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Meta-comment: Why exactly are we talking about paths for 'Getting to a 1.5C warming', when we've already hit 1.2C warming, and are still emitting more carbon e
by vkou 3y ago
Meta-comment:
Why exactly are we talking about paths for 'Getting to a 1.5C warming', when we've already hit 1.2C warming, and are still emitting more carbon each year than we have at any other point in our history?
Given the lag between carbon emissions and warming, and given the lag for introducing net emission reductions, how exactly are we expected to not blow right on past that 1.5C budget? Are we all going to permanently turn the lights off next week?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jzawodn 3y agoTurn the lights off? Nah, we're gonna ramp it up! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/01/private-jet-sales-likely-to-reach-highest-ever-level-this-year-report-says https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/01/private-jet-sa...
- nerdchum 3y agoWhat happens at 1.5?
- vkou 3y agoAvoidance of the worst impacts of climate change on agriculture. If you're interested in hearing more about why we should be concerned about the stability of agriculture, consider looking at what happened to your grocery bill, just because a regional war broke out half a world away.
- erulabs 3y agoThis is made somewhat more complex than might be immediately obvious as there is a huge amount of land which is too cold to be used for agriculture. Plants do not mind higher CO2 levels. It will cause dramatic chaos, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not clear the total amount of arable land will decrease.
- paulddraper 3y ago> consider looking at what happened to your grocery bill, just because a regional war broke out half a world away Assuming you are in the US...there is very little agricultural import from a region half a world away.
- vkou 3y ago> there is very little agricultural import from a region half a world away. And yet, I feel the price shocks nevertheless.
- paulddraper 3y agoOr they are from other more immediate sources.
- no_wizard 3y agoLots of bad things[0]: >1.5 degrees is about the level of warming that scientists say would be more likely to start setting off irreversible feedback loops, such as the disintegration of ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, the abrupt thawing of permafrost in the Arctic, or the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf Stream current [0]: https://grist.org/science/el-nino-tipping-points-amazon-great-barrier-reef/ https://grist.org/science/el-nino-tipping-points-amazon-grea...
- jfengel 3y agoAt 1.5C the Greenland Ice Sheet can't sustain itself. It will take a long time to disappear, but disappearance becomes inevitable. A bunch of coral reefs die at 1.5C. Not just die back and bleach, but dead-dead. Shifts in the location of equatorial rains, which are especially important in agriculture in poor countries. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0705414105 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0705414105 That starts to happen at 1.5C and becomes really inevitable at 2C. The goal was to hold it to 1.5C to mitigate the worst of the damage. Note that this is referring to when it gets above 1.5C every year. This paper doesn't predict that. It predicts that one year will be above 1.5C. That, in and of itself, is less relevant, except that it arrived a good decade or more sooner than expected. Which means that the consequences of permanently hitting 1.5C will also happen sooner.
- LeoPanthera 3y agoAmusing side note: South Africa's power generation crisis contributed to it beating its CO2 emissions targets because their power stations aren't working. https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/688215/south-africa-unintentionally-beats-climate-goals-due-to-load-shedding/ https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/688215/south-africa-u...
- antisthenes 3y agoGiven the lag, we're already committed to 2.0C minimum. Thinking anything less is wishful thinking. It doesn't really change anything. People will be putting up solar panels because it's cheaper than buying electricity from their utilities and run AC during sunny days when it's essentially free.
- candiddevmike 3y ago> Are we all going to permanently turn the lights off next week? More likely we're going to be turning on a bunch of ACs and increasing our energy demands like we do every summer.
- unchocked 3y agoThere is no chance that we will remain below 1.5C. Because there is (rightly) moral value attached to staying below 1.5, that fact is (also) hard to accept. The formalized narrative makes sense through a values-based lens, as does the conversation moving through stages of grief as geophysics makes itself felt.
- paganel 3y ago> when we've already hit 1.2C warming, And the world hasn't ended, as it was broadcast to all of us when they were mentioning the 1.5C warming. We'll manage.
- oezi 3y agoIt would just take 2-6% of GDP per year to achieve net zero by 2050. This would avert going over 1.5C.