Climate Damage 'Irreversible' According Leaked Climate Report 708
New submitter SomeoneFromBelgium (3420851) writes According to Bloomberg a leaked climate report from the IPPC speaks of "Irreversible Damage." The warnings in the report are, as such, not new but the tone of voice is more urgent and more direct than ever. It states among other things that global warming already is affecting "all continents and across the oceans," and that "risks from mitigation can be substantial, but they do not involve the same possibility of severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts as risks from climate change, increasing the benefits from near-term mitigation action."
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Impacts (Score:5, Interesting)
It was kind of going that way anyhow though, either to a tropical earth or back towards a new ice age. And really given the choice the tropical option is less destrcutive. As I understand it we were in an interglacial until people started digging up sequestered carbon and injecting it into the atmosphere. Either way I don't believe it will be possible to stabilise the climate over the mid to long term, at least not with our current technology, so maybe its best just to prepare to adapt to these changes.
Re:Beyond what humans can do (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Impacts (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, we should prepare, but we can not adapt.
With are current Greenhouse gas release, there isn't an endpoint survivable by humans. It will get two warm for food growth, anywhere.
People act like, well it will happen and we will just farm 200 miles more north.
Please learn something:
Average planetary temperature and CO2 concentration for the past billion years or so [paulmacrae.com]
Important points:
1. Average planetary temperature now is about 12C. Average temperature for most of the past billion years or so is 22C
2. Average CO2 concentration today is EXTREME geological LOW. It's been as high as > 7000ppm
3. There's pretty much ZERO correlation between CO2 and temperature.
Note well that if temperatures go up 2C, we've still got 8C to go before the planet reaches its "normal" average temperature.
Re:What? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Don't Worry! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, rapacious capitalism tends mostly to believe in whatever lines their pockets at the moment.
Your mention of ethanol is a great example. Ethanol on the whole is a big loser both in therms of wasting food, wasting tax dollars subsidizing it, not reducing carbon emissions, and greatly using up public will with a massive sideshow. Monsanto loves it, as do lots of industrial farmers (there are no family farmers left of consequence, just in campaign ads).
If our government was not already captured by the current lot, we could use laws to adjust incentives to get these rapacious capitalists to cause less harm by letting them fight over dollars in solar rather than oil. Sadly, changing the status quo scares the hell out of the current set of rapacious capitalists, so they spend part of their massive profit to manipulate the system to keep their cash cow protected. We as voters have been gerrymandered into being mostly irrelevant, so we cannot do much anymore. Weak minded kumbaya green folks are their own worst enemies, expecting that hugs and good will toward mankind will magically solve the problem (and they SUCK at math).
Re:Impacts (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Average planetary temperature now is about 12C. Average temperature for most of the past billion years or so is 22C
2. Average CO2 concentration today is EXTREME geological LOW. It's been as high as > 7000ppm
3. There's pretty much ZERO correlation between CO2 and temperature.
Note well that if temperatures go up 2C, we've still got 8C to go before the planet reaches its "normal" average temperature.
Ok, I'll accept that... of course the first mammals appeared on the planet around say 225million years ago, and were the size of perhaps a mouse or smaller. Larger mammals have been found around 100million years ago, around the size of a large rat perhaps... it wasn't until say 55million years ago the earliest ancestor for man/primates appeared, Archicebus, which would fit in the palm of your hand and weigh maybe an ounce.
So maybe instead of the past "billion years" we should focus on say the past 50million, where temperatures and CO2 levels were at a level where a mammal like mankind could survive on most of the planet? Seems rather pointless to say the planet has been "22C average" when at the time it was mankind didn't exist, and more than likely with a 10C increase over current temperatures it's unlikely human beings could survive in many areas (a 100F desert will kill in a day or two w/o water - imagine 120-130F?).
I mean, unless you're worried about ants, cockroaches, and mammals the size of mice, and shrews, it might be wiser to focus on temperatures that human beings can and have survived in, and not some 'average' that includes numbers from many (up to 950million) years before anything even remotely human-like existed. Because, yes, "life" existed at 7000ppm and 22C - but not human life.
Re:Impacts (Score:4, Interesting)
Those are a lot of conclusions to draw when you openly admit that you have insufficient measurements and cost estimates.
There are plenty of "no regrets" policies, that should be done regardless of global warming. We should reduce our fuel consumption and dependence on imported oil for reasons of economics and national security. Third world countries should reduce population growth through education and better access to contraception, because that is their path out of poverty.