and napkins). I cycled and walked everywhere. Didn't go on holidays abroad or even very far away. Then I looked around and noticed that everyone else was enjoying themselves at my expense. Worse, I was often a second-class citizen as my bicycle couldn't stand up to their cars. So I said fuck it, bought a car, fly several times a year, use paper towels, drive to the air-conditioned gym so my body looks like it's useful, don't care about my waste as much. Can't beat 'em, join 'em. I still reckon I use and waste less than the average person (certainly less than the average American), though. I can be happy with this because I'm not going to reproduce. I honestly don't care if humans die out a few generations after me. I used to care but I just don't think we are worth it any more.
- abyssin 4y ago
  I’m still on the side of cyclists. I don’t think I’d be able to stand a lifestyle where I’m surrounded by people in denial. I have a child but I don’t think I’ll raise her in the belief that only a comfortable life is one worth living. I’m also wondering by who childless people expect to be taken care of when they get older, if not by their children in a broad sense?
  - globular-toast 4y ago
    You expect your child to take care of you? None of us know what the future holds. You might very well have nobody to care for you either. Your children are free agents and might move to the other side of the world or might simply not care about you. Like me you'll probably choose not to overly concern yourself with this.
    - abyssin 4y ago
      Well, I feel responsible for those who need to get cared for. I take care of my parents and I’ll do more so in the future. Many people have cared for me when I was in need. I believe there’s a good chance that my children, as free agents, will choose to take care for me when I need it. I also mean it in a more generational sense.
jameshart 4y ago
Let me just leave a Unicode ‘degree’ symbol here for anyone who needs one: ° (on iOS and possibly MacOS you can get one of these by pressing and holding ‘zero’ until the alternate characters appear)
- Sharlin 4y ago
  On macOS's US and US International layouts it's alt+0 – on many European layouts it's shift + the button below esc (eg. §).
  - anamexis 4y ago
    On the US layout, alt+0 gives me º (U+00BA : MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR). To get the degree sign, it's alt+shift+8 for ° (U+00B0 : DEGREE SIGN)
    - Sharlin 4y ago
      Oh, wow, my bad. Got confused by the similarity.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  This is a technical forum, you can just write K. The degrees Celsius are deliberately the same size as the Kelvin unit, but you don't need (and shouldn't write) degrees for an absolute system. We're fucked because 1.5K was already a lot, and there's still barely enough political will to avoid 3K. It is going to get bad.
  - mellosouls 4y ago
    Nobody's gonna believe 1.5 thousand, and plenty would read it that way. Nobody outside some science niches (technical or not) uses K for temperature.
    - SnowHill9902 4y ago
      The correct format is 1.5 K and in my opinion is unambiguous written that way. 1.5k is definitely 1,500 while 1.5K in the middle is ambiguous and depends on context.
pelasaco 4y ago
destroying masterpieces with tomato juice, or potatoes is definitely not the way to go..
- pelasaco 4y ago
  gluing themselves to masterpieces or autobahn won't help either
user3939382 4y ago
We are too politically polarized to solve problems in this class, which requires political unity because of the scale, cost, and speed requirements. All of our major political forces play games, constantly make moves in bad faith, talk out of both sides of their mouths publicly vs privately, so we are screwed. The reality is that IF climate change science were a big hoax (sadly, it's not) there WOULD be a team using it for political games, so there will always be a large class of people who believe that's what's going on. Maybe if we didn't spend decades politicizing every microscopic issue including in science, technology, and medicine, we could have policy makers advocate for positions based on science and everyone would trust it. That's not the world we live in and unfortunately, it looks like we never will.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  I think you're editorializing it in a way that is making it far more politically neutral or "pox on both your houses" than it actually is. It's not about warring world views. It's just about money. The simple reality is: almost all wealth on the planet is tied up with fossil fuels. This being the case, the more wealthy you are, the more "polarized" in a certain direction you will be. Might makes right. Or at least attempts to make right. And right now, "might" = "money" = "capital" = "energy"
  - frenchy 4y ago
    There's a lot of not wealthy people who are polarized in that direction as well though. It's not simply a matter of sending a few oligarchs to the gillotine. In the short run, basically everyone in North America and Europe benefit from out destruction of the climate, and most people in other countries too. To put it another way, the people who control the oil supply aren't simply wealthy because they pillaged and stole a bunch of people's stuff. The product they supply is extremely convenient and popular. You'd probably have an easier time fixing a world where everyone's a methhead than fixing the current problem.
    - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
      I don't disagree with your central point. Though I think there is room to quibble about the definition of "pillage and stole" given that the cornerstone of this whole structure is control over physical lands, physical lands to which troops and violence have definitely been deployed. Almost all of us are tied into this circuit in some way and "most of us" (in the west) short-term benefit from the continuance of the status quo energy economy and its growth. But what I would say is this: at the end the rich and powerful will continue to be able to buy fresh water and air and arable land and stable neighbourhoods with armed guards and fences. The rest of us will not be so lucky.
steve76 4y ago
abeppu 4y ago
So, this challenge asks for rapid transformations of society. The unfortunate thing is, we've shown that we can change behavior rapidly, but only if we think we think we're personally in danger, and we'll only willingly keep that transformation for a little while. Carbon emissions dropped in 2020, but it took people actually being scared into staying in their homes, and stopping whole sectors of the economy. What if the most effective climate plan is a long, deep, global depression? In addition to curbing emissions, high unemployment would reanimate the "green new deal" concept. The bad news is climate and geopolitical instability might just give us what we need.
walnutclosefarm 4y ago
That this is news reflects only the reluctance of much of world leadership to acknowledge it. Anybody paying attention has known for over a decade that a +1.5C limit is out of reach. The question the world faces now is whether the 3C rise we're actually going to get is enough to trigger non-human forcing through various feedback loops dumping carbon into the atmosphere in the form of CO2 and CH4, to require runaway warming as the future. I'm not optimistic.
karaterobot 4y ago
> "We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over," said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, who produced the study. > "Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster," she said. I don't see that happening, and my guess is neither do they. Plan C needs to be a massive geoengineering project that would have seemed crazy even ten years ago, may worry some people as irresponsible even now. The nightmare scenario is that we can't even do that in time, because we're too busy arguing about it.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Yeah, we took one major fossil fuel producing country out of part of the global economy and look at the pain that caused in "the West". This kind of drastic, quick climate action would have even stronger effects on the energy markets in the short term, though the higher prices would also encourage faster renewable deployment so the damage would at least be tempered after some time (years, probably). Of course the alternative that skips the trashing-the-economy part is more and larger government spending on renewable deployment to achieve a switchover on a similar timescale, but that's super-unpopular for a lot of voters.
nisegami 4y ago
Climate change seems to me to be the "gotcha" of liberal democracy. The timescales involved in democracy are so short that there's little incentive to do the things that would improve the situation, since the pain is felt now vs the (greater) pain in the future of climate change.
tejohnso 4y ago
There was no credible pathway to 1.5 when it was established at COP 21 in 2015. And previous to 1.5, the big number was 1.0. It'll be interesting if the mass media push changes the focus again and starts popularizing 2.0C. Or maybe they'll move the baseline up again at the next COP. What a farce.
togs 4y ago
Imagine the Kardashians going full influencer for climate change
aperson_hello 4y ago
It really is starting to feel like the fringe of the environmental movement have really been the bad guys all along. Blocking nuclear starting in the 70s, focusing only on recycling in the 80s and 90s (consumption doesn't matter as long as something could be recycled), blocking natural gas/oil in favor of coal in the 90s-2000s, blocking wind farms ("think of the birds!!"), batteries, and solar panels (too many chemicals/can't be recycled) in the 2010s, and now pushing the plastic straws will kill us all narrative in the 2020s (at the direct expense of the climate narrative). I'm being a bit hyperbolic here, but only a little bit. It's a decades long story of not seeing the forest for the trees and focusing on minor environmental impacts rather than the big climate issue staring us down. Like, this is exactly the strategy I'd take if my goal were to create as much warming as possible without anyone catching on...
- dclusin 4y ago
  Admitting that the decision to continue petroleum production is a cost benefit analysis and we still derive significant benefits from it is a conversation that much more than just the fringe environmentalists are unwilling to have. Had we been able to have these discussions earlier, we would have started working on carbon capture with much more credible allocations sooner.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Ah yes. All those PR campaigns that are directly and provably from the fossil fuel and plastic industries are definitely from people who have been saying we should stop using fossil fuels, invest in renewables, and reduce consumption for sixty years whilst being completely ignored.
aasasd 4y ago
I wish someone calculated with some certainty how much the lifestyles in different countries would have to change if the world just had to drop production that emits excess gases. I bet that would show that there's no way people modify their habits for this, especially in the ‘first world’. (As for myself, I'm living on less that 400 bucks a month, including rent, use transport once a month; and most energy I use is probably for central heating in the winter and for pumping water—otherwise it's the fridge and boiling water for tea. But idk about the ‘footprint’, probably still not good.)
egberts1 4y ago
Please, continue to add past the 14,200 new temperature reading stations in mostly the exclusively US urban/metro areas since 1973. It is important to stack the average by the virtue of its urban heat (over the cooler but carbon-tax-infused countrysides) and be able to note its mostly upward climate-change trend. And we won't bother with illusive matrix math in smoothing out the newer stations because we got the eLusive hockey stick trend going now (which started in 1973). Let's not ignore these 14,200+ new temp. stations because all data are valid. /sarcasm

Yeah we're along for the ride at this point. The time to organize and get it together has long past.

An assessment of climate tipping points that are likely to be triggered at 1.5C degrees of warming: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950 The main threats would be near-term coral reef die-offs and ice sheet collapses.

mistrial9 4y ago
reading reports for the last years, surprising to me was to find out the huge changes in sea level in fairly short time spans. Not "geological time" like some distant multi-hundred thousand year units, but instead more like sixty thousand years ago.. that is not so many human generations.. secondly, overall, the profound beauty of living ecosystems will be reduced brutally in the coming age. Monotonous and harsh regions will replace large areas, with ecosystem die-offs -- maybe slightly analogous to coral reef death. It has been two solid decades of science reports for me, probably many others. Certainly some appreciation is called for, for the hard work of a few boomer scientists who have seen this unfold, and are now basically facing "geezerhood" with the toothless and feeble reality of that, while the Earth systems continue to degenerate at such a pace.

Proven 4y ago

nprateem 4y ago

No comments because no one's shocked any more

zapdrive 4y ago
[flagged]
MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Still a few ostriches about, pulling their heads out of sand to tell everyone they're wrong though.

pier25 4y ago

No surprises here. We've known for years we're going to shoot beyond 2C with very high certainty. Even if a miracle happened and we reached zero emissions today, the climate will keep warming at least for some more decades due to climate lag and feedbacks.

radford-neal 4y ago
No, this is not known with "very high certainty". The most recent IPCC report (AR6) gives the "very likely" (90% probability) range for "equilibrium climate sensitivity" - the eventual effect on temperature of doubling CO2 - as between 2C and 5C. Current CO2 levels are less than double pre-industrial levels, so the "baked in" warming could well be less than 2C. Also note that reaching the equilibrium temperature takes more like centuries than decades, making the concept somewhat academic, since lots of other things will change over that time period. Also note that 2C warming over pre-industrial temperatures would just take us back to about what the temperature was 8000 years ago, when conditions were good enough for agriculture and civilization to start.
- thebooktocome 4y ago
  Eight thousand years ago we didn’t need the Haber process to keep several billion people fed.
- taylodl 4y ago
  Ah, the ol' earth has been as warm or warmer before claim. This is true - absolutely true, but it misses one critical, I daresay crucial, point: earth's climate has never changed this rapidly in the past few million years. It's the rate of temperature change that's the problem, not necessarily the actual temperature itself since, as you've pointed out, earth has had these temperatures before. Given time, the biosphere will respond positively. If not given sufficient time, as measured in geological time units, the biosphere responds poorly. That fact is the crux of the problem. Also, with regards to your claim that earth was warmer 8,000 ago, that's a bit nuanced. You should check out this article for more details. https://reason.com/2013/03/07/earths-average-temperature-lower-than-it/ https://reason.com/2013/03/07/earths-average-temperature-low...

canadiantim 4y ago

Maybe then we should consider not kneecapping our economy and driving people into poverty? The worst thing for the environment is poverty. I'm convinced most of the measures put in place to fight climate change have been a net negative to the environment, when you consider how much they are impoverishing people and thus driving more people to disregard environmental concerns for survival.

pjc50 4y ago
This argument might be valid in Brazil but definitely isn't in Canada.
- canadiantim 4y ago
  Canada is tripling its carbon tax meanwhile residents e.g. in Newfoundland are suffering extremely under the cost of fuel prices for heating their home, so much so that even liberal mps are voting to exempt home heating from the tripling of the carbon tax. So this argument definitely still valid in Canada, though I do agree that it is more valid is more developing countries.
  - VancouverMan 4y ago
    It's such a convoluted situation in Canada. The same politicians forcing insane "carbon taxes" are also putting in place immigration policies that bring in an absolutely massive number of people each year. This, of course, drives up the demand for electricity, housing (including heating, as you mention), infrastructure, transportation (of goods and people), food, and so forth, all of which contribute to "carbon emissions". The "green belts" that have been imposed by government around major cities just end up pushing urban sprawl farther out, beyond those belts. This, in turn, increases the time and energy spent commuting and travelling, which is usually done by car, since public transit in Canada is very limited and impractical, and the distances are quite far. Thanks to significant and overbearing government bureaucracy and regulations, building high-rise residential buildings in the densest cities takes ages. The actual construction phase is very rapid compared to sorting out the bureaucratic details. If these politicians really wanted to limit or cut "carbon emissions", the first thing they'd be doing is halting pretty much all immigration into Canada, to at least let the situation stabilize.

rob74 4y ago

The appropriately apocalyptic soundtrack to accompany this article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi0q0O4V5Qs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi0q0O4V5Qs

zb1plus 4y ago

I wish humanity could discard narrow-minded nationalist/short-sighted capitalist tendencies and unite against this threat. Imagine a climate pact between the US, EU, China and India where each society placed a similar focus on pivoting to renewables and developing reliable fusion energy as the Allies devoted to winning ww2 and developing atomic weaponry. Amusingly, the end of our dependency would also resolve many geopolitical concerns. However, governments across the globe are run by people who lack the proper morals or intelligence to see what needs to be done.

jcbrand 4y ago
However, governments across the globe are run by people who lack the proper morals or intelligence to see what needs to be done. So we should just put you in charge and then you'll sort it out? Have you considered the possibility that it's not about morals or intelligence but that it's actually an intractable problem?
- a_shovel 4y ago
  > So we should just put you in charge and then you'll sort it out? Have you considered this is exactly the kind of narrow-mindedness they're probably talking about? If I had written the parent post, that's what I would mean by that. This simple-minded paranoia that any proposal from anyone else is secretly an evil plot to take over the world is ridiculous.
  - embeng4096 4y ago
    >> Have you considered the possibility that it's not about morals or intelligence but that it's actually an intractable problem? I don't think they're saying, "this person is secretly plotting to take over the world". I think they're saying, "have you considered that this is actually a hard problem and not as simple as you make it out to be?"
  - mistermann 4y ago
    To be fair, thinking and writing without error (on topics like this) is hard, and it's rather culturally frowned upon here and elsewhere.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

Not a surprise, since co2 is an oxide, and therefore very stable in the athmosphere. It would take a huge amount of energy to remove it, and we don't even stop putting it in there. Janvici had a nice way to put it: the 1.5C are already signed for, which means we won't ever see the climate of today again in the next 5000 years.

Tuna-Fish 4y ago
> Not a surprise, since co2 is an oxide, and therefore very stable in the athmosphere. It would take a huge amount of energy to remove it, There is an exothermic reaction that removes CO2 from the atmosphere, the formation of carbonates from weathering of silicate rocks. As this is naturally very slow, there is currently ongoing research into multiple different ways to speed it up.
- macspoofing 4y ago
  That doesn't change anything. You need a huge amount of energy to remove CO2 from the atmosphere because CO2 is a tiny constituent part of Air (~400ppm) - that means one has to move a million molecules of air across a collector (whatever that is) to remove 400 molecules of CO2. You can't do that without huge amounts of energy and a huge surface area for your collector ... on any human timescale.
  - blueflow 4y ago
    Plants do. And they only need the sunlight they have where they grow.
    - tomtomistaken 4y ago
      I think that’s the “huge surface” op is talking about.
      - abyssin 4y ago
        And we’re busy decreasing the surface of woodlands on the planet.

fulafel 4y ago

The title is somewhat out of context, the abstract says "the international community is falling far short of the Paris goals, with no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place". So it's not saying we can't do it, it's saying we're failing and take action. (Not to downplay it at all, we really need to get things happening right now on the policy decisions level)

netsharc 4y ago
The HN title is a summary of the subtitle (the first text after the picture and the byline)... It's a better title than the article, as far as attention grabbing is concerned.
- fulafel 4y ago
  BBC did the mistake in summarizing the abstract of the UN report, HN title repeated it. At least BBC linked to it ( https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022 https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022)

the__alchemist 4y ago

Neal Stephenson's most recent novel, Termination shock describes a near-future world where climate change's effects are becoming more visible and obvious. Without spoiling too much, it explores the politics of aerosol (sulpher) injection into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from the planet.

wing-_-nuts 4y ago
I'm going to have to read that book, because that's exactly the path we're going down. Without geoengineering, we're looking at a world probably ~ 4c warmer by 2100, and when developed nations start feeling real pain, I guarantee you this will be tried.
jmugan 4y ago
I started reading that book but was disappointed. I live in central Texas, and I didn't recognize the picture he painted. Yeah, it's hot and often terrible, but his terrible didn't ring true and took me out of the novel. E.g, Waco as a big forest and fire ants eating electrical wires (that's crazy ants that do that).

criddell 4y ago

> This analysis finds that new efforts to cut carbon would see global emissions fall by less than 1% by 2030, when according to scientists, reductions of 45% are needed to keep 1.5C in play. I'm reminded of that scene in Dumb & Dumber when Mary has just told Lloyd his chances of ending up with her are one in a million: "So you're telling me there's a chance. YEAH!"

Moissanite 4y ago

Fighting climate change is, and probably always has been, a losing battle. The upside is that one of the remedies to the problems caused by climate upheaval is greater energy independence - which naturally steers us towards renewables. So, we might eventually end up with a net zero carbon economy anyway - but it'll be because of a desire for local stability, rather than to help save poor people in the developing world from environmental collapse.

Zigurd 4y ago
The fact it is a "losing battle" for the next centuries has consequences. But not all of those consequences is despairing. Even if geoengineering is the only possible, yet dangerous and uncertain, way to make a dent in our CO2 "credit card debt" we still need aggressive investment in CO2 reduction. Continuing to bear down on the causes of anthropogenic climate change is the most effective way to reduce risk from geoengineering.

Ninjak8051 4y ago

Such pathways require global cooperation and will fail unless all major nations are on board. In particular, Russia is making no effort, and has no incentive or motivation to make any effort due to their vast tundra landscape. Step 1 is to get Russia on board by some means, without Russia any of these goals are senseless.

ThalesX 4y ago
> without Russia any of these goals are senseless This is an absurd take... Russia emits 4.65% of world output and has been decreasing last year the most out of the top 10 [0]. Could you base your arguments? I'd like to understand where this is coming from. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Ninjak8051 4y ago
  Here is what I am basing my arguments on: https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russian-federation/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russian-federatio... More generally, if Russia (or any party) has incentive, means, motivation to create climate change, do not be surprised if they actively work to make it happen. Russia can literally light things on fire and come out way ahead.
  - kotlin2 4y ago
    Ok, but what about the other 95% of emissions. We could just ignore what Russia does and still make a big impact.
taylodl 4y ago
If your solution involves Russia getting on board then you've already failed. Russia is actually encouraging climate change because it opens up more shipping in the arctic circle. This is to illustrate that in the short term climate change leads to winners and losers. In the long term we probably all lose, but we're not known for our long term thinking.

mmmpop 4y ago

newswasboring 4y ago

> "Into the classrooms, into the boardrooms, into the voting booth, over the dinner table. We cannot let go of climate change." I wonder if this is the right approach. It certainly is the approach we have been following for years. But I think that has just lead to empathy fatigue. Edit: added empathy

happytoexplain 4y ago
I'm not sure it's appropriate to call it an "approach". These are just the things a human does when they care about a society-scale issue that seems important. Yes, there surely may be a reason to modify this attitude as part of a strategy based on a somewhat pessimistic/realistic view of human psychology, but that modification is probably not a realistic goal.
giraffe_lady 4y ago
nathanaldensr 4y ago
That quote sounds like a religion to me.
- happytoexplain 4y ago
  That's pretty uncharitable, and really only makes sense as a criticism if you think the proponents don't really believe this is a critical, concrete issue for society (i.e. if you think they are just being political, or ignorant).
  - mistermann 4y ago
    There is no shortage of evidence that human beings have a strong conversion to fundamentalist, religious-like language. Additionally, be careful to not overlook the unknown.
  - newswasboring 4y ago
    > really only makes sense as a criticism if you think the proponents don't really believe People who push religion often believe in it though. The question isn't whether one believes it, but whether one is dogmatic about it. The closed mindedness towards new ideas is what makes this sound like religion.

bobsmooth 4y ago

I'm rich and live in a Western country. This won't affect me so I don't care.

leducw 4y ago
A mindset that is unfortunately too common.
stuaxo 4y ago
Do you live far away enough from the coast ? Rising costs of food and energy won't be a problem ?
- aww_dang 4y ago
  Isn't it the warmist agenda of restricting energy production and consumption which is driving increased energy costs? As for living far enough from the coasts, are you referring to a meaningful sea level rise in the poster's lifetime?
undersuit 4y ago
I live in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains and I'm terrified.

Yizahi 4y ago

1.5*C ? What kind of fictional reality are living in? We are way past 2.4*C projection and are actually on track for 2.9*C or so. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/09/cop26-sets-course-for-disastrous-heating-of-more-than-24c-says-key-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/09/cop26-se...

benj111 4y ago
That's what the article says. We aren't doing enough to limit global warming to just 1.5c. we could do more a possibly limit warming to 1.5c but it becomes an ever greater challenge the longer we leave it.
- Sharlin 4y ago
  At some point we have to stop talking about the 1.5° number as if it were anything but a ludicrous pipedream by now. Even ten years ago it was an entirely hypothetical "if the entire global economic system magically turned around overnight then it might be possible". Now it's "if we had a literal time machine and could go back and magically turn around the global economy overnight".
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Indeed, it promotes inaction because the goal is so impossible you might as well not even try. Better to set a goal we can still actually achieve and take the consequences of that level for granted.
    - tejohnso 4y ago
      A goal we can actually achieve results in the collapse of civilization. But that doesn't sell well. Not many want to take that for granted. Any better consequence than that requires very significant changes from BAU and so lots of short term pain. Especially for the wealthy. And so we're back to impossible.
      - 4y ago

rubyist5eva 4y ago

It was a ludicrous notion that it was possible to begin with.

zosima 4y ago

Seems that we are already 1C degree above preindustrial levels. https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-pre-industrial-climate-and-why-does-it-matter-78601 https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-pre-industrial-climate... Doesn't seem unlikely that temperature will increase 1C more. Wonder if it's going to be just as destructive as the first 1C of warming holocaust?

macspoofing 4y ago

There is no chance of removing existing CO2 from Air to make any sort of difference. There is no chance of meaningfully reducing CO2 emissions, because outside of Nuclear (and hydro/geothermal but only if you have the geography for it) there is no alternative to replacing fossil fuels. At some point the public will realize the lie of solar/wind as a replacement. We lost 50 years of greatly reduced emissions had nuclear power continued to be rolled out at the same rate as it did in the 60s/70s. There is possibility of geoengineering (e.g. emitting some sort of sun-light reflecting gas into the atmosphere to cool the climate) but that suffers from a potential "law of unintended consequences". It seems like we're going to have to deal with it.

doublerabbit 4y ago
> there is no alternative to replacing fossil fuels. At some point the public will realize the lie of solar/wind as a replacement. What lie exactly? Scotland had produced enough to power itself twice on Wind alone. [1] How is nuclear a better alternative than Wind or Hydro when - Nuclear is extremely dangerous with toxic waste needing special storage facilities. Criminal & Environmental contamination risks. - Disaster if the plant is to be damaged - Chernobyl / Fukushima / Ukraine-Russia war - You need an external power source to kick-start a nuclear station on top of requiring uninterruptible power supply - Fossil Fuels - You need a large water source for cooling, extracting, processing - Limited Resource Thorium reactors are a dream away, nice but not feasible as of the moment. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/scotland-wind-power-on-shore-renewable-energy-climate-change-uk-a9013066.html https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/scotland-w...
- macspoofing 4y ago
  >What lie exactly? Scotland is producing enough to power Scotland twice itself on Wind alone. No they aren't. This is at best misleading, at worst, a blatant lie. What is happening is that on days with strong winds, they are overproducing wind energy but ONLY at certain times of the day. When they overproduce this energy, they cannot store it for later (because there is no battery technology today, or in the near-to-mid future that is able to store that amount of energy), and they cannot give it away, so they lose it. This kind of headline is very very common. This is how the public is continually lied to and thinks that wind/solar is just around the corner. It isn't. It's never going to be. >Nuclear is extremely dangerous with toxic waste needing special storage facilities. Destruction if the plant is to melt-down. (chernobyl)? You need an external power source to power a nuclear plant. Nuclear also requires uninterruptible power. If you don't like nuclear ... fine, but there is nothing else. So now what? >Thorium reactors are a dream away, nice but not feasible as of the moment. Agreed. Also Fusion is a pipe-dream at this point in time. So now what?

yodsanklai 4y ago

Yet most people (including our leaders) are still expecting constant growth and innovation. At least we should have a plan B.

almost_usual 4y ago

> "Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster," she said. Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

tuvi13 4y ago

What is Deloitte saying about that? https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/gx-global-turning-point-report.pdf https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Docume... and a short analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--QS_UyW2SY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--QS_UyW2SY

tgv 4y ago
They're just trying to extract a few more dollars out of it.
- kolinko 4y ago
  My GF works and Deloitte, and they are really, honestly, pushing fighting climate change agenda.
boringg 4y ago
Why would you ever use Deloitte as an example for something as a public good?

globular-toast 4y ago

I used to be really depressed about this sort of thing. It caused me to severely limit my lifestyle out of a desire to "do the right thing". I didn't own a car. Very low consumption and minimal waste (no takeaway food, coffee etc., very frugal, didn't use things like paper towels and napkins). I cycled and walked everywhere. Didn't go on holidays abroad or even very far away. Then I looked around and noticed that everyone else was enjoying themselves at my expense. Worse, I was often a second-class citizen as my bicycle couldn't stand up to their cars. So I said fuck it, bought a car, fly several times a year, use paper towels, drive to the air-conditioned gym so my body looks like it's useful, don't care about my waste as much. Can't beat 'em, join 'em. I still reckon I use and waste less than the average person (certainly less than the average American), though. I can be happy with this because I'm not going to reproduce. I honestly don't care if humans die out a few generations after me. I used to care but I just don't think we are worth it any more.

abyssin 4y ago
I’m still on the side of cyclists. I don’t think I’d be able to stand a lifestyle where I’m surrounded by people in denial. I have a child but I don’t think I’ll raise her in the belief that only a comfortable life is one worth living. I’m also wondering by who childless people expect to be taken care of when they get older, if not by their children in a broad sense?
- globular-toast 4y ago
  You expect your child to take care of you? None of us know what the future holds. You might very well have nobody to care for you either. Your children are free agents and might move to the other side of the world or might simply not care about you. Like me you'll probably choose not to overly concern yourself with this.
  - abyssin 4y ago
    Well, I feel responsible for those who need to get cared for. I take care of my parents and I’ll do more so in the future. Many people have cared for me when I was in need. I believe there’s a good chance that my children, as free agents, will choose to take care for me when I need it. I also mean it in a more generational sense.

jameshart 4y ago

Let me just leave a Unicode ‘degree’ symbol here for anyone who needs one: ° (on iOS and possibly MacOS you can get one of these by pressing and holding ‘zero’ until the alternate characters appear)

Sharlin 4y ago
On macOS's US and US International layouts it's alt+0 – on many European layouts it's shift + the button below esc (eg. §).
- anamexis 4y ago
  On the US layout, alt+0 gives me º (U+00BA : MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR). To get the degree sign, it's alt+shift+8 for ° (U+00B0 : DEGREE SIGN)
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    Oh, wow, my bad. Got confused by the similarity.
tialaramex 4y ago
This is a technical forum, you can just write K. The degrees Celsius are deliberately the same size as the Kelvin unit, but you don't need (and shouldn't write) degrees for an absolute system. We're fucked because 1.5K was already a lot, and there's still barely enough political will to avoid 3K. It is going to get bad.
- mellosouls 4y ago
  Nobody's gonna believe 1.5 thousand, and plenty would read it that way. Nobody outside some science niches (technical or not) uses K for temperature.
  - SnowHill9902 4y ago
    The correct format is 1.5 K and in my opinion is unambiguous written that way. 1.5k is definitely 1,500 while 1.5K in the middle is ambiguous and depends on context.

pelasaco 4y ago

destroying masterpieces with tomato juice, or potatoes is definitely not the way to go..

pelasaco 4y ago
gluing themselves to masterpieces or autobahn won't help either

user3939382 4y ago

We are too politically polarized to solve problems in this class, which requires political unity because of the scale, cost, and speed requirements. All of our major political forces play games, constantly make moves in bad faith, talk out of both sides of their mouths publicly vs privately, so we are screwed. The reality is that IF climate change science were a big hoax (sadly, it's not) there WOULD be a team using it for political games, so there will always be a large class of people who believe that's what's going on. Maybe if we didn't spend decades politicizing every microscopic issue including in science, technology, and medicine, we could have policy makers advocate for positions based on science and everyone would trust it. That's not the world we live in and unfortunately, it looks like we never will.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
I think you're editorializing it in a way that is making it far more politically neutral or "pox on both your houses" than it actually is. It's not about warring world views. It's just about money. The simple reality is: almost all wealth on the planet is tied up with fossil fuels. This being the case, the more wealthy you are, the more "polarized" in a certain direction you will be. Might makes right. Or at least attempts to make right. And right now, "might" = "money" = "capital" = "energy"
- frenchy 4y ago
  There's a lot of not wealthy people who are polarized in that direction as well though. It's not simply a matter of sending a few oligarchs to the gillotine. In the short run, basically everyone in North America and Europe benefit from out destruction of the climate, and most people in other countries too. To put it another way, the people who control the oil supply aren't simply wealthy because they pillaged and stole a bunch of people's stuff. The product they supply is extremely convenient and popular. You'd probably have an easier time fixing a world where everyone's a methhead than fixing the current problem.
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    I don't disagree with your central point. Though I think there is room to quibble about the definition of "pillage and stole" given that the cornerstone of this whole structure is control over physical lands, physical lands to which troops and violence have definitely been deployed. Almost all of us are tied into this circuit in some way and "most of us" (in the west) short-term benefit from the continuance of the status quo energy economy and its growth. But what I would say is this: at the end the rich and powerful will continue to be able to buy fresh water and air and arable land and stable neighbourhoods with armed guards and fences. The rest of us will not be so lucky.

steve76 4y ago

abeppu 4y ago

So, this challenge asks for rapid transformations of society. The unfortunate thing is, we've shown that we can change behavior rapidly, but only if we think we think we're personally in danger, and we'll only willingly keep that transformation for a little while. Carbon emissions dropped in 2020, but it took people actually being scared into staying in their homes, and stopping whole sectors of the economy. What if the most effective climate plan is a long, deep, global depression? In addition to curbing emissions, high unemployment would reanimate the "green new deal" concept. The bad news is climate and geopolitical instability might just give us what we need.

walnutclosefarm 4y ago

That this is news reflects only the reluctance of much of world leadership to acknowledge it. Anybody paying attention has known for over a decade that a +1.5C limit is out of reach. The question the world faces now is whether the 3C rise we're actually going to get is enough to trigger non-human forcing through various feedback loops dumping carbon into the atmosphere in the form of CO2 and CH4, to require runaway warming as the future. I'm not optimistic.

karaterobot 4y ago

> "We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over," said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, who produced the study. > "Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster," she said. I don't see that happening, and my guess is neither do they. Plan C needs to be a massive geoengineering project that would have seemed crazy even ten years ago, may worry some people as irresponsible even now. The nightmare scenario is that we can't even do that in time, because we're too busy arguing about it.

yamtaddle 4y ago
Yeah, we took one major fossil fuel producing country out of part of the global economy and look at the pain that caused in "the West". This kind of drastic, quick climate action would have even stronger effects on the energy markets in the short term, though the higher prices would also encourage faster renewable deployment so the damage would at least be tempered after some time (years, probably). Of course the alternative that skips the trashing-the-economy part is more and larger government spending on renewable deployment to achieve a switchover on a similar timescale, but that's super-unpopular for a lot of voters.

nisegami 4y ago

Climate change seems to me to be the "gotcha" of liberal democracy. The timescales involved in democracy are so short that there's little incentive to do the things that would improve the situation, since the pain is felt now vs the (greater) pain in the future of climate change.

tejohnso 4y ago

There was no credible pathway to 1.5 when it was established at COP 21 in 2015. And previous to 1.5, the big number was 1.0. It'll be interesting if the mass media push changes the focus again and starts popularizing 2.0C. Or maybe they'll move the baseline up again at the next COP. What a farce.

togs 4y ago

Imagine the Kardashians going full influencer for climate change

aperson_hello 4y ago

It really is starting to feel like the fringe of the environmental movement have really been the bad guys all along. Blocking nuclear starting in the 70s, focusing only on recycling in the 80s and 90s (consumption doesn't matter as long as something could be recycled), blocking natural gas/oil in favor of coal in the 90s-2000s, blocking wind farms ("think of the birds!!"), batteries, and solar panels (too many chemicals/can't be recycled) in the 2010s, and now pushing the plastic straws will kill us all narrative in the 2020s (at the direct expense of the climate narrative). I'm being a bit hyperbolic here, but only a little bit. It's a decades long story of not seeing the forest for the trees and focusing on minor environmental impacts rather than the big climate issue staring us down. Like, this is exactly the strategy I'd take if my goal were to create as much warming as possible without anyone catching on...

dclusin 4y ago
Admitting that the decision to continue petroleum production is a cost benefit analysis and we still derive significant benefits from it is a conversation that much more than just the fringe environmentalists are unwilling to have. Had we been able to have these discussions earlier, we would have started working on carbon capture with much more credible allocations sooner.
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Schroedingersat 4y ago
Ah yes. All those PR campaigns that are directly and provably from the fossil fuel and plastic industries are definitely from people who have been saying we should stop using fossil fuels, invest in renewables, and reduce consumption for sixty years whilst being completely ignored.

aasasd 4y ago

I wish someone calculated with some certainty how much the lifestyles in different countries would have to change if the world just had to drop production that emits excess gases. I bet that would show that there's no way people modify their habits for this, especially in the ‘first world’. (As for myself, I'm living on less that 400 bucks a month, including rent, use transport once a month; and most energy I use is probably for central heating in the winter and for pumping water—otherwise it's the fridge and boiling water for tea. But idk about the ‘footprint’, probably still not good.)

egberts1 4y ago

Please, continue to add past the 14,200 new temperature reading stations in mostly the exclusively US urban/metro areas since 1973. It is important to stack the average by the virtue of its urban heat (over the cooler but carbon-tax-infused countrysides) and be able to note its mostly upward climate-change trend. And we won't bother with illusive matrix math in smoothing out the newer stations because we got the eLusive hockey stick trend going now (which started in 1973). Let's not ignore these 14,200+ new temp. stations because all data are valid. /sarcasm