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IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

theguardian.com

251–260 of 456 posts

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#251
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we don't know the impact To your point, we know quite a bit, and it's pretty bad. Will 10% of the world's population perish? Most likely. There's already a population die-off in progress in many areas of the world as the birth rate continues to decline. People don't have to drop dead for the population to die off, they can simply not be born in sufficient numbers to replace the existing population. As for those who a…

Population declines on the other hand are expected because birth rates have been dropping for hundreds of years. This is a good thing you can’t support infinite growth on a finite planet. Suggesting global warming is the cause completely ignores these long term trends. Peoples quality of life globally has been consistently improving and that’s unlikely to change with global warming. China had one of the worlds larges…

Not sure where you take your optimism from but the network effects global warming is causing are not to underestimate. There's been plenty of research that we're talking about several threats to modern civilization at once where each of them alone could already be disastrous. And chances are high that there will emerge additional effects along the road we don't even know about.

The argument of "look back, it always got better in average" is ignoring the fact we're dealing with a global chaotic situation in a world that fragile, it is already shaking because of interrupted supply chains due to a pandemic or a secondary bank for techbros going down.

We have no clue what we'll be dealing with in 30 years but what we know, it's definitely not gonna be good.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#252
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population declines on the other hand are expected because birth rates have been dropping for hundreds of years. This is a good thing you can’t support infinite growth on a finite planet. Suggesting global warming is the cause completely ignores these long term trends. Peoples quality of life globally has been consistently improving and that’s unlikely to change with global warming. China had one of the worlds larges…

Peoples quality of life globally has been consistently improving due to the "green revolution" transpiring during the 1960's, a revolution that's imperiled by GCC.

Peoples lives have been improving long before the green revolution started. Also, global yields aren’t particularly threatened by global warming due to the overwhelming surplus we currently have there’s a huge buffer before problems start.

To be clear yes some declines are likely in some areas for some crops. But 2100 is expected to have a much larger problem with obesity than crop failure.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#253
post #182

I do wish someone would just acknowledge we’ve been getting “final warnings” as well as predictions of catastrophe every few years for decades now. Just recognize that I have to force myself quite hard to take this seriously. I do trust the science! But I trusted the science in 2017 and in 2012 and in 2009 and in 2004 and in 2000 and so on. I am making myself trust the science this time, again , and selfishly I would…

We'll keep getting "final warnings" as we pass "realistic hope of keeping warming under X" and "a sliver of hope for keeping warming under X if a literal miracle occurs" thresholds for different warming levels. The next major report like this will probably have a best-case scenario of more like 2.0C. We're at "a sliver of hope if a literal miracle occurs" for 1.5C (realistic hope of keeping it that low was probably g…

The issue is that we crossed those previous thresholds and ... the world kept improving?

If you look at sites like Our World in Data then nearly all metrics of human progress have dramatically improved over the past century, while temperatures increased 1°C.

So it isn't clear that another degree increase will lead to catastrophe. The numbers are round and arbitrary. Our increased wealth and technology has improved lives far, far more than the increased temperature has diminished them, and I don't see why that trend won't continue.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#254

Just in case it saves one person the effort to research this themselves ... for some reason I find the measurement of climate change in units of temperature a bit problematic (though entirely rational). It tends to suggest the old bugbear of "global warming", which of course gets translated by deniers (& skeptics) into "well it's colder here so that's wrong". I spent a while digging in to try to get some numbers on a…

I wish warnings came with clear outlines of mass extinctions, of changes in resources, and most importantly, of cost to property owners in impacted areas.

That last one could finally cause some action because the current economy largely ignored anything else.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#255

It was refreshing to see Greta delete her "were all doomed in five years tweet from 2018" last week. They also took down the signs in Glacier Park that predicted the glaciers would be gone by now near where I live.

That's of course not what her tweet said. Did you intentionally misread it or just get it through an incorrect grapevine?

Her tweet was, "A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years."

Not that far off from, "We're all doomed in five years," because we definitely did not stop using fossil fuels, and in my opinion, wiping out all of humanity would count as doom.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#256
post #146

[flagged]

I would like to understand your PoV: Are you not concerned because you think current mainstream-science overestimates the consequences [1]? Or do you just believe that climate change will have little effect on you, personally? [1]: Flooding, biodiversity loss, food production yield, increase in regions and days/year with human-lethal outside temperatures (see relevant graphs in "summary for policymakers" around pg 16…

Climate activists have been declaring impending doom for years. So much so that it has become an entire industry. NOAA has even altered historical data (eg. https://climatecenter.fsu.edu/does-noaa-adjust-historical-cl...) to support their ridiculous claims. And when the rise of temperatures didn't meet "expectations" they just moved the goal post. Used to Wikipedia actually had an article for "Global Warming". Where did it go? Ah yes, now moved to "Climate Change". See how that works? Bottom line, do the activities of humans have some effect on the environment? Yes, of course, but it's minuscule compared with the impact that natural forces have on it (volcanoes, solar activity, etc).

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#257
post #248

Just in case it saves one person the effort to research this themselves ... for some reason I find the measurement of climate change in units of temperature a bit problematic (though entirely rational). It tends to suggest the old bugbear of "global warming", which of course gets translated by deniers (& skeptics) into "well it's colder here so that's wrong". I spent a while digging in to try to get some numbers on a…

The thing that blew my mind was that they always report this in degrees Celsius. I'm in America, even despite an engineering degree, I think in Fahrenheit. 1.5C sounds like a small number, until you remember that Fahrenheit is ~2x 1C. So 1.5 degrees C is ~3 degrees F. Which, to me, just emotionally feels like a bigger number despite being the same empiraclly. Similarly, it means when the IPCC is saying there might be…

The US is basically the only country in the world that uses the Fahrenheit scale.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#258

The comparisons between the AR5 and AR6 are alarming. Now, under no emission scenarios other than low and very low which we are not tracking close to, we reach +2C at or just before 2050. Many reading this thread will see 3 degrees by the time they plan to retire. This comes with drought, undernourishment, and mass migration: https://sciencenorway.no/climate-climate-change/deadly-heat-...

Do people in capitals not understand or believe this? What do rich people (some of whom control large parts of the media) plan to do exactly? Die? Bunker? I mean seriously.

What I don't understand is how not even environmentalists seem to believe it given their opposition to nuclear power. If a climate apocalypse were upon us, shouldnt we have been building nuclear power as fast as possible for the past decades? I really don't understand

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#259

It always makes me sad how scientists have to put on a brave face and try to tell us there's still time . Sadly, they know the most likely outcome puts us blowing past 3C by the end of the century, and 'carbon capture' isn't going to save us. If you guys are planning to see the natural world in retirement, don't wait. Better to see it as it is now than what it will become.

> If you guys are planning to see the natural world in retirement, don't wait. Better to see it as it is now than what it will become. What exactly are you saying here? That in 30 years, the entire planet will be an arid desert?

No, the entire planet will not become arid desert, don't be silly, but the world will be getting hotter and drier. Coral reefs will bleach. Rain forest will give way to savanna. glaciers will disappear. The world will be irrevocably changed.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#260

Just in case it saves one person the effort to research this themselves ... for some reason I find the measurement of climate change in units of temperature a bit problematic (though entirely rational). It tends to suggest the old bugbear of "global warming", which of course gets translated by deniers (& skeptics) into "well it's colder here so that's wrong". I spent a while digging in to try to get some numbers on a…

Complex systems usually tend to equilibrium otherwise they would be in constant oscillation (positive feedback theory).

As we look back in ice cores, there is variation, but not constant oscillations witch confirm a self stabilizing system.

A few negative feedback we don’t often hear:

increase of co2 have a huge effect on plant grow especially in hash deserted conditions.

Increase in temperature increase humidity: clouds that have a huge effect on reflecting radiation (much greater than co2) increase precipitation, increase plant growth in deserts.

Not to say that we should continue this experiment, but maybe not panic either and see this as the only problem: war, famine, poverty are much more important and real immediate problems instead of projected possible problems.

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