Overshooting 1.5C Risks 'Irreversible' Climate Impact: Study 117
Any breach of what climate scientists agree is the safer limit on global warming would result in "irreversible consequences" for the planet, said a major academic study published on Wednesday. From a eport: Even temporarily exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius before bringing temperatures back down -- a scenario known as an "overshoot" -- could cause sea level rises and other disastrous repercussions that might last millenia. This "does away with the notion that overshoot delivers a similar climate outcome" to a future where more was done earlier to curb global warming, said Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, who led the study co-authored by 30 scientists.
The findings, three years in the making, are urgent, as the goal of capping global temperature rises at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is slipping out of reach. Emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases must nearly halve by 2030 if the world is to reach 1.5C -- the more ambitious target enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate accord.
The findings, three years in the making, are urgent, as the goal of capping global temperature rises at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is slipping out of reach. Emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases must nearly halve by 2030 if the world is to reach 1.5C -- the more ambitious target enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate accord.
Passed again (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Passed again (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure we passed 'the point of no return' like 11 times in the last 30 years. It always happens to be 5 years away from whatever the current date is. Strange how that works out.
Nope. Just you twisting your own memory to help you feed your own narrative that everyone is being alarmist. The number being quoted here as the point of no return is the same number quoted from the original IPCC report. It's been the same target for 30 years now, and has yet to be breached according to its definition.
But keep pretending that everyone is just trying to scare you just because you can't follow what is being said.
Re:Passed again (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of what you think about it all...
Time to face facts, it ain't gonna happen....the steps we'd have to take to stop global warming that they describe just isn't going to happen, shy of halting the world on a global scale that would make the covid lockdowns that happened in some areas pale in comparison....it just ain't gonna happen.
Maybe these scientists need to start working now on a "Plan B" on what to do once world temps do manage to exceed the 1.5C.
The world doesn't stop or turn on a dime....too much inertia, so, the better plan would be what to do when this happens.
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Maybe these scientists need to start working now on a "Plan B"
What do you mean by "these scientist"? Why would they work on a Plan B? Their expertise is climate modelling, not coming up with plans. There are many scientists and researchers in the world. There are many coming up with Plan B, and C, and D, and E, etc. Everything from the obvious (moving populations), to the outright batty (geoengineering the problem away).
Leave "these scientists" alone and go look at what the other scientists working on your pet project are already doing.
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You can't have it both ways.
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Well yes; that's because climate change alters *many* things that can't be undone. If you eliminate a bunch of glaciers, that's a point of no return *for us and our near descendents*, because it will take several thousand years for those glaciers to reform. The same for losing a coral reef.
Really every day is a point of no return because every day there's an increase in atmospheric CO2 that will take centuries to undo. That means we can't undo the effects.
I'm in my sixties, and when I was born it was co
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It's a grift.
They can't stop China or India so they want to steal your money for themselves when it should be going towards adaptation.
Al Gore has quite a mansion.
Re: Passed again (Score:2)
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Citations needed.
And may I assume that you do *not* live in Florida or North Carolina? Or Phoenix, AZ?
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There are three thing's that will get you modded down on Slashdot faster than you can say "Communist". If you are skeptical about climate change stories in the media, anything whatsoever "medical", or saying the US shouldn't fight proxy wars.
Looks like someone's been doing their homework!
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Looks like someone's had a stick shoved up their ass.
Re:How dare you doubt the Church of Climatology (Score:5, Insightful)
You're just asking questions. "Do we really have to make all these expensive and uncomfortable changes? Can't we just continue to do as we've always done? Where's your evidence?"
Fine. Those are valid questions. Well, they were, thirty years ago. But you're never going to be done asking those same questions, because you don't really want answers. No evidence will ever be enough to satisfy you. You already decided what the answers were, in early adulthood or even before. There isn't even a hypothetical situation under which you would change your mind. Now you're just asking the questions to Challenge Orthodox and justify your intransigence--sorry, your Brave and Principled Stand against the Fickle Horde.
Sure, all of this is theoretically reversible. We could theoretically terraform Mars, for God's sake. But all that's going to be expensive. More expensive than we're going to want to pay for. Ten times more expensive than if we made the uncomfortable changes now. Fifty times more expensive than it would be if we'd just made the uncomfortable changes a couple decades ago. And nobody's ever gonna be able to bring back all those marmots that drowned in the flood, or the grassland that dried up and blew away.
So the consensus of people object to your skepticism because it's an obstruction to actions that they feel need to be taken. It threatens to seduce people who might otherwise help to wallow in their own inertia. Because inertia feels fucking great, in a way that having to do responsibility does not.
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Re: How dare you doubt the Church of Climatology (Score:2)
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I would be absolutely fine with the measures if i felt the wealthy were also making the same sacrifices relative to the size of their wealth. As usual, there seems to be a drum beating for the middle class and the poor to make large sacrifices that become very small for the wealthy.
What "large sacrifices" have the middle class or the poor been "drum beaten" into making?
Mostly what I see here is slashdotters saying "we need to implement better technologies for energy" and others saying "anything we do will be too expensive," and others saying "we don't need to do anything because China / we don't need to do anything because rich people". Plus the handful who change the subject to "this shows we need nuclear power."
Can't recall anybody saying "the middle class and the poor need to ma
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Mostly what comes to mind is with transportation. Once ICEs are banned many more people will not be able to make EVs work for them. They should cost less than ICEs if we want people to use them. Public transit needs to be much more convienent and comfortable and shouldn't take more than 10% more time than the same drive with a personal vehicle. The way we are going right now, travel is just becoming more expensive and difficult.
Basically, this is conjecture. ICE cars haven't been banned, so you're conjecturing that they will be banned, that people won't be able to make EVs work for them, and you're conjecturing that they won't cost less that ICEs. I don't know if any of these things are true. Roughly 1% of cars on the road are EVs; it's hard to extrapolate from that to 100%.
And a lot of people are saying that public transit should be supported and needs to be much more convenient and comfortable.
Work from home should be a big part of that, but look at all the CEOs that think that people shouldn't have families to tend to during the day.
If you REALLY want to get modded -
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They have been banned in Canada as of 2040.
And what was the result of them being banned in Canada?
--No result, since they haven't been banned in Canada.
... I didn't mean CEOs were saying it on here. I meant all the CEOs forcing people back into the office.
This is not an example of large sacrifices that the poor and middle class have been asked to make in order to stop global warming.
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EVs cost less than ICE cars.
It is just so that some countries put absurd import taxes on them.
Depending where you live, public transport is faster than private. Because it is not slowed down by traffic jams.
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Basically every Chinese company has a starting model below or around 20k. ... the other brands I do not memorize.
And that are great cars, e.g. BYD, Neta
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Sorry,
I am only collecting EV links.
I do not memorize prizes.
I know that good quality Sedan like cars start around 15k/20k - because I looked them up for my GF.
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No.
They are super expensive in Thailand, as they have 200% import tax.
The Chinese models have no taxes.
Model 3 to the Corolla, the Model S to the Camry
And if you omit the company name, I do not know what it is.
I assume Model 3 is a Tesla. Corolla I "know" but forgot the company ...
We likely buy a BYD or GW(M). Perhaps a GM, but unlikely.
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Great, this is what the vast majority of people who want climate change addressed would like to see as well. Only some of the super-rich and a small cadre of their fawning fanboys would like to see climate change addressed with minimal contribution from the rich. But if you oppose addressing the problem until after the unfair funding situation is solved, you've made yourself a roadblock to addressing the problem as quickly as possible, and that's going to hurt the poor and middle classes approximately infin
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Wrong, it could be at least partially addressed without any help from the rich. It's not good for the middle and lower classes to take on so much burden, but it reduces the consequences of global warming and puts more political pressure on the rich.
If too many people become roadblocks like yourself on the other hand, that could be an absolute showstopper preventing any progress on the issue in democratic countries and leaving the rich in a comfortably quiet stalemate with everyone else which, again, they do
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You presume that going ahead without them would be bending over (the rich don't care about climate change or what the little people spend their taxes on, as long as it isn't something that would make workers less desperate), and that it would mean "losing" (not guaranteed since it may pressure them into paying a fair share, and you'd be contributing to fixing the climate which is an issue that would help the middle and lower classes while the rich are indifferent to it).
"Resisting" means ensuring that you c
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Ok, but the people who don't want equal sacrifice don't care because they won't be harmed by the consequences (or at least believe they won't). The only people getting their comeuppance will be the bootlickers when they realize that the rich won't reward them for their years of useful idiocy with rescue from the consequences of global warming. I hope that'll be enough for you.
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So the consensus of people object to your skepticism because it's an obstruction to actions that they feel need to be taken.
Ahh, they feel they need to be taken? Oh well, then let's smash these doubters, eh? They are in the way of progress! I mean... these people are like the fucking natives when white folks got to the Americas. Right? "Goddamn, would you us skeptics just die so climate angels can have their utopia already?" Out of the way, troglodytes! The climate saviors are here on a white horse to trample you underfoot and save the deserving elites who bought a Prius and use climate credits.
No evidence will ever be enough to satisfy you.
Me? Personally? Haha, SURPRISE. I
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I AM surprised. I don't recall any of the previous times I've tried to change people's minds, on the internet at least, being met with failure and detailed mockery. Let me verify by checking the logs real quick...
...hmm...
...oh. All of them, you say? Oh, dear.
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I'd argue about who is most responsible (China, by the numbers)
China? How on Earth?! The USA is responsible for about 25% percent of cumulative emissions. The EU (which is not a country) comes second with 22% and then there's the Chinese with 12.7% of which a large share was directly caused by consumers in the aforementioned areas.
But a large part of those numbers are simply the size and population of those countries. We can also have a look per capita but that shows the same picture. Apart from some desert oil states, the US (together with Australia) is by far the lar
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Where are you getting your numbers? China is responsible for 35% of CO2, according to last year's reports. Per capita, the worst CO2 producers are all Muslim nations. Palau, Qatar, Kuwait, etc.
https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]
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He's talking about cumulative numbers, as it is the emissions over a significant timeframe that have gotten us where we are now.
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Sure, all of this is theoretically reversible.
No, even in theory, it is not reversible. A broken bone can not be unbroken, all it can do is 'heal'. The fact that the bone was broken will be forever visible, even if it heals enough to where you can use it perfectly fine again.
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Re:How dare you doubt the Church of Climatology (Score:5, Insightful)
There are three thing's that will get you modded down on Slashdot faster than you can say "Communist". If you are skeptical about climate change stories in the media...
It's worthwhile to be skeptical about climate change stories in the media, but true skepticism would be when a person tracks down and reads the actual scientific sources. I've seen little evidence that most of the self-declared skeptics have any familiarity with the scientific literature on climate change.
What I see more of is one-sided skepticism, where any information saying "climate change is real and caused by humans" is treated with extreme distrust, while anything saying "don't believe in climate change, and it's not caused by humans" is accepted uncritically.
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What I see more of is one-sided skepticism
Climate stories create a lively debate. I'm pretty convinced there are folks at all points along the continuum. It's just the far-left ones seem to have all the mod points. Almost as if the editors of the site are all far left and giving mod points as they see fit to their allies to shape the site's discussion forum.
The sad personal fact is that I come to Slashdot out of habit, but I'm slowly migrating to other sites like LXer, Lobsters, LWN.net, SGUG, Hacker News / Y-combinator, The Register, and other
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What I see more of is one-sided skepticism
Climate stories create a lively debate. I'm pretty convinced there are folks at all points along the continuum. It's just the far-left ones seem to have all the mod points.
I haven't seen that. What I have seen is down-moderation of the same people with the same talking points showing the same ignorance of any actual climate science. When they get confronted with citations and links, they shut up for a moment, then post exactly the same talking points on the next story mentioning climate. As I said:
I've seen little evidence that most of the self-declared skeptics have any familiarity with the scientific literature on climate change.
Can you show which "far-left" posts about climate have been moderated +5? Or which far-right posts that have been moderated -1 actually show knowledge and insight?
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Can you show which "far-left" posts about climate have been moderated +5? Or which far-right posts that have been moderated -1 actually show knowledge and insight?
Only if you do the opposite first, baby. That'd be time consuming, but somewhat interesting.
When they get confronted with citations and links, they shut up for a moment, then post exactly the same talking points on the next story mentioning climate.
That's not how I remember it. They usually post cogent points back, or their own papers, and both get summarily ignored as both partisan groups talk past each other. You can find a "paper" saying anything you want these days. It's a big Internet. Sure quality is different between sources, but that qualitative difference is pretty much lost in a forum debate. It's just "I gave you evidence so you need to shut up" foll
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Can you show which "far-left" posts about climate have been moderated +5? Or which far-right posts that have been moderated -1 actually show knowledge and insight?
Only if you do the opposite first, baby. That'd be time consuming, but somewhat interesting.
You were the one saying far-left posts get "all the mod points"; it's your assertion to prove, not mine. I would, however, take your challenge and try to look for the opposite (showing a far-left post about climate that wasn't moderated +5)... but I can't do it because I don't know what you consider to be "far left". Could you give an example of what you consider a "far left" post on the subject of climate? You say far left post get all the mod points, if all of them do, then you should be able to find a
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Clearly inaccurate [Re:How dare you doubt the ...] (Score:2)
Nah, I told you it was my impression.
Your impression is clearly inaccurate, since you can't find even a single example of what you thought was frequent behavior.
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Jesus you are a whiner. Do your own searches.
Jesus, you are a troll. Post things that are true.
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Genuine philosophical skepticism is actually kind of exhausting.
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Already Bad (Score:1)
My fear is that the impact to the climate of CO2 is delayed, as it may take decades for the climate to stabilize. I don't think we have enough data to know. But what's clear is that the more we mess with the atmosphere, the worse it will get.
We know (Score:3)
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But won't act.
Actually it's a combination of won't and can't.
We won't do anything because we have allowed too many stupid people to be elected to positions of power. Also, the oil/coal/gas companies are not going to just shut down and go out of business. They are going to do everything they possibly can to keep producing MORE. As long as the CEOs die rich, that's all they care about.
But even if we could get the stupid people out of the way, there's a bigger problem. I don't believe we can do anything meaningfu
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You left out...that most people are NOT willing to change their lives or lifestyles drastically like would be required to reverse anything globally...
Re: We know (Score:2)
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The sad thing is, it's not like we can't act. I mean, to overturn Roe v. Wade required 50 years of work to do from everyone involved - citizens, lawmakers, politicians, the legal community, etc.They spent 50 years on this.
So it's entirely possible to do the long term work required, but the willingness to do it isn't there.
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More solar panels, more batteries! Duh!
YES!
More enslavement of poor people to make rich people climatically comfortable while helping the rich symbolically atone for their climate sins
More harsh chemicals introduced to our environment and water supply through the mining, refinement, and manufacturing processes of the products you espouse
More destroying of the Earth (by strip mining and other means) and it's atmosphere (by the ore refinement process) ...
... as if we have another planet to go to and the means to get there FAST
I'm pretty certain t
Re:We know (Score:5, Insightful)
If you were seriously worried about strip mining, point me to all your previous posts where you propose coal mining should be made illegal. Coal mining strips away more surface area of the Earth than all other mining combined.
But, no. And you were silent about 20 million tons of copper being mined per year, back when it supported our entire electrical infrastructure. But let a trivial fraction of that copper go into solar panels, and suddenly you start shouting that copper mining is destroying the environment?
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Except none of these are true. These are talking points being promulgated by the right-wing "think tanks" funded by oil companies.
If you were seriously worried about strip mining, point me to all your previous posts where you propose coal mining should be made illegal. Coal mining strips away more surface area of the Earth than all other mining combined.
But, no. And you were silent about 20 million tons of copper being mined per year, back when it supported our entire electrical infrastructure. But let a trivial fraction of that copper go into solar panels, and suddenly you start shouting that copper mining is destroying the environment?
And you made my point about the GREENIEs perfectly.
They scream about strip mines. Remember Greta protesting at the mine in Germany ... and getting arrested or detained for it?
The GREENIEs say EV & electric trains will save us all ... while simply ignoring the environmental costs of mining copper & generating electricity for that EV and those trains. And then there is the environmental impact of the refined & processed materials used to make those vehicles of transportation. Steel. Aluminum. Gl
Parroting the talking points (Score:2)
...The GREENIEs say EV & electric trains will save us all ... while simply ignoring the environmental costs of mining copper
Exactly as I said:
you were silent about 20 million tons of copper being mined per year, back when it supported our entire electrical infrastructure. [which it still does]. But let a trivial fraction of that copper go into solar panels, and suddenly you start shouting that copper mining is destroying the environment.
The only reason you are suddenly complaining about copper mining is that this is one of the talking points produced by "think tanks" funded by oil companies. (Where the phrase "think tank" is a euphemism for "progaganda factory.")
And then there is the environmental impact of the refined & processed materials used to make those vehicles of transportation. Steel. Aluminum. Glass. Rubber.
You think steel, aluminum, glass and rubber weren't being mined or processed before electric cars existed?
Show me one place where you were complaining about the environmental cost of steel or aluminum or glass before the think tanks told you "OMG, mining to make
Irreversible? I doubt it ... (Score:2)
It may have catastrophic results for us, but irreversible? What if it is so catastrophic that it kills all humans and the CO2 levels go back down. It doesn't even need to kill all humans. It just needs to wipe 90% of us. Won't things change climate wise for the better over the next 10000 years?
Long term, not "Irreversible" (Score:5, Informative)
Well, "irreversable" is in the title here, but in the text the consequences are that an overshoot could "cause sea level rises and other disastrous repercussions that might last millennia." The actual article [nature.com] doesn't use the word "irreversable".
So, effects are not forever, just thousands of years.
(A possible better news story is this one: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/new... [imperial.ac.uk] . Here the phrasing is "Temporarily exceeding global temperature rise of 1.5C likely to come with long-term consequences."
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So, effects are not forever, just thousands of years.
Given the sun won't last forever, most of us are smart enough to know what irreversible doesn't mean infinite.
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Re: Long term, not "Irreversible" (Score:2)
In reality it is millions of years. Google average temps during the Triassic. Earth had all these periods that span huge periods of time with unsurvivable temps for humans. All the oil and coal was formed by removing carbon from the air by algae and trees respectively, but in those high temps fungus to break down trees did not exist. All this took hundreds of millions of years, in periods like the Carboniferous. Our low CO2 atmosphere with huge amounts of bio carbon underground is the exception not the rule
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Well, the good news is...I won't be around in a millennia to see how bad/good it turns out.
I'll be long into my dirt nap...and likely not caring WTF is going on....
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It may have catastrophic results for us, but irreversible? What if it is so catastrophic that it kills all humans and the CO2 levels go back down. It doesn't even need to kill all humans. It just needs to wipe 90% of us. Won't things change climate wise for the better over the next 10000 years?
Even that's a huge stretch. Every time I read another story like this, I roll my eyes. IMO, a global mass extinction event is just not realistic except at the individual species level (and humans are not likely candidates). There are entirely too many species that are able to adapt to changing environments that will thrive even if weather patterns change a bit and they end up migrating north or south or whatever. Sure, you'll have extinction of species that are particularly unable to adapt, like butterf
Don't know about climate change but... (Score:3)
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If Earth was a Stanley Cup tumbler (Score:2)
If you can imagine the Earth as a Stanley Cup tumbler and that the heated liquid that you pour into it eventually will cool off, the same thing will happen. The difference being, the Earth is a big ass tumbler and it has a crap ton of water. Even when you remove it from the heating element, it still has all that thermal ass that has to slowly dissipate.
It's going to be a long hot minute for that to happen.
Ok, so let's do it (Score:2)
Failures of past generations (Score:2)
Failures of the past:
1) Never address emissions as a serious problem (for reasons geopolitical and military).
2) Never address geopolitical and military problems that are stated to supersede 1).
3) Consolidate wealth.
Millennials might soon get an earnest crack at solving the failures of their elders that threaten the futures of their children. Unfortunately, it might already be too late.
Re: Failures of past generations (Score:1)
Okay, get all the top pollution countries onboard (Score:2)
Earth has been ... (Score:2)
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As a dinosaur, you will fit right in.
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Much more recently than the dinosaurs. We are only just coming out of that ice age now. We'll be back to normal when trees grow in Antarctica again.
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The "ice age" ended 12,000 years ago.
The coming out of it was 11,000 years ago: over.
But I hear... (Score:2)
that as a result of climate change we're starting to see an ever so slight greening of Antarctica. I imagine things will continue on this trajectory and we'll eventually be able to live their.
This won't help islands that are sinking but life's not exactly fair anyway.
There's also zero chance we prevent a 1.5c increase, so we should plan for that happening.
I'm ok with rise (Score:2)
The robins stay around longer and the snow blower stays in the garage! The greenies can have all the worry and anxiety; I'll have another scotch please.
Huh? Man-made climate change ... (Score:2)
... is already irreversible. If we wanted to reverse on that, time was highly due 50 years ago.
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A lot more than 50 years ago. The decades of burning coal in *everything* probably did more damage than all the gas-powered cars since.
Then we'd better get hot (Score:1)
Pun intended. But yeah, hurry up. Massive switch to nuclear. Develop technological means of scrubbing and sequestering carbon.
What's that ... no?
the really irreversible thing (Score:2)
the thing that is really irreversible and will doom us all is simple human nature. in our quest to be well fed and comfortable we will pay the price we must at the moment and not think about the future. that is the nature of the vast majority of humans. some will look to the long future most will not look beyond their next meal and where they will sleep safe and warm that night.
there is no risk (Score:2)
Risk is something that *might* happen.