EU has done its part, but all efforts are just drop in the ocean. Also, can these studies be trusted? EU basically throws money anything "green" (except buying forests and making them protected), so naturally these studies benefit from it.
Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning
21–30 of 209 posts
Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning
#22Is the major issue here that 3 degrees Celsius is like an average so all the hot tropics places just become uninhabitable whereas temperature rises are more moderated in higher latitudes? Also how much faster and higher will that number go with all the data centers? Can't imagine it not just getting worse.
One major issue is the extreme difficulty of being precise about tipping points. Eg: Have you seen a train derail? A couple of degrees of tilt - nothing .. and then .. whoops. The global climate has been 'stable' about mean values for the bulk of human written history and development of urban civilisations. The planet now hosts 7 billion+ people, largely urban, and feed by a century of stable agriculture patterns wri…
We hit 8 billion in 2022 btw.
I think the problem is much worse than people imagine as well. Of those around 5.5 to 6 billion people live in "developed world" conditions (sanitation, water & electricity to the home). Over the next 20 years that's expected to grow to by another 1.5 billion (the previous 20 years was around the same). That alone is going to be a huge demand in energy, for construction and ongoing day to day energy usage.
On the other hand global energy demand has a very close correlation with the number of people living in developed world conditions - so after this point the growth in energy demand should start to level off.
Let's hope China continues to push renewables, and their investment in developing countries favours that instead of fossil fuels.
Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning
#23Is the major issue here that 3 degrees Celsius is like an average so all the hot tropics places just become uninhabitable whereas temperature rises are more moderated in higher latitudes? Also how much faster and higher will that number go with all the data centers? Can't imagine it not just getting worse.
Among _many_ other things, 3 degrees Celsius globally means more evaporation over oceans, which makes the air denser. Denser air carries more momentum, which means more frequent (and more severe) hurricanes.
Greenpeace literature in the 1980s predicted hurricanes from Global Warming.
And here we are.
Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning
#24If we don’t do something about this, I fear future generations will not view us in a positive light.
> If we don’t do something about this... We can't. We're too late. China (13 GT), the US (4.6 GT), and India (3 GT) alone represent 51% of global carbon emissions - and at least in India's case, it is growing at a rate of 5%. Throw in other large polluters like Russia (2 GT), Indonesia (0.8 GT), Iran (0.8 GT), KSA (0.6 GT), Brazil (0.5 GT), and Vietnam (0.5 GT) whose rate of carbon emissions is growing in the 5-10% r…
You conveniently left the US out of that and the US's role in driving global emissions. China is also likely rapidly de-carbonizing right now just like they rapidly spun up. They are an issue, but the US and its policies have a massive impact on this problem. Same with Europe. Rapidly adopting renewables and not externalizing our emissions to other countries would go a long way.
I have seen the argument shift from 'That's a lie. Global warming doesn't exist. Stop pushing regulations for a non-existent problem.' To 'Maybe it does, or there is some human impact but this is all within normal variation and the climate can take some amount of pollution so stop trying to regulate it!' to, I guess the new argument of, 'It's too late so why try? We shouldn't change course because it won't matter so stop trying to regulate the problem away.' It isn't too late. Do something.
Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning
#25lets plant more trees!
Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning
#26If we don’t do something about this, I fear future generations will not view us in a positive light.
We _are_ doing something about this. We’re locating concentrated millions of years of trapped fossil energy and moving it into our atmosphere as fast as we possibly can. To a first approximation, that is the world economy. Or did you mean to do something differently?
We have to do less
There has been a lot of debate over AC use. Everyone chiming in only discusses runtime energy use.
The biggest issue is mining and manufacturing, and the moving of all the materials, parts, and such.
Every AC has sheathed wires and circuit boards.
Every airplane, car, phone, network router, refrigerator... same expansive mess creation.
Gamers complaining about disc less games despite that problem pipeline and waste.
Complaining about RAM prices despite the problem pipeline.
No one is focused on the lag effects, externalities, of billions using up an endless supply of technologies and dumping airplane smog in the atmosphere. Etc, etc, etc
Thermodynamics makes it pretty clear that energy is not gone just hanging out in the atmosphere.
Thermodynamics means we may be fucked even if we slow down; that energy in the atmosphere can only go from atmosphere into oceans, glaciers, and permafrost. There's a lot of potential energy in the Earth to release as it absorbs the heat already in the atmosphere
Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning
#27If we don’t do something about this, I fear future generations will not view us in a positive light.
We _are_ doing something about this. We’re locating concentrated millions of years of trapped fossil energy and moving it into our atmosphere as fast as we possibly can. To a first approximation, that is the world economy. Or did you mean to do something differently?
Both Europe and US's emissions are significantly (18%-30%) below their peak (which was 20 years ago. The rest of the world is also moving towards renewables.
Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning
#28If we don’t do something about this, I fear future generations will not view us in a positive light.
I have already accepted that there is nothing plebs can do about climate change. I can try hard by using public transport, using less plastic, and using less air conditioning, but all of those efforts are rendered useless by rich people going on vacation in yachts or private planes. And if you talk about reducing meat consumption, Americans will go mad, lol. Ordinary plebs trying to prevent climate change is like sub…
They're not rendered useless. Do you argue the same way about voting too?
Ultimately consumption is 2/3s of all emissions, and the majority of it is not billionaires.
Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we don’t do something about this... We can't. We're too late. China (13 GT), the US (4.6 GT), and India (3 GT) alone represent 51% of global carbon emissions - and at least in India's case, it is growing at a rate of 5%. Throw in other large polluters like Russia (2 GT), Indonesia (0.8 GT), Iran (0.8 GT), KSA (0.6 GT), Brazil (0.5 GT), and Vietnam (0.5 GT) whose rate of carbon emissions is growing in the 5-10% r…
You conveniently left the US out of that and the US's role in driving global emissions. China is also likely rapidly de-carbonizing right now just like they rapidly spun up. They are an issue, but the US and its policies have a massive impact on this problem. Same with Europe. Rapidly adopting renewables and not externalizing our emissions to other countries would go a long way. I have seen the argument shift from 'T…
Both China and the US have similar carbon emission growth rates (0.3-0.5%).
And that does nothing to stop the collective 8 GT of carbon emissions coming from India and the other countries I listed with an average emissions increase rate of around 3-5%.
Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning
#30UK official body of actuaries basically says we are on trajectory of "Extreme" rating:
> 3°C or more by 2050. Multiple climate tipping points triggered, tipping cascade.
> over 4 billion deaths
If so, big shifts would already be imminently felt within next 5-10 years.
Remember that there would basically be no place to hide from these direct or knock-on effects.
Not for any self sufficient "prepper with a Mac Studio" nor for any billionaire with their "Galapagos" private island data center come habitat or any other short-sighted fantasy escape scenarios.
https://actuaries.org.uk/media/ni4erlna/planetary-solvency.p...
Edit: "on trajectory" to "Extreme" was too strong; it’s the report’s worst case band and not a forecast. What they’re basically saying is that "the chance of this happening is way too high".