1. If greenhouse gas emissions don't peak and fall sharply by soon after 2025, climate change will likely be severe enough to kill many billions by 2055.
2. Governments and corporations plan on increasing fossil fuel production well beyond 2025.
Let that sink in.
'The Met Office ran 17 different models with these feedbacks. All concluded a 4°C world by 2055 was likely if emissions continue to rise. Even if we are lucky, we are still likely to hit 4°C by 2070.' newscientist.com/article/dn1786…
'a 4°C world might only support one billion people'.
The Production Gap Report, released by a group of research organizations including the United Nations Environment Programme, found the world is set to produce about 50 per cent more fossil fuels in 2030 than it will take to limit warming to 2C. nationalobserver.com/2019/11/20/new…
The 4C by 2055 - 2070 projection assumes very high emissions, strong carbon cycle feedbacks, and high climate sensitivity. All these are entirely possible. Some say current policies lead us away from this nightmare scenario, but production plans suggest otherwise.
This recent (2017) peer-reviewed research confirms that 3.5 - 4C by 2055 is a real danger.
'warming under the two baseline scenarios can exceed 3.5–4°C by 2050'
'if emissions don't peak and fall sharply by soon after 2025, climate change will likely be severe enough to kill many billions by 2055'
Let me just explain why I feel my choice of words here is reasonable:
1. We are set for 2C by around 2040 (2030-2045). If emissions keep on
rising beyond 2026-2029, this very much suggests that by 2055 we'll hit 2.5- 3.5C or even 4C. It's extremely hard to imagine that this wouldn't threaten the lives of billions in terms of crop failures, water scarcity, ecosystem collapses, extreme weather events, etc.
2. Isn't
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it slightly missing the point to quibble over the exact likely temperature rise by 2055 (2.8? 2.9? etc) in the extreme scenario of emissions increasing into the late 2020s and 2030s? The danger to billions is clear if we're to go from 1.3C to 2.5- 3.5C (or more) in just 35 years.
2. 'soon after 2025' means what to people? 2026-2027? Later? To me it means 2026- to the 2030s, not least because 'soon' in the context of this abrupt climate change (faster than anything known in 65 million years) could easily mean 5 to 10 years!
3. So, is 'likely' the best...
word to use? Well, should we only ever use 'possible', just because it is beyond science to say for sure whether rapid warming from 1.3C to 2.5- 4C in just 35 years in this specific unique moment in geological history will kill many billions? That makes no sense to me. I'm not
against using the word 'possible', of course. But it is acceptable to feel that emissions are likely to keep rising given political and economic structures, and that feedbacks are likely worse than generally thought (see permafrost thaw and forest fires since 2019), and that
climate sensitivity will be high enough to combine with the other factors to threaten half of humanity with death and destruction at 2.5-4C.
Just think of the droughts and rainfall patterns in such a scenario.
Do climate and energy experts often ignore the fact we're in a mass extinction that's now accelerating during 21st century capitalism because it disrupts their visions of 'solutions'?
THREAD. 🧵
1. We're in a mass extinction due to habitat destruction, pollution, and many other factors including abrupt climate change: 20% (30-50%?) of species face extinction by 2050, and 75% of mammals as early as 2300.
We don't know which species can survive 1.75°C-2.75°C by the 2040s.
2. It seems many climate and energy experts say climate change won't lead to human extinction within decades or centuries, without acknowledging that extinction threats to species come from a range of activities likely to be maintained in a 'green' growth, 'clean' energy economy.
1.'Material extraction & use are climbing year on year
In only 50 years, global use of materials has nearly quadrupled—outpacing population growth. In 1972, as the Club of Rome’s report Limits to Growth was published, the world consumed 28.6 billion tonnes'
2. Abrupt climate change isn't the only reason we may consider ourselves in a terrible predicament. Extinction is escalating due to deforestation, logging, road-building, pollution..
Only system change action may limit the damage and/or protect us. Thread:
Today's economic system is taking us to 1.6°C-2°C by the 2030s with emissions now rising towards epic new extreme record highs compounding the extinction-ecosystem collapse crisis.
These tenths of a degree mean mass death, a truth which must be faced if we want effective action.
It's disheartening we're not facing the fact that 1.75°C-2.5°C, likely by the end of the 2040s, would mean billions of peoples' lives either turned upside down or taken from them without profound system change.
According to scientists, economic growth cannot prevent us exceeding somewhere between 1.6°C and 2.4°C of global warming by the 2040s, when a staggering 20% of species face extinction.
When you listen to the scientists, you realise economic system change is the only way. 🧵
1.
'The most optimistic scenario has global temperature nudging past 1.5°C by mid-century but then dropping back by late century. Such a relatively short excursion above 1.5°C might not trigger the worst outcomes, according to the panel.'
US sanctions and extreme drought exacerbated by abrupt climate change are threatening 23 million people facing acute food insecurity in Afghanistan. 🧵
1.
'There are 22.8 million Afghans facing acute food insecurity. By March, 8.7 million of those are expected to slide into critical levels of food insecurity'. news.un.org/en/story/2022/…
2.
'22.8 million people will face "high levels of acute food insecurity." This is 55 percent of Afghanistan's population, the highest ever recorded in the country. An estimated one million children are suffering from "severe acute malnutrition" this year.'commondreams.org/views/2022/02/…
BREAKING: climate change since 1980 is nearly twice as bad as previously calculated 🧵
1.
From 1980 to 2019, the world warmed about 0.79°C. But taking energy from humidity into account, the world has warmed and moistened 1.48°C. And in the tropics, the warming was as much as 4°C.
To try to avoid total catastrophe will take total change.