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It's the final call, say scientists, the most extensive warning yet on the risks of rising global temperatures.
Their dramatic report on keeping that rise under 1.5 degrees C says the world is now completely off track, heading instead towards 3C.
Keeping to the preferred target of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels will mean "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society".
[...] After three years of research and a week of haggling between scientists and government officials at a meeting in South Korea, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a special report on the impact of global warming of 1.5C.
The critical 33-page Summary for Policymakers certainly bears the hallmarks of difficult negotiations between climate researchers determined to stick to what their studies have shown and political representatives more concerned with economies and living standards.
Despite the inevitable compromises, there are some key messages that come through loud and clear.
"The first is that limiting warming to 1.5C brings a lot of benefits compared with limiting it to two degrees. It really reduces the impacts of climate change in very important ways," said Prof Jim Skea, who co-chairs the IPCC.
"The second is the unprecedented nature of the changes that are required if we are to limit warming to 1.5C - changes to energy systems, changes to the way we manage land, changes to the way we move around with transportation."
"Scientists might want to write in capital letters, 'ACT NOW, IDIOTS,' but they need to say that with facts and numbers," said Kaisa Kosonen, of Greenpeace, who was an observer at the negotiations. "And they have."
The researchers have used these facts and numbers to paint a picture of the world with a dangerous fever, caused by humans. We used to think if we could keep warming below two degrees this century, then the changes we would experience would be manageable.
Not any more. This new study says that going past 1.5C is dicing with the planet's liveability. And the 1.5C temperature "guard rail" could be exceeded in just 12 years, in 2030.
We can stay below it - but it will require urgent, large-scale changes from governments and individuals and we will have to invest a massive pile of cash every year, about 2.5% of global gross domestic product (GDP), the value of all goods and services produced, for two decades.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 09 2018, @07:23PM (23 children)
"We don't wanna, we like things the way they are, and you can't make us do anything about this problem."
I mean, there's layers of rationalizations on top of that, but that's the gist of the response.
And yes, I include the people who are in denial about the problem: The fact that they keep on getting proven wrong again and again and again, but don't change their tune, tells me that their real concern has nothing to do with science and everything to do with not wanting their lives to be changed significantly by environmentalism.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @07:29PM (4 children)
Its the opposite, the closer you look the more nonsensical the entire thing appears. Like the averaging of temperatures instead of energy, and worse, that goes on.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @07:45PM (3 children)
.....
you clearly need to go back to school instead of parroting talking points you heard from someone you think is smart
all the anti-climate change stuff I've ever seen has a lot of almost credible sounding science stuff, but science bullshit is the easiest kind of bullshit to make up as you can see from all the sci-fi movies and tv shows
get educated foo
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @08:11PM (2 children)
Lets say you have a certain amount of energy radiating from a surface. To convert to a temperature you use the stefan-boltzmann law[1], which I'll simplify to just being a fourth-root transformation for demonstration purposes:
Which of these is the correct temperature to use?
If confused, the answers are different due to Hölders inequality.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law [wikipedia.org]
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6lder's_inequality [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @12:32PM (1 child)
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @03:54PM
Yea, yea. Sorry for trying to bring science into the political discussion.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 09 2018, @08:11PM (5 children)
I'm conflicted as to who to actually believe with regards to the "Global Warming" / Climate Change problem. I'm not conflicted when it comes to the environment. What if, the whole business of Global Warming amounts to not a big deal? All you're pushing for is people believe that the world is going to burn, sooner, if nothing changes? What happens, if / when you are proven absolutely wrong? Should people not care about the environment then? Because, we can live the way we want and it's not a big deal? How about instead of trying to convince me that your possibly shoddy data is the Gospel of John, you convince me that we should make real change? How about we push for fixing things like the Lead Pipes in Flint? How about we push for no littering? How about we push for a societal mental change from, the world owes me, to I really want to help? How about instead of picking this one talking point to die on, you work with people to come up with ways to help the environment, and everyone else? I like breathing clean air and drinking pure water. Try focusing on those aspects and push the researched, provable facts. While, proving over a hundred years or thousand years, that you were right, may be possible. That certainly won't help anyone, now.
Also, you want to get to the heart of the Christians, point to the fact that humans were put on this Earth, to care for the garden and it's animals. Sure, we were created out of love, etc, but we were also given a purpose beyond being fruitful and multiplying. That purpose was to take care of the Earth. While it's somewhat less clear in the New Testament, there's a passage that directly shows that God cares for people and animals. "29Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. 30But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." -- Matthew 10:29-31 KJV Should we not also, care about the earth and it's animals? Given that being a Christian means, that one is striving to be like Christ, one should want the same things as Christ.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @09:26PM (4 children)
Ugh, you're spewing right-wing propaganda points.
So basically stop trying to make a positive change for humanity because there may be a 5% chance that human society won't collapse under the current weight? Let's see, what would happen you want to know?
Well for starters we would stop pumping poisonous directly into every community, we would create a more sustainable and distributed infrastructure, we would create new technologies, we would improve cities with better public transit, communities would have less auditory noise once people switch to electric vehicles, foreign policy could become a lot simpler.
Oh, but some midwest coal miners and pipeline workers might be put out of a job. Guess we'd better ignore all the good things and focus on the status quo because you're just Not Sure. You have a promising future as Secretary of the Interior.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @12:19AM
Ugh, yikes!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday October 10 2018, @04:39AM (2 children)
It's more like 100%. After all, we'd have already collapsed, if that were a thing.
And a few billion more people throughout the world might be starving. If we're going to have to pay lip service to your bogeymen, we'll pay lip service to mine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @04:31PM (1 child)
Societies have collapsed many times but yes the species has continued. Is that really your argument for not doing anything to prevent the collapse of the current civilization? You in a rush to go all Mad Max and cannibalize people?
No one will die from starvation because qe start switxhing off oil, gas, and coal.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 11 2018, @01:31AM
My point is that the collapse is not happening. What we're doing right now is quite adequate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @08:21PM (6 children)
To continue from my comment yesterday. [soylentnews.org]
Let's not shoot the messengers. We have the AGW crowd solution [twitter.com] and the capitalist solution. [nature.com] One of these is possible without tyranny, which would you prefer?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @10:14PM (3 children)
Wow, you are not just an ancap nutter but truly a fucking moron.
Your "capitalist solution" is a plan that has no market for the extracted carbon and thus relies on government subsidies to exist. Environmental protection has always been costly, Capitalism by definition is not even interested in it. "Tyrannical" legislation and threats of punishment are apparently the only way to get Capitalists to be less evil. Maybe someday we will get eCapitalists who always factor in the hidden costs to the environment and we will be a step closer to our ideal reality, but again what is to prevent a regular Capitalist from undercutting the eCapitalist and driving them out of business?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @12:34AM (2 children)
Sorry if I pissed on your socialist utopia or something, you could always try moving to Venezuela.
"No market"? [nationalgeographic.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @02:22AM (1 child)
Again your market solution fails, gas from oil fields is going to be way cheaper. Try again!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @10:22AM
No, the failure is your confusion between laissez-faire economics and free market capitalism. Did you even read the article?
Read a book! [typepad.com]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday October 10 2018, @07:16AM (1 child)
OK, let's play your game:
For not getting your property damaged, you've got the capitalist solution [cambridge.org] or the “tyrannical” solution. [wikipedia.org] Which one do you prefer?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @10:34AM
You presented two examples of coercion, one by the mob and one by the state. If you disagree, try not paying your taxes.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Tuesday October 09 2018, @08:38PM (4 children)
In other words, the argument that doing the things that are being suggested isn't convincing. I think that's because the overall cost/benefit of the things being proposed are not at all clear. Even if some look to probably be a net positive globally, the programs tend to require some to bear a large proportion of the costs while others enjoys most of the benefits. So, yeah, I see why you're having a hard time convincing people to act. Come up with a new solution that benefits them and accomplishes your goals. I bet you'll find a lot more success that way then telling people they're wrong and ignorant if they don't want to do things your way.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday October 09 2018, @09:09PM (2 children)
The problem is that the people in charge of the decisions are the ones who know they have the power/money/ability to avoid the problem.
China is trying to de-smog because it's hard to breathe in Beijing, where the power-that-be live. But when you talk about sea rising by meters, and droughts, to people who can afford a few houses in different landscapes, it's really difficult to get their attention. And they won't give a shit about a few hundred million Bangladeshis being displaced, because making sure they go bother someone else is what aircraft carriers are for.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday October 10 2018, @04:55AM
Over what time period? Again, if it takes centuries to do that (and it likely will, from current rates of sea level increase), then there's not an urgent matter there.
And areas that won't be in drought. Agriculture can move around.
How much of a cost is that going to be, really? Work some deal out with India and other neighboring countries to accommodate them over the necessary time period and move on.
Sounds like someone is less short-sighted than you give them credit for.
I suppose I get tired of the people whining about how short-sighted everyone is supposed to be while having a few instances of myopia in their own works.
There's an easy way to do that. Throw a bunch of public funds at those people. They'll buy into the religion real fast. I think that already happened a decade ago.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Wednesday October 10 2018, @04:50PM
In other words, they aren't ignoring anything, you're criticizing those in power for choosing the least socially & economically disruptive solution for themselves and who they represent rather than the one that effects the social change that you want. If you want to advocate for social causes, then do so. Just don't try to hide that by claiming that the problems you're trying to solve are technical ones and then calling anyone who disagrees with your chosen solutions ignorant or scientifically illiterate.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @10:02PM
People are terrible at assessing risk, and hate any kind of change.
For a long time most people refused to wear seatbelts because... it's a little uncomfortable? It took explicit laws and decades of graphic TV advertisements to hammer it through to people that when shit gets fucked, seat belts can prevent your shit from getting fucked.
People won't care until there's no food left.