Domino-effect of climate events could move Earth into a ‘hothouse’ state
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The article itself has some helpful perspective if you read past the headline:
>The authors of the essay, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stress their analysis is not conclusive
>New feedback loops are still being discovered
>Rockström says there are huge gaps in data and knowledge about how one process might amplify another
>Another climate scientist – who was not involved in the paper – emphasised the document aimed to raise questions rather than prove a theory. “It’s rather selective, but not outlandish,” said Prof Martin Siegert, co-director of the Grantham Institute. “Threshold and tipping points have been discussed previously, but to state that 2C is a threshold we can’t pull back from is new, I think. I’m not sure what ‘evidence’ there is for this – or indeed whether there can be until we experience it.”
>Rockström said the question needed asking. “We could end up delivering the Paris agreement and keep to 2C of warming, but then face an ugly surprise if the system starts to slip away,” he said. “We don’t say this will definitely happen. We just list all the disruptive events and come up with plausible occurrences …
A very nuanced take from the guardian imo! Then again, they pull an unscientific quote for the article conclusion:
>“In the context of the summer of 2018, this is definitely not a case of crying wolf, raising a false alarm: the wolves are now in sight,” said Dr Phil Williamson, a climate researcher at the University of East Anglia.
Tfw there's no penalty for crying wolf...
An average global temperature increase of 4c is bad, but survivable easily with modern technology and good planning.
80% of the worlds population live within 50 miles of a coast line. There's still plenty of room inland.
You want a retirement plan? Buy land in the the Rockies or the Alps.
The loss of all coastal cities would be apocalyptic.
I'm curious if anyone knows of a source of statistics for land area that has been abandoned due to rising sea levels. How quickly is this happening now?
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/08/26/louisiana...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/24/us/jean-lafit...
> Between 2004 and 2008 alone, Louisiana shrank by more than 300 square miles.
Climate change's big killer will be that crops that used to grow in places, can't grow anymore.
This will cause mass human migration. Combine this with a larger, increasing human population you've got a recipe for disaster. Many scientists speculate that the Syrian war and the Arab spring was a result climate change.
An interesting tidbit is that the death count from one of the most cited nuclear war simulations (of 50 warheads) wasn't the people who died in nuclear blasts. It was the people who died as result of climate changed caused by nuclear weapons.
For each of these, when confronted by my friends, I have asked them to write down what they are worried about and what disaster they see in 10-20 years. Then later, after that time frame has passed, come back and make an assessment of where we are now.
By writing it down they get to judge whether or not their current assessment of the future turns out to be actually as bleak as they imagine it to be.
This has not been the case so far. Oddly enough, I think many people find that disappointing as well. I firmly believe when the end of the world finally arrives, there will be a ton of pissed-off people that it didn't end the way they were worrying about all those years.
But after being disappointed and a little angry, most of my friends have found some solace and calm in the fact that it's never as bad as you think it's going to be. This has nothing to do with the climate. The same can be said of many, many other personal tragedies that do not involve it. Writing it down and then honestly looking at your thoughts later is a great way to separate your natural inclination for disaster-seeking from what's actually occurring.
Everybody has a natural "set point" for either being optimistic or fearing the future. It's important to learn what yours is.
But hey, someone predicted something wrong in the past, so that means I can brush my hands of it. A psychologist would certainly say that’s a healthy attitude to take, but perhaps what is needed to stave off extinction are unhealthy ones.
But that might upset someone, and we wouldn’t want to do that now would we.
None of that is relevant. What is relevant is that there are known mitigations, which are simply a matter of engineering.
If in fact climate sensitivity to CO2 is at the high end, humanity will have no choice but to geoengineer. There are several approaches that could provide outcomes ranging from less severe warming, to returning the Earth to the temperature regime of 280 PPM CO2. The crux of having this capability is further scientific progress, and development of high-density power sources like advanced fission reactors and fusion.
Humans should also aggressively colonize elsewhere in the solar system, to avoid the "all eggs in one basket" problem - starting with the Moon, not Mars. The Chinese are on the right track there, and the US seems to be coming around.
In the shorter term, the best thing is to work towards win-win outcomes between economics and cleaner energy. Cheaper solar cells will lessen the use of fossil fuels. Same with better wind turbines (I vote for quiet to be one of the main design criteria ;). Support advanced fission reactor designs like those from ThorCon, Terrapower, and NuScale - they are also cost effective, safe, and produce no CO2 or other pollution.
Humanity has a bright future. The only things standing in the way are stupidity, defeatism and negativity.
Remember that these are hypothetical, untried mitigations.
> Humans should also aggressively colonize elsewhere in the solar system
Another idea that requires decades or centuries of continued technological progress - which in turn depends heavily on stable societies and supporting ecosystems.
I'm a bright green environmentalist, too - I think that the convergence of technological change and social innovation provides the most successful path to sustainable development - but you're being a bit overly optimistic here, I think.
>> simply a matter of engineering.
>Remember that these are hypothetical, untried mitigations.
They are based on well-understood science. Two that would clearly work are orbital sunshades (adjustable as needed via various techniques) and CO2 sequestration (great, but tons of energy is required).
>> Humans should also aggressively colonize elsewhere in the solar system
>Another idea that requires decades or centuries of continued technological progress - which in turn depends heavily on stable societies and supporting ecosystems.
Which has nothing to do with anything. My comment on space colonization wasn't intended to present it as a "solution" to catastrophic warming - instead, to present it as a reason for long-term optimism.
>I'm a bright green environmentalist, too - I think that the convergence of technological change and social innovation provides the most successful path to sustainable development - but you're being a bit overly optimistic here, I think.
LOL...if the two alternatives are global catastrophe, or aggressive geoengineering, do you really think geoengineering won't happen?
At this time, global warming is not understood well enough for accurate prediction, especially over longer timescales. As that changes, the best course of future action will become clear. In the meantime, the best focus is as outlined in the "In the shorter term" paragraph in the parent...
Why hasn't it happened already, then? In case you haven't noticed, we're already staring down the barrel of global catastrophe. The problem is that it's happening on a scope that our human systems aren't set up to address.
It's interesting how much faith supposedly hard-nosed engineers are willing to put into imaginary future technology that doesn't exist, but which will supposedly be invented and deployed at a planetary scale in the next 10 to 20 years.
It's interesting how you cling to doom and gloom, and don't even bother researching alternatives.
To me, this sounds like Elon Musk's science-fiction predictions of Mars colonies by 2020.
Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, it's why you must research. In this case the truth may well be that humans have an easier time making the sun shine less rather than lowering our carbon footprint.
That system is essentially a modern re-implementation of GPS, a known, proven technology.
To suggest that this untested, unproven, highly speculative solar shade project would cost the same is laughable to me. You're also totally discounting the unintended consequences and second-order effects of trying to engineer the climate.
This if anything proves my point, nothing seems insane about launching a lens into space. We have satellites now, this is essentially one with a lens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)...
I'm not discounting anything, just assuming scientists and engineers involved have done their job.
> Such a group of sunshades would need to occupy an area of about 3.8 million square kilometers if placed at the L1 point. The deployment of the flyers is an issue that requires new technology. Large railguns or coilguns are proposed to fire a capsule containing a million shades into space every 5 minutes for 10 years using 20 separate launch sites.
This is science fiction.
That said, if scientists believe that all they lack is money, who are you to tell them otherwise.
(Not space lenses, but another risky, poorly-understood geo-engineering proposal)
No they are not. They're also a matter of economics and political will. For the world to embark on such an engineering feat a lot of people would have to give up a lot of money to fund the engineering required. Meanwhile, I don't know if you've noticed, but political systems around the world are becoming less stable and more prone to fringe and populist ideas.
Any kind of climate disaster will only make things worse politically. If the Syrian refugee crisis was bad, imagine what happens when millions in India become displaced because their place of residence is too hot to live in. Or when the first global food shortage happens. This is the kind of stuff that starts desperate wars for resources and brings populist dictators to power.
> Humanity has a bright future. The only things standing in the way are stupidity, defeatism and negativity.
No, what's standing in the way is a sociopolitical climate focused on extreme individualism. The kind of engineering solutions you describe require some form of collectivism - even if it's just drastically raising taxes to pay for all this stuff. Western governments have been so weakened over the last 20 years that they will have a hard time doing what's necessary. The US is withdrawing from even the modest commitments in the Paris Accords.
>> None of that is relevant. What is relevant is that there are known mitigations, which are simply a matter of engineering.
> No they are not. They're also a matter of economics and political will. For the world to embark on such an engineering feat a lot of people would have to give up a lot of money to fund the engineering required.
That entirely depends on technology, doesn't it? If one effectively has unlimited energy, and advanced robotics, the effective cost of things drops exponentially.
> Meanwhile, I don't know if you've noticed, but political systems around the world are becoming less stable and more prone to fringe and populist ideas.
I have not noticed that. The US "political system" hasn't changed an iota, for instance.
> Any kind of climate disaster will only make things worse politically. If the Syrian refugee crisis was bad, imagine what happens when millions in India become displaced because their place of residence is too hot to live in. Or when the first global food shortage happens.
None of which is expected before 2100 minimum. Many feel that most current projections remain overly pessimistic.
> This is the kind of stuff that starts desperate wars for resources and brings populist dictators to power.
Pretty scary stuff... ::eyeroll::
>> Humanity has a bright future. The only things standing in the way are stupidity, defeatism and negativity.
> No, what's standing in the way is a sociopolitical climate focused on extreme individualism. The kind of engineering solutions you describe require some form of collectivism - even if it's just drastically raising taxes to pay for all this stuff.
Nonsense. The US focused 10% of its GDP on the space race for years during more "individualistic" times than now.
Also, the US put together the industrial might to win WWII without "collectivism".
What those efforts took was an enthusiastic and committed free people. In every case the authoritarian and collectivist competition was beaten.
> Western governments have been so weakened over the last 20 years that they will have a hard time doing what's necessary.
How, exactly, have Western governments been "weakened"? I don't buy it at all.
> The US is withdrawing from even the modest commitments in the Paris Accords.
I believe the correct tense is "has withdrawn" - from the non-binding accords. Yet, the US is the only major power that had lower CO2 production last year...
The left has poisoned the well as far as public attitudes towards climate change, by myopically deciding that the only way forward involves central planning, economic distress, and sacrifice.
A better approach is as outlined in the parent "In the shorter term" paragraph, allowing both government and private enterprise to efficiently and cost effectively address cleaner energy.
Not be be all nihilistic or anything, but ultimately humanity won't "make it" and we know this. Barring some seriously sci-fi level developments, one or the other of two things is going to wipe out humanity:
1. The collapse of the sun (if we're still a single planet species when it happens)
2. The heat-death of the universe.
Unless we come up with some "Fringe* like technology, or repudiate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, human life has a fixed shelf-life.
Of course that doesn't mean we should stop trying to fix problems in the short-term. Even though death (both at the individual level and the species level) appears inevitable, we don't have to embrace nihilism. One can choose to find meaning wherever / however they want. As the old saying goes "the meaning of life, is a life of meaning".
A universe devoid of us for 99.5% of its existence is not as good!
I don't understand the point of this comment. You just restated something as though I said (or implied) it, when I very explicitly said the exact opposite.
So no, it is not the case that "because we are dead in a few billion years we should give up after ~20k years".
However, it is valuable - I believe - to keep things in perspective.
I'm sorry, it appears I glossed over this important detail. Not a good sign
Isn't this a bit of selection bias? Not all of my friends from 20 years ago are still here, and even fewer of them (maybe myself included) won't be here 20 years from now. Maybe their worst fears did come true.
The world didn't end for all of us, but it definitely ended for some of us. Sure, everything seems fine, right up until it isn't.
If we keep burning carbon, adjustment would mean "abandoning all coastal cities and ports". That....is not a cost we can easily pay.
"Adjusting the climate" is hubris. Unless it means lowering CO2. Because otherwise, each change has sode effects. Eg a light shade would still leave disastrous ocean acidification, and have other side effects from the shade.
We might still figure a way out, but it would involve carbon free or carbon neutral energy, and a way to suck it from the sky.
1. There's still a lot of uncertainty in the science. I'm not denying climate change, I'm saying that newspapers love to report the worst of all possible scenarios as fact. I used to work in one, I know how they think. Go read the actual papers and take note of the error bars. Try looking at the best of all possible outcomes (which is just as likely), and see where that would leave us.
2. If everything you fear is true, it will happen over a hundred plus years, not the next 10. We will have plenty of time to knock down the building that is now flooding and convert the next one behind it to be the new coast. If you doubt we can do this, go visit Venice. Every building there is built on the one beneath it that sank. If you can find some, talk to some people who have lived through a war. They coped with things that we think of as intolerable. Humans are very adaptable.
Finally, you still have to live your life. Make climate change your life's purpose, or shrug and accept it, your life will carry on. You will live another day, and you have to decide what to do in that day. Just keep breathing.
As for best case outcome, I don’t see how that is equally likely to all other outcomes. It would just be one case among many, no?
I meant that the "best-case" outcome is as likely as the "worst-case" outcome, which is usually the one reported in the papers. Obviously there's a bell-curve of probably outcomes, and the most likely is somewhere in the middle. But given the perverse incentives of reporting, both in the scientific and general press, you really need to read the papers themselves to get an idea of what the "middle" really is.
Most people just want to be comfortable. This is fine. We do not care much about the death of other animals, as evidenced by continuously choosing not to become vegetarians. Even if a large number of species collapse because of warming, human agriculture will go on easily and the resilient species will continue to inhabit landscapes all over the world. If anyone starves to death, it will only be to the extent that they already do, which is almost exclusively because of coordination problems, not for a worldwide lack of food. Humans are resilient and easily solve problems when they are urgent. If we lose a degree of technological or economical development while fighting this problem, consider that these are not factors that truly make people happy. Quality time with good friends and family is what counts. We are sufficiently advanced that detrimental lifestyle changes incurred while solving problems related to climate change will be small in comparison to the great health and lifestyle improvements we have made so far.
The poorest people around the world have seen their incomes rise rapidly in recent years (i.e. the "Elephant Curve"). Climate change will have relatively little impact in comparison to humanity continuously bootstrapping itself into higher levels of wealth through markets, government, and collaboration.
Compare the level of action you have personally taken to fight global warming to the level of action you feel (and advocate) people should be taking. Talk is cheap. Actions reveal preferences. In a broad perspective, given today's frontier of possible technology and lifestyles, people would rather live a first-world middle class lifestyle, accepting the additional risk of climate change caused by this lifestyle. Fighting this preference is not without cost, and humanity has chosen that a different fight can occur later, solving individual symptomatic problems when these problems have urgency.
Don't lie to yourself, it's no good trying to build some delusional version of the world, your subconscious mind knows how to look through the cracks of the mirror and the dead weight will rear its head at some point and pull down at the worst possible moment.
Getting some perspective is about learning to take a step back and contemplate (practicing mindfulness and meditation may help in strengthening the matching neural pathways). Yet keep in mind that it does not mean being indifferent[0]. Pick your fights, choose to act upon what you can and desire to[1]. Find balance.
[0]: (Warning: copious profanity) https://markmanson.net/not-giving-a-fuck
[1]: https://i1.wp.com/thebestintent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/...
But we'll still be here, making science and art. That much you can rely on.
Personally, I just don't care. No, not that I don't care for our species or our planet, what I mean is that I'm fine with whatever scenario arrives. If it's full blown apocalypse ... I'll save my distress for when that day arrives (hopefully it won't).
I'm a small bag of meat. I try to live my life ethically, and find joy in small things that bring me pleasure. Then, one day I will be dust. I'm fine with that.
Being scared because everyone screams "calamity calamity calamity!" just puts you on full stress for no good reason.
Talk to others about your feelings. Doesn't necessarily need to be a therapist. It could be a friend or a family member. But talk to people because I don't think you're being unreasonable or weird. I think your reaction is perfectly normal and even healthy. If more people felt like you we might be in a better place with the environment.
There was a time years ago, when I felt I was going crazy, yelling into the void, while everyone around me was saying nothing is happening. The Spice Girls breaking up made all the headlines the day the Union of Concerned Scientists report that the world was burning was regulated to a clip on page 20. It was like living in a Twilight Zone episode.
Later, I realized I was in a stage of grief, and I've gone through all the stages over the course of a decade. Since, I've had discussions with psychologist friends who have gone through a similar process, and they also strongly believe that everyone is in a stage of grief about climate change.
Most people are in denial. It's just too big to deal with so they avoid it. When they are finally pulled out of denial, they get angry, start raging and protesting at the people still in denial to change their ways. Then they start bargaining, coming up with ideas like moving inland and going off grid, or reducing emissions. Depression comes when they realize nothing will make a difference, so may as well kill ourselves now. Then acceptance that the world as we know it is probably going to end, perhaps slowly over the next few generations or tomorrow if a tipping point is reached that creates the perfect storm. They make peace with it and live the best life they can, which often looks like being in denial again.
It's a painful process to go through. I was lucky and came out the side the most balanced and happy I've ever been, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going crazy. Society is crazy, learning about climate change makes you crazier. I was going un-crazy, letting go of my delusions about society and the world and my delusions that I could change people.
As to your question, I've actually considered training to become a therapist to help people going through a similar journey. I think it's going to become an important field in the future.
I hope that doesn't sound too morbid. It's a good philosophy to live by regardless of whether or not the end is nigh.
To put it another way, the world is going to end in our lifetimes. And that's ok. Because the world ends for everybody, at the end of their life.
1. Do what you can. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Vote green with your wallet and your ballot card. Eat less meat. Drive less. Work remote. Buy second hand. Grow your own veg. Buy carbon offsets. Plant trees.
2. Accept that things are going to change, and there's not much we can do about it.
3. Enjoy life, spend time with your family. You won't regret it even if some miracle saves us.
4. Stop reading the guardian because they have a hard on for the apocalypse
I don't see much way around this: we're going to have to alter our atmosphere even further if we want a habitable planet. We're both going to need to stop altering it by emitting far less GHG, then emit other compounds like aerosolized sulfates which reflect sunlight, then we'll need to pull out CO2 from the air to deal with the ocean acidification and restore the proper amount of carbon in the air.