The near universal consensus of people who study natural systems is that we’re way, way, way behind. Unfortunately the science is pretty bleak.
> The near universal consensus of people who study natural systems is that we’re way, way, way behind.
What other advanced civilization is our benchmark for making such an assessment?
The second point isn't dependent on an external comparison.
If the goal/definition is concrete, then we can plan better and understand what is "enough" once we're caught up.
Alternatively, if you're simply putting out a Vision to inspire enthusiasm or incite fear, then "we're behind" is sufficient and doesn't require anything more because at best, it's the "race to the moon" and at worst, it's the "missile gap."
I mean, I guess I am, but really I'm mostly relaying my understanding of the scientific consensus. I didn't make my comment in some sort of vacuum where readers are supposed to understand the last few decades of climate science just from my comment...
In a situation where "we're behind" and "we're ahead" are both accurate statements point to a significant problem in the approach.
You choosing one of them exclusively means you're playing for "your team" instead of looking at reality of the situation which is neither useful nor honest.
To the best of my knowledge, my language (while imprecise) is completely and totally uncontroversial in the scientific community.
"And when will that be?"
"Well, not to beat around the bush, but when the cancer has metastisized and is about to kill you, we will be certain enough of the benefit of surgery now. Yes, this will likely result in your death, but to move before we have solidified all of these variables to a five-sigma measure would be allowing too much emotion into our descision making."
https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/16/is-it-too-late-to-prevent-cl...
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/can-we-slow...
Going to need something a little stronger than xkcd here. I'm not a climate scientist but a lot of the names attached to both links seem to be and they're saying if we act decisively in the next 29 years we can avoid the worst effects, which in that second link is defined as < 1.5C change this century
Edit: I also want to make it clear just in case anyone misinterprets my skepticism over the depth of the effects as skepticism in climate change or the urgency of it in general. I agree we need to do what we can to make sure things like this don't come to pass because I happen to like our somewhat diverse ecosystem and that we continue to damage it isn't great.
The second link says we are unlikely to keep global warming in this century below 2.7° Fahrenheit (1.5° Celsius) which has severe consequences for the environment.
I think you’re reading into their optimistic language a bit too much.
Do you watch the news? Have you seen a completely ice-free North Pole earlier in January? The ice in Norway, Russia and Iceland melting completely, permanently damaging the permafrost and releasing huge amounts of methane? Might be hard to notice from your apartment but the weather is going absolutely nuts in most of the world. Insect populations down by up to 90%. These are not “feelings”.
You missed the first part of their sentence.
On the flipside perhaps you're a little too much into doomsday scenarios?
We've quite literally transformed the entire planet and way of living inside of 30 years since personal computation technology took off. I really don't see it as particularly farfetched that we can correct for our negative consumptive habits inside of the same timeframe, considering our rate of advance and change only accelerated within that same timeframe.
I'll live out just the end of this century if I'm lucky so I'll be able to eat my words just fine if I'm wrong, but I'll bet you I'm not.
If we manage to get it started, what if another Trump gets elected and sabotage it from the top?
> Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, global warming would continue to happen for at least several more decades, if not centuries
or
> In the absence of major action to reduce emissions, global temperature is on track to rise by an average of 6 °C
There is not much major action going on (except for the electrification of vehicles which is being driven by commercial venture) so your hopes are just that, hope. Hope is not a strategy. It is quite far fetched to expect a correction when literally all data points are going the other way.
Your view does not reflect the common scientific consensus. We’re at a stage where changes are irreversible and all we can do is minimize and prepare for them, as seen in the article.
This is not fatalism, much to the contrary: I’m saying corrective action is much, much more urgent than you seem to believe and has to be started immediately. We don’t have another 30 years to sit on it.
You also keep saying scientific consensus and data points but considering I keep finding information to the contrary and you’ve provided nothing I really think you mean your own personal and emotion driven stance. Of which I don’t buy.
Yup climate change is a big issue, we'll probably solve it to a point humanity and the broader earth will be fine in a reasonable time. Just like every other crazy things we've pulled off during the same geological instant.
All it offers is a meaningless “it’s up to us what happens next”. Where is the information to the contrary you see?
Here is an extensive report, from the same source, on the effects of predicted global warming: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2865/a-degree-of-concern-why-g...
Read it carefully, and note that the 1.5C scenario is extremely optimistic and assumes humanity will zero out emissions completely by 2050.
Whenever you read a study saying that 'In complex system X, Y will happen in a decade' breathe easily -- we can't model what the stock market will look like in a day. We can't model what user demand for a sale will be in a week. We can't model most complex things in any large time frame, and believing any conclusions in the XX years for something as complex as climate is bizarre.
Press releases and pop-science articles tend to try to strike a more hopeful tone, because it's extremely tiring and depressing just hearing "we're screwed" all day. I try to stay hopeful, but my faith that enough people will care soon enough is basically gone.
Do you think running out of oil will go smoothly? We already can't stand still for 5 minutes without blowing someone up in a resource war and basically all of our resources are plentiful for now.
Rising sea levels decreasing usable land. Rising temperatures destroying key organisms in the food chain. Mass deforestation is destroying the very things that allow us to breathe.
How much climate change affects you is a function of your wealth and your country's wealth (cost of basic resources as well as required countermeasures are growing). Anyone who's been on the low side of one or both of those variables will tell you that it's already miserable. Imagine, if you even can, what being in a poor country will be like when all the oil is gone, food can't grow the usual way (you need either hydroponics or serious genetic modification), increasingly unstable weather destroys everything you build and everyone else is out to get you to squeeze out every last drop of resources you might have?
What people with no such experience don't realize is that unlike our economic system, which funnels resources upwards, ecosystem collapse doesn't funnel them anywhere. It's just an endless pit and eventually, everyone is poor.
Example: Second world war. You might argue that it was not disaster comparable to climate change, but it did turn entire world upside down, disrupting everything aspect of life of vast majority of world's population. But it also led to incredible advancements in many areas, new discoveries in all sciences, new technologies, massive changes in societies as well.
So I don't see the situation as gloomy, we will survive, because we always do.
Taking an approach that "we will sort it out" ignores that the disaster is already unrolling, just too slow for most of us to notice. The longer we linger, the worse the situation, and the higher the human toll.
I look at the insanity in how the US responds to small movements of people now and despair at the thought of how we’ll deal with simultaneous waves of millions of climate refugees alongside the predictable handful of domestic crises.
Nothing I’ve said disagrees with the scientific consensus, so you could also just Google it rather than whining that someone on the internet isn’t holding your hand.
Can you prove what the scientific consensus is? What if I were claim the scientific consensus is different than what you claim it to be?