Three Years Left To Limit Warming To 1.5C, Leading Scientists Warn 120
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions. That's the stark warning from more than 60 of the world's leading climate scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global warming. [...] At the beginning of 2020, scientists estimated that humanity could only emit 500 billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the most important planet-warming gas -- for a 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5C. But by the start of 2025 this so-called "carbon budget" had shrunk to 130 billion tonnes, according to the new study.
That reduction is largely due to continued record emissions of CO2 and other planet-warming greenhouse gases like methane, but also improvements in the scientific estimates. If global CO2 emissions stay at their current highs of about 40 billion tonnes a year, 130 billion tonnes gives the world roughly three years until that carbon budget is exhausted. This could commit the world to breaching the target set by the Paris agreement, the researchers say, though the planet would probably not pass 1.5C of human-caused warming until a few years later.
Last year was the first on record when global average air temperatures were more than 1.5C above those of the late 1800s. A single 12-month period isn't considered a breach of the Paris agreement, however, with the record heat of 2024 given an extra boost by natural weather patterns. But human-caused warming was by far the main reason for last year's high temperatures, reaching 1.36C above pre-industrial levels, the researchers estimate. This current rate of warming is about 0.27C per decade -- much faster than anything in the geological record. And if emissions stay high, the planet is on track to reach 1.5C of warming on that metric around the year 2030. After this point, long-term warming could, in theory, be brought back down by sucking large quantities of CO2 back out of the atmosphere. But the authors urge caution on relying on these ambitious technologies serving as a get-out-of-jail card. "For larger exceedance [of 1.5C], it becomes less likely that removals [of CO2] will perfectly reverse the warming caused by today's emissions," warned Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London.
"Reductions in emissions over the next decade can critically change the rate of warming," he added. "Every fraction of warming that we can avoid will result in less harm and less suffering of particularly poor and vulnerable populations and less challenges for our societies to live the lives that we desire."
That reduction is largely due to continued record emissions of CO2 and other planet-warming greenhouse gases like methane, but also improvements in the scientific estimates. If global CO2 emissions stay at their current highs of about 40 billion tonnes a year, 130 billion tonnes gives the world roughly three years until that carbon budget is exhausted. This could commit the world to breaching the target set by the Paris agreement, the researchers say, though the planet would probably not pass 1.5C of human-caused warming until a few years later.
Last year was the first on record when global average air temperatures were more than 1.5C above those of the late 1800s. A single 12-month period isn't considered a breach of the Paris agreement, however, with the record heat of 2024 given an extra boost by natural weather patterns. But human-caused warming was by far the main reason for last year's high temperatures, reaching 1.36C above pre-industrial levels, the researchers estimate. This current rate of warming is about 0.27C per decade -- much faster than anything in the geological record. And if emissions stay high, the planet is on track to reach 1.5C of warming on that metric around the year 2030. After this point, long-term warming could, in theory, be brought back down by sucking large quantities of CO2 back out of the atmosphere. But the authors urge caution on relying on these ambitious technologies serving as a get-out-of-jail card. "For larger exceedance [of 1.5C], it becomes less likely that removals [of CO2] will perfectly reverse the warming caused by today's emissions," warned Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London.
"Reductions in emissions over the next decade can critically change the rate of warming," he added. "Every fraction of warming that we can avoid will result in less harm and less suffering of particularly poor and vulnerable populations and less challenges for our societies to live the lives that we desire."
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
I wasn't aware that China and India were Republicans
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
China and India aren't responsible for the accumulated anthropogenic CO2, which is actually causing the warming.
That CO2 is 2/3 from trumpistanian, 1/3 a mix from mostly Western Europe with bits thrown in from Japan and the former Soviet Bloc, although today the last item has been reduced to practically zero.
If China and India would continue to output at their peak rates, they'll begin to catch up with the currently accumulated CO2 in about 50 years. There is also the part that a lot of what China and India
what residence time are you using for CO2 in the a (Score:1)
what residence time are you using for CO2 in the atmosphere? Unless you know what that is you are just bloviating.
Re: the right time (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
China and India aren't responsible for the accumulated anthropogenic CO2, which is actually causing the warming.
If the goal is to stop the warming, we need to look at who is contributing to the warming _today_, and in the next few decades, and talk about what can be done about that.
If the goal is to find someone to blame so we can feel better ignoring our own current contributions to the problem, then concentrating on past contributions to total CO2 on the planet is the way to go.
Re: (Score:3)
China and India aren't responsible for the accumulated anthropogenic CO2, which is actually causing the warming.
That CO2 is 2/3 from trumpistanian, 1/3 a mix from mostly Western Europe with bits thrown in from Japan and the former Soviet Bloc, although today the last item has been reduced to practically zero.
If China and India would continue to output at their peak rates, they'll begin to catch up with the currently accumulated CO2 in about 50 years. There is also the part that a lot of what China and India output is actually output on behalf of consumers from the richest world anyway.
So would you say you're in favor of tariffs against China which would lower the number of Chinese imports to the US?
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
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"Good diagram of "Cumulative CO2 emissions" from 1750 to 2023, but no need to bring Trump into science."
When Trump is enthusiastically taking a sledgehammer to science, it becomes kinda inevitable.
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Ok, so I looked at the data provided in the chart. There are a few things to note. The U.S. tracking data starts long before the China and India and we are talking about cumulative CO2 emissions. So to say 2/3 from trumpistanian is a little disingenuous, especially if we start to look at percentage change (relative).
Yes, total CO2 produced does show that the U.S. is the number 1 contributor. But lets look at the data closer.
Let's look at the more recent data, based on when we started to worry about global c
Re: (Score:2)
All western countries combined were never as populous as China or India today, and they have a solid history of waste management that's severely lacking in Asia.
Dear god, how is it that you attempted to use two points to make your case and you not only succeeded in failing to show any connection between the points and your argument but also managed to get the critical point wrong. Clearly you know nothing about the industrialisation of the west if you think our waste management was never as bad as it is in Asia.
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no it's not, the real lies are all the self-justifications you self-serving greedy rich people keep telling yourselves so you can look in the mirror without seeing how evil you really are
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ahh yes....
Biden slept threw his presidency and did nothing....
thats ok.
trump inherits someone elses shit.
trumps fault.
What are you talking about? Trump is *literally a climate change denier*. It is his stated opinion, on the record. It's his administration's and his party's stated policy. It's not like they're trying to hide this.
They're not just failing to act, they are actively working to undo the (inadequate, as you point out) federal US policies intended to combat climate change. That and decades of environmental regulation of all sorts. They're even going so far as to put aside their "commitment" to "states' rig
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Trump is a simpleton that doesn't understand global economics and things the US needs to be doing everything (mediocrely) rather than doing what it's best at well. DOGE is a joke that was setup to slash funding to programs billionaires disagreed with, nothing more.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Except that much of the CO2 is back in the gro (Score:1)
No other country has contributed to CO2 in the history of world. It's incredible.
Re: Except that much of the CO2 is back in the gro (Score:2)
Shhh. You are challenging religious doctrine. In spite of the Mauna Loa CO2 graphs demonstrating a time constant on the order of weeks or a few months for atmospheric concentrations, dogma requires that it be "hundreds of years". Or all the climate models fall apart.
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I wasn't aware that China and India were Republicans
Yes, they are, classists, all of them
every country in the world is run by evil powerful rich people
power corrupts, absolute power corrupt absolutely
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Accident? Coincidence?
17 convictions and pleas tell us it was a PLAN!!
Re: the right time (Score:1)
Only 6 years left according to AOC so does any of this matter?
locked in (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly, a considerable amount of additional warming is already locked in.
"If the large-scale carbon dioxide removal needed to reach net-zero emissions is unfeasible and instead, the remaining hard-to-mitigate emissions approximately balance natural sinks, atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations will remain constant. Such fixed GHG levels will result in continued warming until the climate system reaches a state of radiative balance, which we call “committed warming.”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.... [wiley.com]
Re: locked in (Score:1)
It's the end of world as we know it and I feel like eating a steak and drinking Jack Daniels.
Re: locked in (Score:2)
Let's hope we're not one of them.
Let's hope we are. We're responsible for the CO2 rise. A collapse of homo sapiens population to 5 or 10% of current levels would solve that.
The current "solutions" appear to be targeting populstions too poor to adapt. So I'm OK with this. Washington State's CCA is hardest on the poor. I can afford higher fuel and food prices. Or a Tesla. The poor can't.
Except we have to keep some migrant labor around. Who else will dig the graves for the poor? Not me.
Re:locked in (Score:5, Interesting)
> Sadly, a considerable amount of additional warming is already locked in.
Unfortunately, it seems to be more than we think.
The energy imbalance is increasing : https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.... [wiley.com]
Aerosol forcing is reducing due to us reducing pollution. This puts India in an interesting position: clear pollution and heat up, or keep pollution and suffocate.
Finally the CMIP6 set of models seem to be unable to model the last couple of years, being under reality. https://cicero.oslo.no/en/arti... [cicero.oslo.no]
1.5C is over, 2C is probably already baked in.
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We should be funding multiple moon-shots to try to deal with this. Apollo-like efforts to remove CO2 from the atmosphere at scale, or find some other way to limit warming.
Let's get this over with (Score:2)
Let's continue to fight each other. See who is the strongest. Let's keep competing on who can make the most noise.
This is what failure looks like. We should have stayed in our caves.
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This is what failure looks like.
Indeed. Failure on the level of a whole species. That is special. And no, denial will not fix this, no matter how much a lot of completel morons believe that.
Re:Let's get this over with (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, how often in history have scientists and/or "scientists" missed the mark on what precisely would happen if X was changed by Y in any given sufficiently complex system?
You are absolutely right on that, but you have no reason to assume that they overestimate the problem. In fact, recent changes suggest the opposite. The situation is worse than the scientists have predicted.
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Is it though? By what metric in terms of the species?
Yes, it seems we have more extreme natural incidents. Has humanity perished in any wide swath of land?
Again, I am not arguing against the next decades and centuries sucking. I'm just saying life has always sucked. I na way we have gotten used to life not sucking as hard and therefore we became complacent and weak on other areas. More societal illnesses. Back issues, chronic diseases and mental illnesses are everywhere making life miserable to the point wh
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The situation is worse than the scientists have predicted.
Not really.
The situation is worse than what Scientists were allowed to publish. Or what the newspapers liked to publish.
That the situations is pretty severe since 20 years and downplayed should be obvious who reads scientific stuff.
Re: Let's get this over with (Score:2)
I don't think you're smart enough to comment on this, dummy. Why don't you stfu?
This is it? This is your reply? Dummy? Stfu?
Q.E.D.
Looks like we will test what 2.5C or more does... (Score:2)
Because that is such a good idea.
The meaning of Three Years Left To Limit Warming (Score:2)
is:
3 years left to become a world with net zero CO2 and CO2 equivalent emissions.
3 years to zero Oil, Gas and Coal usage
3 years to zero meat consumption
3 years to zero concrete
When reducing CO2 from fossil carbon usage (that is Oil, Gas and Coal) to net zero only, we may continue with meat and concrete for many many more years.
Realism? Lost on any of above net zero conditions alone.
The Question is more: Do you want to be part of the cause? Do you want to have blood on your hands for billion of deaths? Do yo
Geoengineering now (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's get realistic, people. Humanity is not going to reduce its carbon emissions to what is necessary to prevent serious consequences. The only realistic option is to do some form of geoengineering. It's the least bad solution - because it's the only one that may actually work.
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What you just said.
Globally speaking warming emissions are still increasing so how does anyone think we're getting to net zero any time soon? Even after we halt the rate of emission increase we still have a truly massive task in front of us to reach net zero and even then we'll still need to wait for the environment to stabilize as even at net zero we'll still have the problem of all the extra CO2 that we put into the environment up until we hit net zero. There's just no way we're going to accomplish all th
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Well, the transition to electric and solar and in some cases hydrogen is happening pretty rapid at the moment.
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With global emissions still growing, not decreasing, clearly renewables arent growing anywhere near fast enough and that's only dealing with electrical generation. To reach net zero we'll need to solve emissions related problems with many other things like like air travel and concrete production. I would love to be wrong but given all this I don't see how we'll reach net zero before we dont have serious problems that we need to mitigate. Net zero strikes me as a really hard place for us to get to.
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Just because we are not going to reduce emissions doesn't mean we should continue to pollute as we are doing now. Some countries, especially, have a lot of "fat" to cut (could easily reduce emissions without too much negative effects). Those countries are USA, Australia, Canada, etc. those with very high CO2 emissions per capita.
And the easiest way to achieve that is by putting a price on carbon. We can argue on what the price should be, but it shouldn't be 0.
And you think that's going to happen? (Score:3)
The problem is that the people are unwilling to do it, and opportunistic political leaders are getting votes by refusing to enforce these policies. Given that, geoengineering is the only realistic hope.
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Then the "only realistic hope" is more expensive than reducing wasteful CO2 emissions such as shutting down coal plants in the USA, or having people drive less or more fuel efficient vehicles.
Someone has to pay for geoengineering as well. So if you ask people if they prefer to pay $1000/year in carbon tax or pay $10000/year in geoengineering fees to get the same results, the choice is pretty simple.
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By the way if SOME geoengineering projects end up being the most efficient way of attenuating global warming, their contributions could be counted towards carbon credits in a properly implemented carbon market.
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Someone has to pay for geoengineering as well. So if you ask people if they prefer to pay $1000/year in carbon tax or pay $10000/year in geoengineering fees to get the same results, the choice is pretty simple.
I think you present a false dichotomy. Several of the proposed geoengineering schemes are relatively inexpensive, though of course a lot of investment will be needed to demonstrate their practicality and effectiveness. I expect that geoengineering will be much cheaper than getting to net zero.
However, that doesn't mean we don't also need to get to net zero, because the geoengineering proposals only address warming, not the other effects of high atmospheric CO2. Ocean acidification and whatever is downst
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Anyways it doesn't matter. It's not you, I or the gouvernement who should pick whether geoengineering is worth it or not. It's the market.
Those who emit CO2 increasing the global temperature by 0.00000001C should have to pay the bill to reduce the global temperature by 0.00000001C.
Now, who can provide the most efficient/cheapest solution to reduce the global temperature by 0.00000001C should be awarded the contract. That person may be shutting down coal plants and replacing them by solar. Or can be doing so
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which brings me back to the example of paying 10x as much for the same result. This is pretty much what I expect if we choose a non-market solution.
Even the so-called "conservatives" in the US and Canada oppose market-solution for the climate/pollution problems. It's almost as if their goal was to maximize pollution.
Finally a reason that politicians might act (Score:2)
This sort of thing cannot be allowed to happen, quite outrageous, must be stopped no matter the cost: Flavour of gin and tonic could be impacted by climate change, study finds [theguardian.com].
Nonsense (Score:1)
What utter nonsense. Only totally unrealistic scenarios could still limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. As in: we stop using fossil fuels today and stop eating meat today (both would collapse the economy). In reality we have known about this for a long time, starting really talking about it in 1979 and launched IPCC in 1988. We're now 46 years in the future and apart from some hiccups due to COVID and the odd economic/oil crisis, each and every subsequent year we have increased our emissions and destroyed
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Humanity and many other species are absolutely fucked.
Stop hyperventilating. Higher (and lower) temperatures were observed in both geological record and during human history. Greenland had forests, Sahara was green. If something going to wipe humanity, it is probably going to be nukes or engineered virus, not climate warming.
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There is no way to limit warming (Score:1)
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The current warming, however, has nothing to do with Milankovitch cycles
Which would be pretty obvious to you if you at least glanced over the article you linked.
We are going to blast straight through 1.5 degrees (Score:2)
Let's be honest with ourselves shall we?
People are really, really good at lying to themselves first and foremost - it's how we survive day-to-day existence. The majority of us are therefore very susceptible to other people's lies.
We have been burning dead dinosaurs for far too long and those with a vested interest have known for nearly half a century that what they were doing was going to cause significant damage to the planet.
The oil companies repeatedly lied to the politicians, their investors and to us.
Title is inaccurate (Score:2)
Should be: "Breach of 1.5 C limit inevitable, may happen as soon as three years."
I suspect... (Score:2)
I suspect that a lot of really rich and/or important people are going to have to die first before we, as a species, actually DO anything about it. (Black Swan Events not withstanding, of course. If someone could poke a volcano or start a nuclear war it might solve the heating problem but then you get side effects that sound like a pharmaceutical company's disclaimer.) And yes, our children and their children SHOULD hate us for it.
Well... (Score:2)
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Lack of FOOD as well as heat wave induced population crash and migration will destroy civilizations.
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That rain forest road story was debunked. The road was planned long before the conference.
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So what? Its not a personal responsibility problem. If it was a personal responsibility problem, I wouldn't have to subsidize my neighbor's driving habit. I'm glad you agree that banning air travel is not acceptable. Its a straw man that almost nobody is talking about. Commercial air travel is surprisingly efficient already, even compared to electric cars. Flying coach is like 15 cents per mile. You'd have to put 230,000 miles on a Tesla model 3 to beat that. And that's not even including the cost o
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to disagree with your characterization of climate change as a 'slow catastrophe.' We're already seeing severe impacts TODAY - not in 20 or 50 years. Record-breaking heatwaves, unprecedented wildfires, catastrophic flooding, and coral reef die-offs are happening right now.
More importantly, your timescale misses the crucial point: in geological terms, what we've done in the last 200 years IS like a meteorite impact. We've released carbon that took millions of years to sequester in just two centuries. That's not 'slow' - it's shockingly abrupt.
The rate of CO2 increase is roughly 100 times faster than natural climate variations. We're conducting an uncontrolled experiment with our planet's climate system at breakneck speed. Many tipping points (Arctic ice loss, permafrost thaw, Amazon dieback) are much closer than your timeline suggests.
Yes, we need to stop emissions now, but framing this as something that mainly affects future generations is dangerously misleading. Climate impacts are accelerating, not gradually unfolding.
Waiting another 10 years for nuclear power while continuing to burn coal is a recipe for disaster. We don't have that luxury of time. By then, cascading climate impacts will already be triggering economic collapse and climate-driven conflicts. We're talking 10-15 years until resource wars over water and arable land, mass climate migration that makes current refugee crises look trivial, and supply chain breakdowns that will devastate the global economy.
The solutions exist NOW - renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuels in most markets. Every year we delay while waiting for the 'perfect' nuclear solution means more locked-in warming, more irreversible tipping points crossed, and exponentially higher costs later. This isn't about choosing the ideal solution anymore - it's about deploying what works immediately before the window for manageable adaptation closes entirely.
And we don't even have 10-15 years before major disruptions hit. Within the next 5 years, we'll see global crop failures - whether from pests gaining evolutionary advantages in warmer climates, extreme flooding destroying entire harvests, or unprecedented droughts. Most likely all three simultaneously, plus factors we haven't even considered yet.
Weather patterns are becoming chaotic and unpredictable. Agriculture simply cannot adapt to fundamentally different growing conditions every 3 months. Farmers need stability to plan crops, invest in equipment, and maintain soil health. When spring arrives weeks early, followed by late freezes, then drought, then flooding - that's not something you can just 'adapt' to. It's agricultural collapse in real-time.
Our food systems are built on predictability. When that breaks down, everything breaks down. We're not talking about gradual changes farmers can adjust to over decades - we're talking about whiplash between extremes that make farming as we know it impossible.
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> Within the next 5 years, we'll see global crop failures
where does that number come from? I do agree the main question now is "when will crops fail", but I haven't seen it answered anywhere.
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There is a Nature article on this topic from just 2 days ago: https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
It's also in the eyes of the beholder to decide what accounts as 'global crop failure'. I'd say only a 10% drop would be very disruptive to our world as we know it, while 20-30% are easily enough to force us into global wars.
Above article calculates a 94.6% chance of that failure for wheat until 2050 - that is in 25 years from now.
Additionally there are plenty of crop failures already:
Climate-Related Agricultural
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Yet deaths as a result of climate/weather events are the lowest they've been in recorded history. The climate preachers have been telling us that we're just 3-5 years from complete disaster for the past fifty. So you'll have to forgive me if I don't take your alarmism seriously.
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Yet deaths as a result of climate/weather events are the lowest they've been in recorded history. The climate preachers have been telling us that we're just 3-5 years from complete disaster for the past fifty. So you'll have to forgive me if I don't take your alarmism seriously.
No, no scientist ever told you we were 3-5 years from complete disaster.
Media did, and media does.
Scientists told 50 years ago that we will have 1.5 degree warming today, just as we have. They also tell that the inpredictability of wheather and biological sudden changes (mutations) will rise significantly. The 'alarmism' is, because all this was already set about 50 years ago. What we did the last 50 years will have impacts for the next 50+, and without 'alarmism' and disrupting changes, this will be way wo
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When World War 3 is over, we won't have to worry about carbon emissions for another thousand years. Why worry? Nothing is going to change until WW3 happens. The worlds economies are all tied into emitting carbon. Progress can be defined as emitting more carbon. You are a third world poor country if you are not emitting massive amounts of carbon.
WW3 is inevitable at this point.
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You always have and always will see record breaking weather.
This is supposed to be a scientifically oriented site, in which case we should be able to understand actual numbers, not just handwaving.
In a limited energy system, such as an Earth at a fixed temperature, there is a maximum potential value for many of the parameters that we see breaking records. Yes, we would see those records being broken repeatedly, though less and less often as the length of the record increased. In any case it would clearly look like an asymptotic approach towards a limit with each new
Re: Great! (Score:3)
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Many tipping points (Arctic ice loss, permafrost thaw, Amazon dieback) are much closer than your timeline suggests.
I gave a timeline? I merely said we have time to act deliberately and implement known working solutions than go all in on what is popular today.
You did, you said we would have enough time to act without disrupting changes. I disagree with that.
Yes, we need to stop emissions now, but framing this as something that mainly affects future generations is dangerously misleading. Climate impacts are accelerating, not gradually unfolding.
Of course the impacts are unfolding today. That means we will have to adapt than just focus on mitigating future warming. If the concern is rising sea levels then we will have to build seawalls, abandon some low lying areas near shores, etc. With wildfires we may have to clear out dried plant matter by mechanical means or with small controlled burns, clear out fire breaks to reduce risks to people and property, etc. Some of that may not be considered "green" to some people but it's better to clear out some trees near homes so people don't die than wait for the inevitable. We can create more wooded area elsewhere to make up for the losses, and then some.
We _could_, but we didn't and we are not doing it today. So when do u think that should be done? How long do u think it takes until newly planted trees reduce CO2? (Answer: first 1-3 years only very little, 3-20 years a bit more, 20-100+ years what we clear up now.)
Waiting another 10 years for nuclear power while continuing to burn coal is a recipe for disaster.
I didn't say anything about nuclear power. But now that you mention it that sounds like an excellent idea. It's not like we need to burn coal in the meantime. We can put up windmills, build some mini- and micro-dams for flood/drought mitigation and hydroelectric power. I'm not a fan of rooftop solar as a solution due to it's high cost but if it makes people feel better then I'm not going to stop them. I'll be opposed to government subsidies for rooftop solar but not any kind of law or regulation to stop people. Just switching from coal to natural gas would help plenty in reducing CO2 emissions, and certainly in reducing air pollution. To make that happen though we need people to stop opposing the construction of pipelines. The longer people hold up these pipelines the longer we keep burning coal to keep the lights and heat on in the cold dark winter.
Dark winters are a very minor problem compared to the unsecure and chaotic weather we are heading to. Industries relying on it would quickly imple
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That's wrong. Renewables are growing by far the fastest, and the relation of renewables used to fossil grew.
Why deal with relative growth when it is absolute growth that sets CO2 emissions? I pointed to the growth in renewable energy being insufficient to keep up with growing demand for energy, meaning the use of fossil fuels is still growing to fill that gap: https://ourworldindata.org/ene... [ourworldindata.org]
An only renewable solution will show big gains in the short term but long term that growth rate will start to hit limits that make the "all the above" solution the better option to lowering CO2 emissions in a few decades.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
We know what solutions are workable but they will take time to implement. Rome wasn't built in a day.
The problem with this statement is that it is routinely used by others to delay indefinitely any action whatsoever. Rome was not built in a day, true; but construction did begin on a day. They didn't put it off forever, which is what many entrenched interests in the world would prefer we did relative to addressing the climate crisis.
The other problem with it is that it isn't quite true: we *don't* know what solutions will work, except to radically reduce emissions, starting yesterday. Many/most of the proposed approaches for mitigating the effects of greenhouse gasses are theoretical; untested or unverified; of unknown, or poor scalability; expensive; all or some of these. We've only just started to explore some techniques, such as direct removal of carbon from the atmosphere, and the jury is still out as to which (if any) will be deemed "workable".
For that matter, "workable" is a handy phrase to hide behind, isn't it? The scale of the crisis is literally the entire planet, and one quite likely outcome is that a large swath of the surface of the planet is no longer habitable by human beings. Remind me, then, what defines "workable"? Does it mean economically feasible? Technologically plausible? Non-disruptive to the status and power of elites? Preserves the ludicrously high-energy lifestyles of developed countries?
So – the urgency to act is just as real today as it was last week, last year, last century. The only difference is that we have less runway and less margin for error at this late stage of the game. Eventually; perhaps rather sooner than later; we will have no runway whatsoever and the whole house of cards will come crashing down.
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we *don't* know what solutions will work
Yes we do. Renewables and storage work well, they are proven technologies. This year the UK is going to try to run on purely renewable electricity for short periods, not to prove it can be done because we know it can, it's been demonstrated, but to check what upgrades to the local grid are needed.
We know they can scale, because we are scaling them, and because China dwarfs the rest of the world combined for installed capacity. Last year they installed more solar in the first 9 months than the US has in its
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You keep using the word "solution", that works only if there's a problem.
We're in a predicament, that only has outcomes.
And I'm sorry, but if you're not scared yet, you're not looking out the window.
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No, in four years the story on OAN and Fox will be "let's attack Canada, Greenland and Northern Europe, so that we have more lebensraum", while temperatures climb to 4C above the 20th century averages.
Hey smart guy (Score:2)
Enjoy your remaining years with people telling you: "I told you so!"
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No. Because the facts will not go away, no matter how much people like you desire that. Facts kind of do that.
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So 4 years from now these clowns will finally STFU?
4 years now they will be telling you to limit it to 3 degrees. And you claim humans cant affect the climate and the 2 degrees we already have is just weather.
You anti-science types will keep on lying until your pants are literally on fire.
I used to believe this stuff but then I looked at their track record
No you didn't. Quit bullshitting
You've always been a MAGA.
You misrepresent the craziest shit you can as mainstream and then make excuses.
The track record is very good. You just prefer not to see it so you can keep strawmanning.
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Re: Boring (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Socialism and give the unelected bureaucrats more money and more power.
No, take AWAY the power of unelected CAPITALISTS and put PRO-PUBLIC elected controllers in power.