Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist
Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist
Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree
Summary
Renowned climate scientist James Hansen warns that limiting global warming to 2°C is no longer possible due to underestimated climate sensitivity and reduced sun-blocking pollution from ships.
His study suggests warming could hit 2°C by 2045, increasing extreme weather and accelerating ice melt. The research challenges IPCC models, arguing for a higher climate sensitivity estimate.
Hansen calls for carbon taxes, nuclear energy, and geoengineering research.
He warns of an Atlantic ocean current collapse within 20-30 years.
Some good news:
- emission rates have plateaued; we are still destroying the planet, but no longer accelerating the rate at which we do it
- Solar panels (unsubsidized) are the cheapest method of electricity generation as of 2022
- there is a fundamentally limited amount of fossil fuels, so as long as we don’t turn to Venus 2.0 by 2100 we will deplete most coal and oil and it will be possible for our ancestors to repair the planet over the following centuries.
Yeah I know even this “good news” is bleak, but it’s worth celebrating. There is some hope.
Spoiler Alert: Look around you. Humanity is not going to address this issue. Enjoy your life and if you have kids, let them know their futures and their kid's futures etc are going to be progressively bleaker.
when i was a kid it was 6°C by 2100, but we have reduced this trajectory to 2.9–3.4°C
You dont know the future and you dont know what hope is left. Stop being such a defeatist. Either do something positive or go smoke some weed or something..
You dont know the future
Nope. But I know humanity and I've picked up a history book.
Again, look around you. Look at world politics. We're moving in the opposite direction of addressing climate change. As long as money is our prime motivator, we will keep acting in direct opposition to the wellbeing of our planet. And, another spoiler alert, money is going to be our motivator for the foreseeable future. Probably forever. We will only address the issue when it seriously affects every man, woman, and child on this planet and by then it will be far too late.
Humanity was always going to destroy this planet on a long enough timeline. It was inevitable. I'm not a defeatist. I'm a realist.
No, but it's easy to predict given that the trends of the last several decades can show where we'd be in the next and the trend is: global temperatures are fluctuating more violently than the year before and occurrences of extreme weather are increasing. Additionally, nothing has been done during that time to reduce the impacts globally.
It's scary but, let's face it: we're a virus that's killing our host.
Look, the only way for this to end is for humanity to die. That's it.
Will this affect Mark in his bunker? If not, not sure why I’d care!
Wow, wasn’t it just last year when they took the 1.5° target off life support and called it?
Now the 2° is dead? Are we killing off 2.5° by summer?
Last year there was hope that the US will at least not get worse.
lots of folks said it was not going to happen. Last year was really recognizing there was absolutely no way its happening because it had actually passed it already so there is no way we were not passing it as we have. you will see something when we pass it about how now its impossible not to im sure soon enough.
The scary part is that seems to make no difference (to people, corps, countries). Has anyone changed anything based on passing that target? Will the anyone change their minds or behavior with this new projection?
Maybe I’m just cynical with the disaster of the US elections - we were finally making a little progress, finally had reason to hope, but we just threw that away
All of last year, every time they said this month was the hottest on record, I kept saying "So far..."
It is currently the beginning of Feb and our normal weather here is a few days of snow, usually a few inches, usually at least one large to shut everything down (like 10+"). Overcast. In the 20s and 30s (F).
I went skiing on Saturday and have never seen so much literally bare ground outside of the very early or very very late season.
I went to a protest today. Parked a distance away and walked. It was 68°. It feels like the end of April. We got almost no snow - only like a foot unseasonably early in the middle of November. The wildfire season this year is going to be rough, and the summer will be brutal.
We either become mole people, dolphin people, or space people
Maybe oxygen clubs will be the new thing in 50 years to get out of the smog/humidity
Yeah, or just dead people.
Maybe oxygen clubs will be the new thing in 50 years to get out of the smog/humidity
Too late, these exist:
Okay my next big idea is the bodega van. Instead of an ice cream truck for kids it's a convenience store for adults in the suburbs. It's 6:47pm and you're out of milk, tissues, and you forgot to buy broccoli for your dinner. Oh shit it's the bodega van music. Brb, gotta walk down the block instead of spend 20m in a car, parking lot, store, line, back. As long as the margins are less than doordash it's worth using.
Cmon please tell me I have one original thought in this wide world.
Apparently some of us “dril baby drill” and we’ll make those profits when we get there
I'm before we hit 2C by 2030
6C is dead
That's what I'm missing - we knew decades ago what happens after we hit 2C...
This, just like the current US collapse, it is just maddening to look at. Watching the bus drive off the cliff without even stepping off the gas and nobody batting an eye... I don't know how much more I can take.
(not an american btw)
We should put research into stratospheric aerosol injection. We need an insurance to limit climate change if emissions don't go down fast enough.
We know it works, and it's at least not catastrophically unsafe as we have already done it with container ships, and seen it happen at bigger scale with volcanic eruptions.
Let's just hope that it doesn't end up like Snowpiercer!
Its very unlikely for these reasons:
- limited lifetime
- we have already seen volcanic eruptions which put a lot of SO2 into the stratosphere, and thet did not cause an ice age, so it's clearly fine if we don't put too much
Anyway, that's what research is for.
Let's fix the environment by fuckin it up more.
We have been fucking it for centuries. And by the looks of things, that's not stopping any time soon. I'd rather we have something we can do besides hoping that certain people decide now's the time to seriously address climate change.
100% This, and also microbubbles in the ocean