Today @WilliamJRipple et al released the 2023 report on the terrifying state of our #climate.
It should be read by every policymaker, decisionmaker, and journalist on the planet.
Here is a thread of some key takeaways.
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"Unfortunately, time is up."
"The rapid pace of change has surprised scientists and caused concern about the dangers of extreme weather, risky climate feedback loops, and the approach of damaging tipping points sooner than expected."
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[for the visual thinkers among us]
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"It appears the green recovery following COVID-19 that many had hoped for has largely failed to materialize. Instead, carbon emissions have continued soaring, and fossil fuels remain dominant, with annual coal consumption reaching a near all-time high."
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"By [2100], an estimated 3 to 6 billion individuals—approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of the global population—might find themselves confined beyond the livable region, encountering severe heat, limited food availability, & elevated mortality rates because of...climate change"
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"We ... need to change our economy to a system that supports meeting basic needs for all people instead of excessive consumption by the wealthy."
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"Negative emissions technologies are in an early stage of development, posing uncertainties regarding their effectiveness, scalability, and environmental and societal impacts ... [Thus] we should not rely on unproven carbon removal techniques."
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"We call for an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report that focuses on the perilous climate feedback loops, tipping points, and—just as a precaution—the possible but less likely scenario of runaway or apocalyptic climate change."
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"As scientists, we are increasingly being asked to tell the public the truth ... in simple and direct terms. The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of the extreme weather events in 2023. We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered."
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"This is our moment to make a profound difference for all life on Earth, and we must embrace it with unwavering courage and determination to create a legacy of change that will stand the test of time."
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Here is a link to the report. Please read it. If you're a journalist, please cover it. Thank you!
Here is fossil fuel companies' new defense in lawsuits accusing them of deceiving the public about climate change:
They perpetrated no deception, they say, because the "alleged impact of fossil fuel use on the global climate has been ‘open and obvious’ for decades."
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They're calling us stupid, you know.
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I really love the contradiction between the claim that the impact of fossil fuel use on the global climate is "open and obvious" and the adjective "alleged," in "alleged impact."
Talk about wanting to have it both ways! Is the impact obvious, or is it "alleged"?
I'm lucky enough to be reading an advance copy of @MichaelEMann's new book. It is really fascinating!
Mann acts like the Virgil to the reader's Dante, taking us on a deep tour of past uninhabitable climates to reveal wild facts about science & our possible futures.
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Eg. did you know that during the Pliocene, CO2 concentrations were btwn 380 & 420 ppm, yet the planet was much warmer than climate models project for such concentrations today? Mann shows why this is the case, and why seas were much higher than models project too.
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What's really valuable about this kind of analysis is that it teaches us (or at least taught me) that as much as warming is a function of atmospheric CO2, climate is an expression of the structure of the biosphere — a wholistic, systemic perspective we so need.
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Some climate scientists, including the new @IPCC_CH chair @JimSkeaIPCC, have recently been working overtime to disprove inaccurate claims by "doomers."
This comms strategy ignores the actual data about the electorate in top 15 emitting countries & is therefore misguided.
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As you can see from this 2022 @YaleClimateComm
survey, only minorities in most top-emitting countries are "alarmed," which is to say only minorities of the electorate understand that climate change is "happening, human-caused, and an urgent threat."
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@YaleClimateComm Most people are still unsure if climate change is even happening or human-caused; or they think about it not at all; or they dismiss it completely; or, at best, they are concerned but believe, mistakenly, that the problem is still distant in time and space. MOST PEOPLE.
So, I dug into @RogerPielkeJr's claim that the @IPCC_CH has "concluded" that a climate signal beyond natural variability will NOT emerge by 2100 for many big impacts, & guess what?
(You'll never guess!)
The self-appointed "honest broker" is misrepresenting the science.
Pielke centers his claim on AR6 WGI Table 12.12, which shows the "confidence" scientists have that a climate signal has emerged or will emerge in a particular region.
White signifies "low confidence" of an emerging signal.
There is a lot of white in this Table.
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Pielke argues that all this white demonstrates that the IPCC has "concluded" (definitively) that a "signal of climate change has not yet emerged beyond natural variability" for most big impacts (like fire weather), AND...
Some people say that the wealthy world will normalize climate deaths the way we've normalized Covid deaths. But I don't agree. Here's why:
1) Covid deaths are not getting exponentially worse. And we expect them to eventually drop, no? But the number of climate deaths...
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... The numbers of people dying from the direct and indirect effects of #ClimateChange will continue to rise until the world phases out fossil fuels and halts global heating. That's not like Covid.
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2) The US economy can continue to function even at the levels of Covid sickness and death we're currently seeing. But (and sure people disagree about this, BUT) global heating will have direct and punishing effects on food prices, labor productivity, consumer spending...
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Unpopular opinion: we can't help people accept the value of a zero-emissions economy without acknowledging that a zero-emissions economy will indeed require less consumption by the top 10%.
This is parenting psychology.
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The best way to stave off temper tantrums and resistance from kids when you're asking them to do something hard that they might not want to do is to *acknowledge the reasons why they don't want to do what you're asking* and to help them process their painful feelings.
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This is very challenging because likely the kid will also be mad at you for asking them to leave the playground / clean their room / go to bed / whatever, so you'll also have to stay calm and compassionate even in the face of their aggression. But, here's the thing...
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