The Scariest Climate Plot in the World (2023)

This graph ignores an even more frightening fact: inertia.

Warming by humans completely ignores all of the feedback loops present in nature, and which are starting to crawl out of the woodwork. From methane eruptions in the oceans from methyl hydrate deposits to bacterial decomposition of permafrost biomatter, all these feedback loops can continue to pump out greenhouse gases for centuries to come even if human sources stop on a dime.

In fact, somewhere between 3℃ and 4℃ the process becomes completely self-sustaining, which means the planet could easily go to 6℃ or even 8℃ before slowing to a stop…

Or it might never stop. At all.

You see, in prior eras, warming proceeded so slowly that entire ecosystems had the time and ability to physically migrate across the planet towards the poles, preserving CO2 sequestering and helping to slow the warming process.

Our current warming is happening in a literal eyeblink. Ecosystems will not be able to adapt in time, and will fail to continue sequestering CO2 because they will be wiped out by the heat.

And with this double-punch inertia of feedback loops increasing non-human CO2 production, and wholesale ecosystem failures preventing CO2 sequestration, warming could easily exceed +8℃ where it could push the planet into a full-scale Venus Scenario.

Yes, the planet has been at that +8℃ level before… when the sun was younger and cooler. As the sun ages and burns through its fuel, it slowly gets older and hotter. This will proceed until even an Earth with zero greenhouse gases in its atmosphere will still get cooked in the same way Venus has been.

We’ll just push it there billions of years ahead of schedule.

Sweet dreams