1y ago

World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target

www.theguardian.com

Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds

Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.

Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating above preindustrial levels, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit will be met.

Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.

Numerous experts said they had been left feeling hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided.

151 comments

My favorite part was when corporations lied their asses off to the entire world for over 50 years while simultaneously telling is this is all our fault but if we recycled and didn't use too much water, gas, or electricity we could undo the harm that we were personally responsible for.
- I’m rather fond of the part where they admitted to those lies, and the US didn’t force them to pay restitutions equal to the cost of mitigating the damage they’ve caused.
  
  The US instead decided to let them keep doing whatever they wanted.
  
  In 2068, I'm sure some entrepreneurial politician will run on the "Prosecute the oil companies!" platform, long after a bunch of them have gone bankrupt and all the damage has long since been irreparably done.
  Until then, we just need to keep looking for the Least Bad politician (the guy who has one hand out to fossil fuel and another to privatized wind/solar) rather than the guy who insists wind farms spread COVID with 5g, and hope we don't live long enough to reap the whirlwind.
  
  would they even be able to?
- Me too, thanks. I love a good gaslighting
- They are telling provocative things on purpose. It is needed to create the fake debate that traps the public between two falsehood.
  The heated tones and the strong arguments are meant to enrage people, drag them into the battle and push them to take one side and accept the arguments of that side without a proper deep thinking.
- What a unique take. Thanks for contributing
- Alright time for corporations to take responsibility and shut down all of their emissions. No more new cars, or gasoline for existing cars, or oil, or meat, a lot of the electrical grid is coming down, construction is halted, no more deliveries or shipping.
  
  Good ideas all around. Thanks for suggesting them. Shut it all down before we all burn to death or drown.
  
  Why not try to do better even if it’s not perfect? Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
  
  I'm curious what your point is. I am not trying to be rude, just not sure what you're getting at. Do you think there's no solution so we just ride the whole mess out?
  
  I'll go vegetarian and ride my bike, fuck it.
  That said, these motherfuckers need to fix what they fucked up, not just stop making it worse.
I dont understand, everyone bought bigger SUV's and it didnt help
- Unironically, that’s partly due to our emissions coding system. According to the system, a light truck with more seats gets more emissions allowance, incentivizing auto makers to lean into the larger class. That’s why there are so many extended cab pickups, yet so few two-seaters with an eight foot bed. We all know that six-seater Ram MegaCab or the Escalade that seats eight is often only driving one selfish person to work.
  
  Its entirely due to people buying larger SUV's.
- We need to throw away all the old SUVs and buy new SUVs powered by AI and financed with crypto.
  
  They need to mine bitcoin while idling on our driveway.
- Hmm I think we need even bigger trucks and also more religion and less gay people. That'll fix it.
- This is what big business want. Did you have a look at what the media think about electric cars? They always show either Tesla or big electric SUV and they tell you that they are green. Big business want to sell big cars even if they require a lot more energy and materials to be manufactured, even if they consume a lot more energy when they are on the road, even if they take a lot more space on the road and in the parking lots.
- China is the world's biggest polluter in absolute terms
  
  All includes China I'd think
  
  Even if China literally just never produced another gram of CO2 ever, we'd have the same problem slightly later. We really do all need to take part, especially those of us in countries that produce more carbon per person. China produces about as much per person as Europe does, but that's still way too much
  
  It's easy to point the finger at China when so many products the western world consumes is manufactured there.
  
  Why do you think that is? Over 50,000 US companies manufacture in China. Paying them to do our dirty industrial work, shipping the wares halfway around the world, and then pointing your finger as if they’re the problem is absurd.
  
  It's also the leader in building up renewables instead while everyone else sits lazily on their ass crying "why should we do anything when China exists?"
  How about we do better than China first and then cry about them, instead of using them as an excuse to fail even harder than them?
  
  You're right. They are.
  They're also the largest producer of clean renewable energy and .. well everything else. They're simply the largest on pretty much everything in absolute terms - good or bad. That's no excuse and they need to do better in regards of pollution, but the thing is, they are also already trying.
  Them doing bad in absolute terms is no excuse for any other countries with higher pollution pr.capita not to start doing better too.
  This should not be a competition of how much a country can pretend to allow itself to pollute in absolute terms in comparison to others. It should be a competition of polluting as little as possible.
  
  Absolutely not. If we look back since the Industrial Revolution the US are, closely followed by Europe and then China.
  
  Somebody better tell the climate that, because so far it hasn't been respecting national borders, kinda unfair tbh. I mean, as long as we're not the literal worst by one or two statistics, we shouldn't bear any of the consequences of our actions, right? Until we can teach physics about global politics and bullshitting with statistics, though, maybe we should all focus on doing whatever we can to reduce the effects of climate change.
  
  What's your point?
  Just because someone else is being bad doesn't obligate us to do nothing about our own contribution to the problem.
  .
  Pull your weight and set a good example for others.
- Yeah just throw money at the carbon dioxide to make it go away
  
  You say this sarcastically like it's not really an option
  
  Exactly. Methane too. There are countless engineering projects with potential for mitigation. VCs aren’t exactly lining up to “do good for the planet” without returns. Money caused the problem, just like money could address it.
We have already gone past that for the last couple of years. It seems like 6% of respondents are very naïve.
Anyone who hasn't had their head up their ass has been aware of this. Life will be extremely shitty by the mid century. If you haven't made the horrible choice to reproduce, be sure that you don't. There will be no future worth living for those born today.
- not sure about no future but certainly a shitier one all around. but yeah I don't know how anyone is not aware that 1.5 is a long past pipe dream at this point.
- Gonna be much quicker than 25yrs.
- But for a brief period of history we made a few people even more disgustingly rich than ever, so it’s totally worth the climate catastrophe and of course economic ruin to come in the next few decades.
- What exactly do you predict in terms of lifestyle changes by mid century?
  
  It isn't my personal predictions. It is the predictions made by climate scientists and even the military industrial complex (based on climate models). We've already begun to see the effects and they will get worse. Extreme weather events, massive migration, famine, drought, and war. This is what the future holds, even if developed countries can dampen the impacts for a time, they won't be immune. It isn't great.
  
  You have the Great Depression and 2008 financial crisis. That's going to be the permanent state after 2050. Few jobs, high prices, that kind of misery.
The only chance we have that I see is the rapid development of fusion into a proper, usable power source, the supplantation of effectively all carbon emitting power plants with non-emitting plants (fusion or otherwise), the effectively complete electrification of the global commercial transport system, and a massive scaling of production direct carbon capture, leveraging the various aforementioned non-carbon emitting electricity sources to make it happen.
- Yep.
  Our experts estimate that the various societies on Earth have a 96% chance of solving the Great Filter using humanity's great superpower of technological innovation, but paradoxically only a 3 to 7.5% chance of successfully implementing the necessary societal and political changes before complete extinction.
  
  How are they solving the Great Filter without knowing what it is or if it is more than a hypothetical?
- I'm getting a bit more optimistic when I read about companies like Terraform Industries and Prometheus Fuels. If they really can make efuels cheaper than fossil fuels, things can change really fast for the better.
- To be fair there are more options. Like reduce over consumption, restore forested lands, voting the right people in the office. Prosecute abusers, big companies/ personalities who contribute to this issue.
- The only chance we have that I see is the rapid development of fusion into a proper, usable power source,
  Fusion is a marketing story to distract the attention. It is so difficult to realize a practical commercial fusion technology that it will not be available this century for sure.
  In any case as I explained in the other comment the root cause is overpopulation. Solving the energy problems might mitigate for a while the situation, but it will not solve the situation. Famines, conflicts and mass migration will happen anyway.
  
  A cursory look at a graph of human population over time makes this abundantly clear.
  We are victims of our own success and are taking all other living things down with us.
  
  Or, alternatively, having enough energy for everyone would mean no more population problem. Many thousands of people smarter than you and I believe that fusion power is feasible, and in our lifetime, and have dedicated their entire professional lives to that goal.
  It's an insult to them to have wave it away like this.
- Fusion is nuclear and nuclear is considered double plus ungood.
  
  might as well ban microwaves for emitting 'radiation'.
Guess who is trying to deep-six EVs?
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_automotive_NiMH_batteries
  Something of a laundry list. But the short answer is the US Auto Battery Consortium (USABC).
77% of respondents believe global temperatures will reach at least 2.5C above pre-industrial levels, a devastating degree of heating;
almost half – 42% – think it will be more than 3C;
only 6% think the 1.5C limit will be achieved.
This is not how science works.
- an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.
  Nobody claiming this is science.
famines, conflicts and mass migration
This will happen for sure and the cause is not just climate change. The cause is overpopulation and exhaustion of the Earth resources.
- which is why we're just gonna retreat into pockets of radicalism where we all kill each other. max profit til then.
- Overpopulation is a myth
  
  overpopulation is not measured by how many people you can pack into a telephone booth. Overpopulation in measured by how many people the Earth resources can support.
  We began to consume more resources than what the Earth can provide decades ago, when the population was less than six billion people. Not just fossil fuels, we are consuming fresh water, arable land and forests in a non sustainable manner. The wild fish population in the sea reached an all time low and we are still overfishing. Fish farming accounts just for a small fraction of our consumption.
  The alarms by the World watch and other institutes began in the '70s. Nonetheless the world population kept increasing and it is still increasing.
This is no longer a sigpost on the way to oblivion, but a giant neon billboard in our living room. violent explosion shit! The billboard exploded and set our house on fire... Better blame some Arsonists
Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F)
I'm not saying that everyone bothers in comments, but I'd have thought that as a major news publication, The Guardian would bother to use the degree symbol:
Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5°C (4.5°F)
- °•°
- What's the purpose of using any particular symbol and, in this context, does the addition of the degree symbol achieve that purpose?
Sweet! If this is at all obvious to anyone paying attention and I’ve been saying I expect it to happen for years, I’m putting “One of the worlds top scientists” on my resume.
- I'm getting big "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas." vibes here
when this century? soon or in ~70 years?
- It's starting now.
  
  Yup. By defintion any process that ends in the future is starting now. I think the question isn’t “are we on the curve now?” but rather “When are we expected to see this 3C stuff?”
- It has already started.

151 comments