The scary thing about this (well, one scary thing) is that we, as a worldwide community, needed to be making hard decisions about the climate two or three decades ago, to stave off the worst of the impact of climate change. We're several years too late to stop it, and we still have half of our government (in the US) utterly denying the problem even exists. The decisions that need to be made now to stave off complete disaster are too extreme for even the non-insane elements in our government to support, because there's a whole segment of the population that still believes in fairy tales spun by the oil and gas industry.
The human mind is just terrible at grasping problems on the scale and timeline of global climate change, and it's plausible that it'll be the end of life as we know it in another few decades. All the assholes who denied it was happening will be dead, already, of course...so they won't care. I just don't see any significant movement on solving these problems; despite cool stuff like electric cars and renewable power becoming cheaper than coal, emissions are still increasing worldwide, not decreasing (and, again, it needed to begin decreasing decades ago).
I'm an optimist in the general case, but when it comes to climate and the environment, I see little reason to be optimistic.
There's definitely reason to be optimistic.
Emissions have started decreasing majorly in Europe [1], slightly in the USA [2], and are even leveling off in China [3].
Those three entities account for half the world's emissions.
Solar power has become cheap enough now that it's reasonable for developing countries (especially India) to rely on it heavily as they become fully electrified.
The problem is the real, unbiased, can't be faked data shows that the CO2 level is rising the most it has in recorded history. It has jumped 4 ppm in the last year alone [1].
3.75ppm, but yes - to be clear, worldwide emissions are continuing to increase, so the CO2 level should be rising by more and more every year.
If we can level off our greenhouse emissions (and we're very close), the CO2 level should continue to rise each year, but at a roughly-constant rate.
And if the world can get approach net-zero greenhouse emissions (a reasonable goal for 2050), the CO2 level should stop growing.
And then, we would need a few centuries of negative greenhouse emissions to get back to pre-industrial temperatures.
I suspect we'll never bother to do this.
According to the NOAA link I provided the CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa rose from 402.80 ppm in June 2015 to 406.81 ppm in June 2016 (most recent data) which is 4.01 ppm in a year :(
I think you mean the growth rate of CO2 emission is starting to level (actually looking at the data not even this is true), not growth of CO2. We are still headed for disaster if the CO2 goes up by 4ppm every year. I see no sign that emissions of CO2 are slowing, or that we are doing anything serious to stop emitting GHG. Just look at the growth of CH4 which is continuing to increase [1].
No. Data that comes out of a political process where people can claim that they are reducing CO2 emission is a lot more suspect than data that comes from actually measuring the CO2 level in the air. This is how we can end up with such contradictory data - on one side there is a vested interest that says emissions are going down, while the measurement of the actual CO2 emission rate is going up.
The reason that the data is 'contradictory' is that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is the integral of the emissions over time (minus the amount that gets sequestered by greenery and the like).
Even if the emissions level off fully, the expected amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will grow linearly. Emissions need to decrease to less than the rate of sequestration for the total CO2 in the atmosphere to shrink.
There's no contradiction: atmospheric_CO2 = integrate_{0,today}(emissions - sequestration)dt.
Yes the level is an integral, but the growth rate is a derivative. The growth rate measured in the atmosphere does not match the negative growth rate the political process is claiming.
Ultimately what matters is the absolute level of GHG and there is no sign this is going down anytime in the foreseeable future unless we make some major and very drastic changes.
> The growth rate measured in the atmosphere does not match the negative growth rate the political process is claiming.
The political process is claiming a negative growth rate in emissions (ie, the second derivative of the atmospheric levels, or the first derivative of the change in the atmospheric levels).
In other words, the growth of the growth in atmospheric CO2 levels is decreasing.
I've always been heavily involved in permaculture and aquaponics. One of the things I've learned is that there is no such thing as waste in nature. Nature will always seek balance.
Combine that with the fact that technologies grow at an exponential rate and CO2 is much more linear in comparison, and it becomes a technology problem and less of a government / political issue.
We will have technology that takes CO2 as an input and produces something of value for us. We're seeing it already but it just isn't implemented on large scales. Things like algae farms converting CO2 to energy, or even bioengineering organisms for artificial photosynthesis.
CO2 will be a non-issue once technology grows more. Especially if you believe a "singularity is near".
Hell, even switching from beef to fish would be a huge savings. Fish require a lot less water per pound of edible flesh and require around 1/10th the feed. Combine that with duckweed which depollutes water, consumes CO2, and produces feed for the fish all at the same time.
There are so many technologies and solutions available even now. It's hard to not be optimistic in my opinion.
I think water shortages are a much bigger threat and we need to consider a way to desalinate water from the ocean and pump it inland. Variants of ram pumps that use the kinetic force of waves can pump water uphill without any external energy input. And then you just point a bunch of mirrors at a water tower for desalination. Not sure why it isn't being done more.
We're several years too late to stop it, and we still have half of our government (in the US) utterly denying the problem even exists.
I suggest looking up what people on the opposite side of the debate actually believe, rather than lumping them all together as "denying the problem even exists".
C02 levels are rising (currently 0.04%, will be 0.05% by 2060) and cause a greenhouse effect. We don't know how strong this effect is, but we do know the effect is logarithmic (every additional unit of C02 causes less warming). Many predictions of knock-on effects of climate change are highly speculative (e.g., gulf stream shutdown) or products of distorted incentives (much more money is allocated for climate science research than for other environmental studies, incentivising researchers to exaggerate links between climate change and other environmental issues).
Every indication is that we're facing changes which we can adapt to or mitigate with technology. What's also clear is that cutting emissions by more than 80% (as is often advocated) would cripple energy production, which would cripple industrial civilisation. We're talking people going back to living in tiny smoke-filled cottages (no AC or central heating), in small villages (no commuting), mostly working on farms (no diesel-powered farm equipment).
Fossil fuels, nuclear and hydro power are currently the only viable options to keep modern civilisation running. Hopefully we eventually find an alternative, but it's insane to risk mass suicide to avoid a manageable change in the climate, on the utopian hope that wind/solar will somehow leap forwards in efficiency.
Anyway, that's what I (and many other rational anti-environmentalists) believe.
there's a whole segment of the population that still believes in fairy tales spun by the oil and gas industry.
If you're implying people are in hock to propaganda, the amount spent by the fossil fuel industry on advocacy is dwarfed by the amount spent on pro-environmentalist advocacy by governments, liberal foundations and the big environmentalist NGOs.
The human mind is just terrible at grasping problems on the scale and timeline of global climate change, and it's plausible that it'll be the end of life as we know it in another few decades.
Nice combination of speculation about why people disagree (their minds just can't "grasp" it) followed by ungrounded catastrophism. Even the IPCC thinks we're facing a sea level rise of between 20 and 60 centimetres by 2100. That is not "the end of life as we know it".
Fossil fuels, nuclear and hydro power are currently the only viable options to keep modern civilisation running. Hopefully we eventually find an alternative, but it's insane to risk mass suicide to avoid a manageable change in the climate, on the utopian hope that wind/solar will somehow leap forwards in efficiency.
And you're out of date. Real world costs per megawatt delivered is now lower for solar than coal. There is a lot of work to do to replace existing infrastructure, and this is not appropriate for all environments, but solar is definitely a cost-effective part of our future.
That is not "the end of life as we know it".
OK, that phrase is exaggerated. But, for example, a mass extinction of coral and shellfish due to ocean acidification is going to fundamentally change our oceans by a whole lot with who knows what long term fallout. And while we can mitigate warming effects with aerosols, we don't have a way to mitigate CO2+H2O = H2CO3 (carbonic acid).
I keep thinking that capitalism, the pursuit of money above all else, can't be the correct way forward. Not with weak governments that refuse to correctly TAX pollution and non-recyclable items.
[edit] Down votes, OK. But why do you disagree? I can't think of a solution other than having Guido van Rossum as our benevolent dictator for life for the entire globe.
Capitalistic democracies are the only thing likely to solve the problem. The dictatorships are among the worlds worst offenders in terms of pollution and overall environmental protection.
Does anyone have more recent data then this?
Canada, America and Australia were some of the worse offenders back in 2000. It would be interesting to see how this has changed.
Democracy doesn't require capitalism. Even free markets are possible without capitalism (as we currently practice it). I'm not making any argument about whether we want a democracy or a market without capitalism, but it is a false dichotomy to suggest that the alternative to capitalism is a dictatorship.
Liberal democracy requires the availability of liquid capital (and therefore capitalism), because with only illiquid types of capital (land, social ties etc), there is no freedom and mobility. Other types of democracy may not require it, but they are not used much currently.
Correct, it is named for accumulation of capital. However I don't know of any systems that are liberal (which is a nice feature) and democratic, without being also capitalistic. Maybe there some theoretical ones.
Global warming is the greatest existential threat to civilization. And when today's Republican nominee says that global warming is a "hoax", it makes me almost certain that that's what's going to end up doing us in.
Could you lay out the play-by-play on how global warming is a threat to civilization? It seems to me, at worst, a slow-motion problem that will take almost a century to unfold and perhaps force large chunks of people to relocate to other places.
I would appreciate it very much if you wouldn't read any kind of tone into my question. Straight up honest question.
Yes, It would take a very long time for global warming to cause the sea levels to rise such that cities are underwater.
But the primary way that global warming manifests itself is by causing severe weather events to be more frequent and more severe.
(This happens mainly because warmer air holds more water vapor.)
So the next Katrina will happen sooner, and it will be worse - because of global warming.
Another problem is that warming will cause lots of problems for agriculture.
Those of us growing corn in the Midwest will be okay - but places with marginally fertile land will have famines.
Another problem is that insect-borne illnesses (which already kill millions) are helped in a huge way by warming, even just a few degrees' worth.
These are all bad.
But the civilization-threatening part is what happens politically with the people displaced by floods, famine, and plagues of malaria/etc.
This kind of stuff causes refugee migrations, political upheaval, revolutions, dictators, etc.
The U.S. government is legitimately worried about this stuff [1].
Already climate change is causing disease and death on an alarming (and growing) scale. Rich people, as always, have a buffer. We in the developed world will be the last to be hit by it and the least impacted.
But, Africans are already feeling it. The Zika virus, which was identified in the 40s, was never been considered a serious health crisis, until climate change enabled it to spread farther and faster. Anything that enables mosquitoes to live longer and breed faster is a death sentence for people in many parts of the world.
Drought-prone regions are also feeling it already. It isn't a matter of "just move to another place" when your wages are measured in single-digit dollars per week or month. So, as climate change progresses, more people go hungry.
And, I think what's most alarming about it is that it is progressing faster than even the most extreme (mainstream) projections predicted. Where small changes were expected over a long period of time, we seem to be seeing a domino effect, where slight rises in temperature trigger other events that cause faster change. So, we probably don't have a century to adjust, particularly in areas that already have challenging weather events; Florida and Louisiana because of hurricanes and flooding, Texas and California because of drought. Many of our food producing states will be forced to evolve rapidly...I doubt it will be a smooth transition. There's already constant political battles over water in some parts of California.
That's what I expect this decade. My concern is that it is all happening faster than even many of the most pessimistic scientists in the field expected, and it seems to be accelerating.
What I see when I try to extrapolate from what is happening today: Less food and clean water for more people, sometimes dramatically so in places that are already stressed for food and clean water (again, this will strike the poor far sooner than it will hit the developed world...but, that doesn't make it less horrifying, to me, and it is merely a leading indicator of what we will all experience). More forced migration, more refugee crises, more war over resources (including resources we don't yet generally currently consider worth going to war over, like water and arable land), more disease epidemics (and with no effective antibiotics to treat them), more mosquitoes, etc.
All of these things are already happening. We can see and measure them. And, they are trending in the wrong direction, and accelerating.
I just don't see how to interpret what we see happening as anything other than a slow moving disaster. There's only so much "relocation" can solve, when speaking of a world with billions of people. If you consider literally millions (or even billions) of people dying off to be a non-catastrophic event, I guess it's not catastrophic. But, it looks like a catastrophe, to me. And, when that many people are put at risk of starvation and disease, the likelihood of war, even world war, seems likely to increase remarkably.
That seems like the current conclusion. But as people start dying, the population should decrease and that will limit global warming. Life as humans knew it has already ended, and civilization as we know it might end, but shouldn't mankind and civilization still survive pretty well? (Legitimate question)
I'm not sure what to make of that question. I think part of what makes civilization "civil" is that we don't accept huge swaths of the human population dying horrible deaths so that a lucky and rich portion of the human population can survive.
You seem to assume that the temperature will slowly increase, giving us time to adapt, without descending into another global war due to all the shufling of agricultural areas and mass migrations.
The even more scary thing is our models are so bad that we have no idea of how likely a positive feedback loop is. We are basically driving down the freeway at 100 miles per hour with our eyes shut with the hope the road stays straight.
The regugee crisis of today, one could argue, is a result of supply issues caused by climate change... and things haven't even really started to get bad yet. As things get worse, the people who are impacted will resort to more extreme measures.
Even if we turn this planet into Mars, we can figure out how to live on it... humans are amazing adaptable. The issue is can we scale that up to 10 billion people? I imagine resource wars are the biggest threat from climate change.
One big impact is the change to food supply. Plants and animals thrive in certain climates (the midwest of the United States for example). Those zones are moving due to climate change. Does that mean they are getting larger or shrinking? Will it require more energy (water, fertilizer, mechanical harvesting) to get the same amount of food? It's my understanding that both land-based and water based sources of food will shrink with a warming planet.
(Not sourced as I am currently at work - presumably someone is composing a detailed response to you as well)
The rising temperature and acidification of the oceans threatens their oxygene production. Climate change on land threatens oxygen production there. With falling oxygene production, oxygen in the atmosphere will not be replenished, and aerobic organisms will die.
As climate change leads to more frequent and intense natural hazards, it is expected that climate displacement will only increase in Bangladesh. The best estimates suggest that up to 18 million people may be displaced by sea level rise alone.
I don't think people can comprehend re-housing 18 million souls.
I dont doubt that it is a threat, but disagree that its the greatest threat. I think it will have costs and that the 1st world will be able to (reluctantly) afford these costs. Its the people who cannot afford the costs that will suffer, due to reasons listed below, such as disease, food and water supply, etc.
I'd list accidental nuclear war as the greatest threat to civilization, fwiw.
Narcissists are the greatest threat, with a few exceptions (I am careful who I label a narcissist. It's not because they are known to be tough boss that they have narcissistic personality disorder according to DSM-5). Anyway, they are centrally responsible for many global ailment, including global warming, and more importantly for not doing much to solve any problems.
"the right" didn't invent "global warming"....the left did.
Listen, maybe, or maybe not, there is man-made global warming, but when the left calls for the death-penalty for global warming "denialists", then we know it's the official religion of the left.
The politics of "global warming" is too intertwined with leftist political agenda.
You people can keep on being "denialists" about that in public, we know its true.
The human mind is just terrible at grasping problems on the scale and timeline of global climate change, and it's plausible that it'll be the end of life as we know it in another few decades. All the assholes who denied it was happening will be dead, already, of course...so they won't care. I just don't see any significant movement on solving these problems; despite cool stuff like electric cars and renewable power becoming cheaper than coal, emissions are still increasing worldwide, not decreasing (and, again, it needed to begin decreasing decades ago).
I'm an optimist in the general case, but when it comes to climate and the environment, I see little reason to be optimistic.