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this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
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How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
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Are we fucked?
It's just the Tories trying to cling onto the last voters they have, it won't be long until the boomers that vote for them have shuffled off their mortal coil leaving just the 50% of GenX that vote for them and the small smattering of Millennials that lean right.
It's a matter of degrees, not a matter of fucked/not fucked.
We're at the point where every bit of additional fossil fuel extraction means very real loss and damage. So something like this is really destructive, but it's not the same as saying that everybody is going to be out trying to BBQ their neighbors next Tuesday.
When 8-10°C are the degrees we're looking at with no solution in sight it pretty much translates to "we're fucked".
You seem disproportionately optimistic for someone who seems to understand what's going on. Care to share how you forsee us getting out of this mess?
We're not going to see 8-10°C of warming this century; getting there would mean burning all the fossil fuels, which will take longer than that even in a worst case scenario. Keeping temperatures down means leaving fossil fuels in the ground when we're done burning them and leaving forests standing when we're done with deforestation.
The IPCC has specific recommendations about what we need to be doing over the next few years on the way there:
(These are also in the sidebar)
What we do not need to be doing is deciding to extract more. So it also helps to do anything which interferes with that.
Friendly reminder that the IPCC is not a scientific body. It's a mixture of politicians and advisors. As such all of the recommendations are heavily biased towards keeping the status quo, ie. Maximising economic output.
For more a realistic analysis please take a quick read through this excellent post which does a good job of collating all the data and omissions the IPCC reports conveniently leave out: https://medium.com/@samyoureyes/the-busy-workers-handbook-to-the-apocalypse-7790666afde7
But to take the IPCCs graphic at face value (we shouldn't as it omits feedback loops), we'd have to implement all of those changes in the next 7 years to get to "net zero" which just isn't happening at the current rate of progress.
The lag between emissions and warming would then mean that temperatures continue to increase for a couple of decades. Then, paradoxically it would start to warm even more to the aerosol masking effect disappearing.
Furthermore the proposed solutions in that graphic would require a lot of fossil fuels to produce along with lots of rare earth metals which we are on course to run out of before most of them are implemented.
If that's in the sidebar then this is basically a greenwashing sub.
The technical summaries are still ultra-conservative in their predictions and whilst their latest updates finally factor in some tipping points, the vast majority are left out to avoid alarm. To give you just one example, they predict the AMOC will not collapse before 2100. Take a look at the current North Atlantic temperatures and tell me in good faith that this is a sensible prediction.
Tautological argument, see above.
I mean the graphic you posted is literally entitled "Potential contribution to net emissions reduction, 2030". And I think you vastly underestimate what it would take to sequest enough carbon to make any kind of difference.
Just realised you're a mod here, why on earth are you allowing/posting conjecture such as that climate pessimism blog post if the purpose of this sub is to be truthful? It's the biggest load of drivel short of denial I've read with regards to the climate. A whole essay from what I can only presume is a fossil fuel industry shill with literally nothing to back up any of its claims.
They represent a consensus summary of the published academic literature from before the cutoff date. A study which came out after the last report is naturally not included.
They're literally about emissions reduction, and quantifying it. Getting the maximum reduction would mean something like a WWII-style mobilization. I don't think I'm underestimating that.
Oh naturally, I think you've hit the nail on the head there. Tell me, how does one conduct a scientific study on feedback loops which haven't happened yet? Then tell me how many peers would be willing to risk their funding to verify such a pessimistic prediction?
I know they're about emissions reduction, I didn't say they weren't and I don't understand your point. All I'm saying is that it's all well and good stating what we need but the feasibly of implementation is laughable.
I suggest you look into the resources required to extract the smallest amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. To quote Dr Hugh Hunt of Cambridge...
Completely agree with you re the WWII mobilisation. That would require every government in the world to work together in actively worsening the lives of their citizens. Not exactly a vote winner is it?
You model them. A great example was the ice-albedo feedback, where you could measure the albedo of ice, and the albedo of open water and bare ground, and reach clear conclusions about how losing ice would create differential warming in the arctic.
The modeling work won't ever be perfect, but it's good enough to have incredible predictive power.
And yet still the ice is melting faster than expected and faster than that model predicted, because, as you explain, the models are inaccurate (overly conservative in nature as all scientific studies on complex systems tend to be).
Ice sheet dynamics have been an area where scientists haven't converged on agreed-upon models. So yes, not everything gets there, but an awful lot does. As I said above, enough to be useful.
You seem to keep supporting my point.
The models are conservative, the peer review process is long and we're rapidly running out of time.
It's more complicated than that. The temperature modeling is roughly right. Secondary effects aren't as well modeled, and surprise is a lot more likely there.
Sorry, couldn't resist.