Holding warming under two degrees Celsius is the goal. But is it still attainable?
A matter of degrees: Diplomats are heading to Paris to come up with a plan for averting the worst effects of climate change. Their goal: Keep global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels. But are they too late?
Part 1: The great thawPart 2: The invisible threatPart 3: That's heavy
Glad we're finally hearing some realistic talk about climate change.
ReplyDeleteI've long maintained that it's a runaway train. There is no political will for the radical changes that would be required to stop warming. And no, we can't print clean air.
Technical adaptation is all we have left. And that doesn't grow food in deserts.
ReplyDeleteYes Dan I am the same, just can't see a way out. We're gooners if things don't change quickly. Spent yesterday demonstrating on the London March but I know it's useless.
ReplyDeleteFear for the future for my kid.
I often hear what a great interviewer Andrew Neil is but it seems to be forgotten this so called intellegent journalist is a climate change denier who has blocked loads of people on twitter for calling him out...what chance do you have when someone as influential like him denies it? Which is strange as he is a bit of a Thatcherite and tbf to her she had a science background and was well aware of the problem.
As to Neil's point about technical adaption, yes that's mostly true. I consider myself in the 'bright' Green faction and we have got rid of most of the scientific woo in our policies. Not completed yet, nuclear & GMO to be sorted, we have done the sums so nuclear at least generation IV, V & Thorium are necessary. Although should be noted the US did have a thorium reactor in the 60's but shut it done as didn't have weapons grade by-products (which you can bring back to who was funding most scientific research in the US after WWII).
CO2 grows food in the deserts.
ReplyDelete"Deserts 'greening' from rising CO2
Increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have helped boost green foliage across the world’s arid regions over the past 30 years through a process called CO2 fertilisation, according to CSIRO research."
http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2013/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2
Quote
In findings based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU), found that this CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa, according to CSIRO research scientist, Dr Randall Donohue.
Endquote
Hell, any greenhouse grower or marijuana grower can tell you that. Pile on the CO2. Plants love 1000-1500 PPM, and their need for water is drastically reduced.
For the record, and before all of you pile on me, I'm not buying what I hearing about the 'climate'. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), although it turned negative a few years ago, is going through one of its positive spikes--as it does throughout its cycle--accounting for the warm Blob in the Pacific along the Alaska to CA edge of North America. But it will flip back.
The Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) is expected to flip negative finally--currently going cold--by 2020. When both the PDO and AMO are negative, we will be getting 1945-1976 weather. (The PDO and AMO were both positive from around 1980 to 2000; hence, heat.)
I just hope there's enough heat this winter to bring the precipitation that California needs to get itself out of the La Nina-induced drought. Then maybe the fools managing the water IN CA can stop diverting water from agriculture to the rivers, emptying their reservoirs into the Pacific Ocean.
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_1_california-drought.html
ReplyDeleteConnected to desert greening.
http://www.desmog.uk/2015/10/19/climate-science-denialist-matt-ridley-criticised-scientist-he-sourced-claims-about-greening-planet
"doesn't grow food in deserts"
ReplyDeleteNeil if the ice melts wouldnt the H2O re-distribute into current dry areas?
ie "its about price not quantity..."
"Neil if the ice melts wouldnt the H2O re-distribute into current dry areas?"
ReplyDeleteMore likely to turn arable land into sea and pasture into paddy fields. The rest is eroded due to increased rainfall.
The deserts get drier IIRC.
"The deserts get drier"
ReplyDeleteYep, it's short term thinking as it ignores trends & feedback.. It would be like saying climate change helps the UK tourist industry as we warm, Yeh great for a while. There is a reason Venus is very hot under cloud cover.
UK & Northern Europe may undergo a 2nd ice age due to changing ocean currents.
ReplyDeleteAlaska and Siberia may become prime farmland.
The oceans will become dead zones due to acidification. All those people who depend on seafood to survive -- too bad for them.
Some places will do OK, other places will suffer. This will lead to wars and mass migrations.
Once a tipping point is passed -- that's what 2 degrees C represents -- there is no turning back. Melting and thawing will release more greenhouse gases which will cause more melting and thawing. No one knows for sure how the story would end.
"No one knows how the story will end"
ReplyDeleteI think we know how it will end, question is in what order will it happen.
Not being facetious but what's the worse scenario?
ReplyDelete1) Ocean currents changing sending us into new ice age.
2) Ice caps totally melting.
I mean how long would it take for the feedback to stabilise once fossil fuel use eventually declines, 10's, 100's or 1000's of years?