“¦ please remember what the nation’s top climate scientist has said:
“¦ the most serious effects will be visited upon the young and the unborn, the generations that bear no responsibility for the problem.
The most important effects, I believe, will be those that are irreversible for all practical purposes, specifically (1) extermination of species, and (2) ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise. If we continue business-as-usual energy policy, using more and more fossil fuels, it is likely that we will have: (1) rapid climate change that will combine with other pressures on species to cause the rate of extinction of plants and animals to increase markedly, leading in some cases to ecosystem collapse, snowballing extinctions, and a more desolate planet for future generations. (2) meter-scale sea level rise this century, and ice sheets in a state of disintegration that guarantees future sea level rise in the 10-meter-scale, with a continual reworking of future global coastlines out of humanity’s control.
I would add that the planetary desolation our continued inaction would leave our children includes the loss of the inland glaciers that provide fresh water for a billion people, irreversible ocean acidification and Dust-Bowlification across much of the habited land mass (see “Hell and High Water “).
Back when I wrote my 2006 book, it took a lot of effort interviewing top climate scientists and finding relevant studies to figure out what will happen in the world of tripled or quadrupled CO2 concentrations (from preindustrial levels) we are heading toward on our current emissions path. Scientists hadn’t been doing a lot of analysis of those ‘scary’ scenarios because they had assumed Homo ‘sapiens’ sapiens would not be so stupid as to ignore their science-based warnings.
Now that the scientific community knows better, we’re seeing more and more studies of the impact of a tripling (825 ppm) or quadrupling (1100 ppm) — which is not to say that a doubling (to 550 ppm) wouldn’t be catastrophic:
- Science: CO2 levels haven’t been this high for 15 million years, when it was 5° to 10°F warmer and seas were 75 to 120 feet higher “” “We have shown that this dramatic rise in sea level is associated with an increase in CO2 levels of about 100 ppm.”
- New study of Greenland under “more realistic forcings” concludes “collapse of the ice-sheet was found to occur between 400 and 560 ppm” of CO2
It’s just that a tripling or quadrupling leads to impacts that are as far beyond catastrophic as those catastrophic impacts are beyond our current climate. Here’s just a few analyses from the last two years:
- U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm “¦ the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised” “” 1000 ppm.
- Our hellish future: Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year “” and that isn’t the worst case, it’s business as usual!“
- New study puts the ‘hell’ in Hell and High Water: Must-read NCAR analysis warns we risk multiple, devastating global droughts even on moderate emissions path
- Climate change expected to sharply increase Western wildfire burn area “” as much as 175% by the 2050
- Ocean dead zones to expand, “remain for thousands of years”
- Sea levels may rise 3 times faster than IPCC estimated, could hit 6 feet by 2100
- Science: CO2 levels haven’t been this high for 15 million years, when it was 5° to 10°F warmer and seas were 75 to 120 feet higher “” “We have shown that this dramatic rise in sea level is associated with an increase in CO2 levels of about 100 ppm.”
- Nature Geoscience study: Oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred
- Half of world’s population could face climate-driven food crisis by 2100
And that isn’t the worst case. No, the worst case is that the temperature rise occurs in 50 years, not 90 — and that the impacts last for centuries:
- UK Met Office: Catastrophic climate change, 13-18°F over most of U.S. and 27°F in the Arctic, could happen in 50 years, but “we do have time to stop it if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon.”
- NOAA: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe
This is the “plausible worst case scenario” for 2060 from the UK Met Office that occurs in 10% of model runs of high emissions with the carbon cycle feedbacks [temperature in degrees Celsius, multiple by 1.8 for Fahrenheit]:
Of course, the above temperature plot is just for a mean global warming 5.4°C (9.7°F), which is business as usual for 2100 according to many analyses (see M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F “” with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20° F).
But what’s really scary is that:
- All of those beyond catastrophic impacts would be happening simultaneously, making it all but impossible to imagine that the devastated rich countries would be able to offer much assistance to the beyond-devastated poorer countries.
- We’re doing this to our children in spite of being warned (see Is the global economy a Ponzi scheme?) — in spite of being told by virtually every major economic analysis that it could be avoided at a net cost of 1/10 of a penny on the dollar, not counting all of the ancillary benefits (improved public health, sharp drop in money flowing overseas to buy oil).
Happy Halloween!
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
I wonder if the sheer speed of the emissions of 100 ppmv and climbing by 2 ppmv per annum will leave us hopelessly out of our depth when it comes to adapting let alone doing something about it. I know that humanity can change our primary energy sources enough but its gonna take 50 plus years to do it even if we had the solutions available now.
Coal has to go and its the easiest to replace with wind and solar baseload (CSP). The only problem with it is that different companies to wind and solar to coal and that means a problem economically an politically. So the only other way is to force coal companies and government to develop CCS quickly and deploy it but even then its 50 years to do the job. 50 years to replace cars with electric vehicles or hybrids and 50 years to change any infrastructure.
Its becomming quite obvious that presently powerful companies stand to lose whereas new companies stand to win. How will it pan out politially will take an age to agree on.
Nobody talks about collapse of the world’s economy, both from having the bear the costs of the chaos, but also from a shrinking/migrating population.
There will be blood.
Isn’t it a bit tenuous to shoehorn climate change into Hallowe’en? So our kids are doomed – can’t you let them (and the rest of us) have a little fun occasionally without ruining it by reminding us of the fact?
I’m not looking forward to the Christmas Day post…
[JR: Only doomed if we keep turning a blind eye to science.]
Ah poor Steve- he dont like reality but would rather cover it all up with fairie stories.
I liked the tie-in with Hallowe’en. Makes things more real and immediate.
Steve, non of us like hearing it, but we need to know what’s going on so we can change it. We need to be reminded of how critical things are, and often things that impact their own family are the only things people will pay attention to.
Ten meter scale sea level rise? Think more along the lines of the Miocene, 25 to 40 meter sea level rise, as CO2 concentrations are now as high as during the Miocene.
A tragedy of the commons.
Why not get hit with the doom and gloom as much as possible, even on so-called kids’ holidays such as Halloween? After all, Madison Avenue keeps showering us with all kinds of other garbage to take our minds off reality constantly, and they’re being bankrolled by the very people who are trying to throw a monkey wrench into any discussion of reality. We not only need to keep up with them, but surpass them if we’re to have any hope of at least a minimum of mitigation. Keep them coming, Joe, and let’s all keep passing them along!!
The stakes are so high that more has to be done.
Could this include a continuing national ad campaign to inform Americans in all states about what global warming will do to their environment?
A door-to-door campaign by local climate teams to inform neighbors about the reality we all face?
A project of scheduling as many visits as possible with all elected political leaders who either deny reality or refuse to act?
An international campaign to begin to institute carbon tariffs against all countries that refuse to reduce their carbon emissions?
Waiting for two years is not good enough because that strategy could easily turn into waiting and waiting and waiting.
Although perhaps 75 years older, the phrase “doom and gloom” was popularized by the Broadway musical “Finian’s Rainbow”. The Og Forecast was right on.
‘The expression’s use was initially limited largely to the fields of finance and politics and wasn’t commonplace in the wider language until it was popularised via the 1947 stage show Finian’s Rainbow. Harburg and Saidy’s musical was a great popular success and was turned into a film in 1968. The character Og, a pessimistic leprechaun, repeatedly used the rhyming phrase thus:
“Doom and gloom… D-o-o-m and gl-o-o-m… I told you that gold could only bring you doom and gloom, gloom and doom.”
The phrase was began to be used by US political commentators in the 1950s, possibly due to the success of Finian’s Rainbow. By the 1970s and 80s, also possibly influenced by the success of Finian’s Rainbow, this time of the 1968 film, it was it was used in reference to pessimistic forecasts about the economy, nuclear disarmament and later the environment.’
Sorry, forgot the link:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/doom-and-gloom.html
When we’re normally critical of marketing/PR with feelings, the difference here is that most people act like lemmings. CC is for real – this is not a test – the real deal and messaging via feelings therefor appropriate.
Unfortunately, while the door bell was a ringin’ I got a robo-call from “Americans for Prosperity”. Put me right off my Reese’s peanut butter cup. So IMO, Joe can be excused for a halloween situation review.
Joe, did I say something wrong?
[JR: A bit much, yes.]
Yes, it really IS a very mean trick that we are playing on our children and their children and the children after them. All the “treats” in the world can’t make up for it, sadly. More tears. I try and stay upbeat though. My focus these days is to promote solar energy in the Maryland-DC-Virginia region, we’re planning our annual conference for November 12, please join us! http://www.mdv-seia.org GO SOLAR! (Or, in one person’s twist on a slogan, SUN, Baby, SUN!
~ Anne
[JR: A bit much, yes.]
I thought it was pretty original as a critique, not the usual drivel you get from the WUWT crowd. Let me try again.
It strikes me as ironic that you use trick-or-treat as a reminder that the consequences of the current system will be heaped upon them in the future. I mean, something like trick-or-treat is just another symptom of the same problem: the misguided need for unending, exponential economic growth (in a finite system).
For example, where I was born and raised, in the Netherlands, we never had any trick-or-treat. We had something called Sint Maarten (on the 11th of November) in a small part of the country. But now the Dutch are celebrating Halloween a bit more every year, they are celebrating Valentine’s day, and the time that at Easter you ate an extra egg is long behind us as well. It has become Christmas’ little brother.
These are some of the more transparent examples of how the neoclassical concept of unending economic growth has infiltrated culture, which makes things seem normal and cute, which they aren’t (and which is why you snipped my comment). Halloween is about candy and fear, because these things sell, they’re good for the economy, and we delude ourselves into thinking that it’s a nice tradition for the kids (projection).
Do you have any idea what all those (highly addictive) fast sugars do to a growing child’s body (and mind)? These pseudo-traditions keep them grounded in the status quo and impede the transition towards a truly sustainable society. A society where the psychopathic economic concept of infinite growth has been replaced by something that is more in line with physical reality, so that culture can start to heal and we can ditch the collective madness of overcommercialized festivities.
“Why do you hate your grandchildren so much?” (for anyone not doing anything or enough.and I mean ANYONE)
The term began the U.S. political commentators in the 1950s, probably be used because of the success of the Rainbow Finian. In the 1970s and 80 may also be due to the success of the Rainbow Finian, this time from the 1968 film was in reference to the pessimistic forecasts for the economy, nuclear disarmament and the environment used later be affected.