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Ben See Profile picture
@ClimateBen
Aug 10, 2019 • 9 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
Earth is rapidly being transformed into a desert planet with catastrophic consequences for most living things.

[THREAD]
4 - 5 billion people, most of them already living in poverty, will see their habitats undergo an acutely challenging transformation as we head rapidly to an extremely dangerous 2.5°C world of year long droughts and food shortages due to locked in warming and climate feedbacks.
Desertification - the greatest threat.

Land degradation of dry lands:

North and southern Africa, western North America, Australia, the Middle East & Central Asia. Drylands are home to 2.7 billion people – 90% of whom live in developing countries'carbonbrief.org/explainer-dese…
Aridification will emerge over ~25% of Earth's land surface.

Areas most affected: SE Asia, S. Europe, S. Africa, Central America and Southern Australia - home to more than 1.5 billion people. Areas would become more arid; droughts & wildfires widespread.
dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ar…
We're hurtling into 'climate states without societal precedent, challenging adaptation', a world where 'climates like those of the Pliocene will prevail as soon as 2030'.

2. 5°C by 2030: to a climate 'outside the range of evolutionary adaptive capacity'?

The implications are clear.

Surviving decently (or at all) in a world of rapidly escalating extreme water stress/scarcity & mega-drought food shortages is quickly going to become exceedingly difficult for billions of people.

See thread here for 4°C:👇
See the thread under my Pinned Tweet for what we can do about all this.

It is time to dismantle colonial, corporate capitalism and shift the world into a new phase of climate justice. The alternative is a mass die-off.

We're endangered mammals. 👇
Bonus Ecological Apocalypse thread:👇
If you're wondering where the map comes from:

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More from @ClimateBen

Ben See Profile picture
Mar 4
New research shows we're heading for rapid mass extinction at 3-5°C of global warming even if we avoid the so-called worst-case scenarios. 🧵 SSP scenarios will result in far more warming than thought
3 to 4 or even 5°C with the 'moderate' SSP2-4.5 emissions scenario.
SSP3-7.0 looks closer to reality to me, so 4-5°C.

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10…
We should in fact anticipate 3.5-5°C by 2075-2125.

See new research from December 2024:
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10…

x.com/Peters_Glen/st…
Read 5 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Mar 2
COLLAPSING:  scientists indicate civilisation-wrecking conditions are already developing as rapid mass extinction accelerates with billions set to be killed from 2029- 2048🧵
Current generic extinction rates likely to greatly accelerate in coming decades due to economic growth & overconsumption by the rich.
Economic activities during capitalism are destroying the conditions that make human life possible.
pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
salon.com/2023/09/19/exp…
Plastic contamination will soon be "catastrophic" for human health and is slowly "killing the human race"

more cancer, more allergic diseases, more infertility

microplastics are everywhere

google.com/amp/s/news.sky…
Read 7 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Feb 22
DOOM:  majority of scientists think difficult-or-impossible-to-survive warming of 1.9-2.1°C and rising is now unavoidable and set to begin wiping out species within years 🧵
1. 'New assessment warns area the size of the USA will become too hot during extreme heat events for even healthy young humans to maintain a safe body temperature if we hit 2°C'
kcl.ac.uk/news/half-a-de…

"if we hit 2°C"?

Virtually all scientists expect 2°C.agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10…
2. Even before new research confirming warming is accelerating, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists fully expected ~2°C (in most cases much more).

'perhaps half of all species will be vulnerable to thermal infertility'
phys.org/news/2021-05-i…
x.com/ClimateBen/sta…
Read 5 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Feb 19
COLLAPSE: scientists indicate all aspects of human societies will be wrecked by 2029-2092 as habitat destruction and pollution intensify with unsurvivable accelerating warming of 1.95-2.15°C and rising now unavoidable even with capitalism's best-case emissions reductions 🧵
1. 'Most scientists concur..2°C of warming above the temperature during preindustrial time would harm all sectors of civilization - food, water, health, land, national security, energy & economic prosperity
scientificamerican.com/article/earth-…
Best-case: 1.96°C, 2.18°C
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10…
2. Economic growth means habitat annihilation..

"The 2C target is dead, because the global energy use is rising, and it will continue to rise”.. global heating is likely to reach 2C by 2045
dumptheguardian.com/environment/20…

2°C by 2030-2082
esd.copernicus.org/articles/12/25…
news.stanford.edu/stories/2023/0…
Read 4 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Feb 11
The economy is a heat engine.
How will it cool the planet?
Collapse is already here.
Time to rethink. 🧵
1.

Economic growth: the engine of collapse

The hope is that, with astute academic guidance and sufficiently powerful doses of political will, we can safely navigate our way through the Anthropocene. 

But there are physical limits to what is possible.
2.
To get a sense of any physical limits, it helps to look at how physical systems function. A useful concept here is a thermodynamic “heat engine”... available energy powers cyclical motions thereby enabling “work’’ to be done to move something else while giving off waste heat.
Read 35 tweets
Ben See Profile picture
Feb 6
COLLAPSE: there is a very high likelihood that capitalism has condemned 2 to 7 billion people to an early death by 2038-2058. 🧵
1.

'a very high likelihood of 2.0 °C of regional warming by 2040 for the majority of regions, along with a likelihood of 3 °C by mid-century'
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108…
2.
Report fr risk management experts the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries:

'At 3C or more of heating by 2050, there could be more than 4 billion deaths, significant sociopolitical fragmentation worldwide, failure of states..'

dumptheguardian.com/environment/20…
Read 8 tweets

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