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Charts show how little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse emissions

nature.com

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Re: Charts show how little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse emissions

#61

Post by eledumb »

Reducing output isn't going to happen, well it won't happen until it's too late. It's like the smoker that gets diagnosed with cancer, and then decides to quite smoking.

It's also ludicrous that think that warming will stop and hold at 1.5 or 2.0c adding less won't stop the increase in climate warming, it will just cause the increase to be slower.

The other thing that's ludicrous is that we aren't monitoring the earth's output, the warming oceans, melting glaciers and thawing permafrost are now contributing greenhouse gases due to the warming climate, they are now locked into positive feedback loops. Which means every cycle the changes get a little bit bigger as the cycles feed themselves. Unless we can start to reduce the total amount of greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere these feedback loops are just going to keep running.

Re: Charts show how little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse emissions

#62

Post by TeMPOraL »

eloff wrote: post #56
perfunctory wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> relax, you'll be dead by then This is part of the reason so little is being done to combat climate change now. If we don't act now though, the future generations will definitely drown. It will be too late for them to do anything. > That's one of the few countries likely to benefit from climate change. This is one of the most dangerous delusions. In our globalised interconnected world nobody will benefit. Just think…

Nobody is going to drown. People will do some combination of building walls, raising land, and moving. It will play out over a period of a thousands years or more. There will be a non-zero cost associated with diverting resources for these things, but that's not the end of the world. I'm not saying it's an excuse for not acting though. We have a responsibility to take care of our own mess, rather than just dump it on…

Is it now? The predictions are, as far as I understand, that a lot of coastal areas will become submerged this century, meanwhile the rising temperatures will (and already are) mess up with the food supply. As that accelerates, the world will see a migration wave like never before in history, and frankly, it sounds like straight to World War 3 from here to me.

The planet, frankly, doesn't matter. It'll be fine. The thing that matters is our technological civilization. Whether it's a gun or a glacier, our civilization is fragile, and when it fails, it's essentially game over for humanity - mass deaths followed by the remaining survivors stuck in medieval conditions for many thousands, or tens of thousands of years.

Re: Charts show how little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse emissions

#64

Post by TeMPOraL »

dcolkitt wrote: post #18
mattigames wrote: post #11

Is so obvious where this is all going: The wealthy -the factories owners and their close allies- the very same ones ignoring the pledges to stop contributing to climate change will be the only ones protected enough from most damages of climate change, only the wealthy will afford to live in the cities with livable temperature, to buy potable water, only the most resilient of the poor and middle-class will survive, an…

Frankly this kind of doomsaying view has no basis in reality. While it's true that unmitigated global warming will impose a very large economic cost, it's simply not the case that it's going to turn the world into some unlivable hell-scape. There's just no basis for that belief in the actual evidence. The best estimates say that global warming will lower per capita GDP by somewhere between 5-20% by 2100. That's a tra…

> it's simply not the case that it's going to turn the world into some unlivable hell-scape. There's just no basis for that belief in the actual evidence.

I think what GP presented is too mild. What I personally fear is this: increasing migration pressure from the most affected areas and contention for resources starts triggering wars, at which point the global economy collapses, at which point at least half of the world's population dies of starvation. Remember, cities everywhere are running on just-in-time supply chains; they have food and water for a couple of days. It's mostly harmless when one city in a country suffers a catastrophe, because emergency response can be put into place. But if the whole country goes into disarray, or the imports of food suddenly stop, things are going to get very ugly very fast.

Re: Charts show how little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse emissions

#65

Post by riffraff »

joshuaheard wrote: post #63

It looks like if you take China and India out of the equation, the numbers are trending down.

If you take China and India out of the equation you are removing a lot of goods which are used in the rest of the world, though.

Re: Charts show how little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse emissions

#66

Post by nostromo »

Actually a lot of progress has been made, except in China, which has increased emissions to the point of reversing all other progress globally.

By comparison, US carbon has been going down since 2007, despite a growing population and economy. Per capita it's been declining for over four decades.

China now emits more than the US and EU combined, despite having much, much less economic output.

Re: Charts show how little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse emissions

#67

Post by Robotbeat »

eloff wrote: post #42

I've thought a lot about climate change and it's consequences. If we trigger runaway warming through feedback loops involved permafrost and ocean (hydrates) methane - things are going to get really, really bad. This happened when ~5C degree warming from millions of years of the Siberian traps eruptions caused methane hydrates to be released into the atmosphere, triggering another ~5C warming and the greatest mass ext…

Sea level rise under the "business as usual" RCP 8.5 scenario is 0.5 to 1 meter by 2100. Combined with increased storm intensity and existing subsidence rates, and this a very large increase that will swamp many lower lying cities, including much of the area where I work today.

"You'll long be dead" applies to the elderly politicians currently driving policies and laughing/mocking young climate activists. But the young climate activists like Greta or younger probably WILL be alive by 2100. Most of my children will still be alive by then, and when (if) I have grandchildren, they definitely will.

I think it's absurd to not give a crap about the fate of my children.

"Relax, you'll be long dead" is a statement contingent on the generation. The Boomers and older, who hold the vast majority of the world's wealth, have the least at stake while the young people currently striking have the most at stake. Climate denialism is basically an economic war on the young.

Re: Charts show how little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse emissions

#68

Post by TeMPOraL »

riffraff wrote: post #65
joshuaheard wrote: post #63

It looks like if you take China and India out of the equation, the numbers are trending down.

If you take China and India out of the equation you are removing a lot of goods which are used in the rest of the world, though.

Including a big fraction (most, I think) of solar capacity installed around the world.

Re: Charts show how little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse emissions

#69

Post by uoaei »

nostromo wrote: post #66

Actually a lot of progress has been made, except in China, which has increased emissions to the point of reversing all other progress globally. By comparison, US carbon has been going down since 2007, despite a growing population and economy. Per capita it's been declining for over four decades. China now emits more than the US and EU combined, despite having much, much less economic output.

Carbon emitted as a result of manufacturing should count toward the destination country, not the production country.

China supplies the world a lot of goods. It doesn't seem appropriate to put the onus on China when the end result of that production run brings all that stuff over to another country.

Re: Charts show how little progress has been made in limiting greenhouse emissions

#70

Post by throwaway2048 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #41
dcolkitt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly this kind of doomsaying view has no basis in reality. While it's true that unmitigated global warming will impose a very large economic cost, it's simply not the case that it's going to turn the world into some unlivable hell-scape. There's just no basis for that belief in the actual evidence. The best estimates say that global warming will lower per capita GDP by somewhere between 5-20% by 2100. That's a tra…

Someone at Reason actually read the UN/IPCC report. There is no doomsday in it. From https://reason.com/2018/10/11/how-big-of-a-deal-is-half-of-a... > So how much economic damage will pursuing the IPCC's fast transition to a no-carbon energy system spare us? The report asserts that if no policies aimed specifically at reducing carbon dioxide emissions are adopted, then average global temperature is projected to rise…

Citing average GDP numbers is ridiculous, No billionaire is going to materially suffer from global warming, plenty of very poor people are. And you can bet the billionaires wont be lining up to help "even things out", so measuring as if they were is broken methodology.
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