Submitted by lightscameracrafty t3_yfab57 in Futurology
Comments
lightscameracrafty OP t1_iu2knii wrote
Submission Statement:
A new UN report predicts warming this century will fall between 2 and 3 degrees — this is a dreadful miss from our 1.5 degree goal that would have allowed us to continue our lives with relative normalcy, but also much much lower than the 4-5 degree apocalypse that was heralded even just a few years ago: “we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years.” Neither normal nor apocalyptic - the future lies, frustratingly, somewhere in the middle.
This article also makes the case that we are hurtling rapidly towards a decarbonized future: renewables prices have plummeted over the last decade at an astonishing, almost miraculous, rate. Investment in green energy has officially outpaced investment in dirty energy for the first time this year — one paper estimates that a faster decarbonization process stands to make the world “trillions of dollars richer by 2050.”
At the same time, Wallace-Wells also makes the case that as amazing as this progress is, it’s simply not enough. A third of Pakistan is underwater. Hundreds died due to heat waves in Pheonix alone this summer - thousands in the UK, Spain and Portugal. “Even if temperature rise is limited to two degrees….the extremes might be what you would have projected for four or five.”
He echoes the warning of the IPCC last February: we were focusing too much on near-term amelioration rather than “transformational adaptation” and relocation - especially as “hard limits to adaptation have already been reached in some ecosystems” even as we seem to continue to populate them (cough Florida).
“What will the world look like at 2 degrees? Disruption and upheaval at every level. Suffering and injustice. Innovation too…and some new prosperity.”
Edit: I see no one is going to bother to actually read the article lol
FuturologyBot t1_iu2n0be wrote
The following submission statement was provided by /u/lightscameracrafty:
Submission Statement:
A new UN report predicts warming this century will fall between 2 and 3 degrees — this is a dreadful miss from our 1.5 degree goal that would have allowed us to continue our lives with relative normalcy, but also much much lower than the 4-5 degree apocalypse that was heralded even just a few years ago: “we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years.” Neither normal nor apocalyptic - the future lies, frustratingly, somewhere in the middle.
This article also makes the case that we are hurtling rapidly towards a decarbonized future: renewables prices have plummeted over the last decade at an astonishing, almost miraculous, rate. Investment in green energy has officially outpaced investment in dirty energy for the first time this year — one paper estimates that a faster decarbonization process stands to make the world “trillions of dollars richer by 2050.”
At the same time, Wallace-Wells also makes the case that as amazing as this progress is, it’s simply not enough. A third of Pakistan is underwater. Hundreds died due to heat waves in Pheonix alone this summer - thousands in the UK, Spain and Portugal. “Even if temperature rise is limited to two degrees….the extremes might be what you would have projected for four or five.”
He echoes the warning of the IPCC last February: we were focusing too much on near-term amelioration rather than “transformational adaptation” and relocation - especially as “hard limits to adaptation have already been reached in some ecosystems” even as we seem to continue to populate them (cough Florida).
“What will the world look like at 2 degrees? Disruption and upheaval at every level. Suffering and injustice. Innovation too…and some new prosperity.”
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yfab57/beyond_catastrophe_a_new_climate_reality_is/iu2knii/
Less_Noisy t1_iu2tq1p wrote
I don't think anyone really has a handle on it at all. It's always been very difficult to predict the future if my memory serves me well.
shillyshally t1_iu2uhuq wrote
It's not hard to predict that humans are fucked. The tricky part is how fucked and how soon.
Temps are approaching the wet-bulb limits in many parts of India. The drought in the West is nearing catastrophic with Lakes Powell and Mead drying up and now news that the Mississippi is as well in areas. The American coasts - all coasts, really - are increasingly prey to violent weather. Jakarta is close to being under water and more and more areas are water precarious. Where will all these people go? The bitching about borders now is nothing compared to what it will be as the relatively safe areas hunker down and forbid entrance.
It doesn't have to get to maximum bad, the situation only has to get a wee bit worse.
artmoloch777 t1_iu2wk1p wrote
We should build large inclosed mega structures and leave world be. I really enjoy Saudi Arabia’s wall city. It will have flaws and im sure politics and religion can turn it into a hellscape, but i have hope.
Ok-Farmer-2695 t1_iu2wkdz wrote
Except Redditors, right? You can always count on absolute certainty when asking a Redditor, especially if the prediction is Armageddon.
Hotchillipeppa t1_iu30g2k wrote
Its not hard to predict that redditors will always be super doomers, especially in this sub
Less_Noisy t1_iu30w3q wrote
I agree. My dad was one of the first environmentalists after WW2 and was a top public health official under four governors. He used to tell me growing up in the 60's that the biggest threats to mankind were pandemics, pollution and nuclear war. He turned out to be right and it seems to be all happening quicker than anyone thought it could. The momentum of the global industrial and military complex is not something that can be turned on a dime after 125 years of largely unregulated expansion fueled by power and money. He always said that real change only comes about through crisis and catastrophe, e.g. world war.
shillyshally t1_iu31xt6 wrote
Powell warned about the the vulnerable Colorado river nearly 150 years ago. Cadillac Desert laid out the inevitable drought collapse in detail to stopped up ears. The immigration problem won't be limited to India and Africa headed for the EU. People on the American East Coast will be getting ugly re migrants - AMERICAN migrants - from the American West. It's not as if you need to back that far, just to 1930 to see all the hearts harden within minutes towards the drought refugees.
Humans will survive and get through this but at vastly reduced numbers and those who will survive will probably not be people you would care to have to dinner. They won't even like one another.
white87wolf t1_iu35dxx wrote
Why in God's name would you want to fortress yourself away from the natural world?
white87wolf t1_iu35p1h wrote
The doomers sometimes go out of their way to find positive futurology and tar it with their joylessness.
I mean it does seem pretty scary sometimes, but I want to fucking try and keep the world vaguely liveable. Also would like to keep skiing if the Lord wills it.
white87wolf t1_iu35sg8 wrote
OK doomer. Thank you.
white87wolf t1_iu35xea wrote
I mean I like Cali people just fine so...
monosodiumg64 t1_iu375pe wrote
None of those events are unequivocally attributable to anthropogenic climate change. Sea levels are rising now at half the speed they were rising for several thousand years just before the Egyptians started building pyramids. No cities got flooded then, that we know of, because as far as we know there were no cities. In the places were sea levels are rising fastest, most of the rise is due to land sinking or subsidence, not anthropogenic climate change
The American West has a long history of long severe droughts. Droughts were wiping out local civilisations centuries before modern co2 rise. How can one possibly attribute observed recent drying of any of these water features to climate when all of them have been massively affected by modern changes in water use, land use and engineering?
Find more plausible examples.
klm9283ftr t1_iu3854o wrote
And then what? How would you sustain that even?
[deleted] t1_iu3boai wrote
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Hotchillipeppa t1_iu3cyx1 wrote
It’s an unhelpful act that only serves to discourage attempts at preventing worst case scenarios at the very least, like yeah, we get it, the world is doomed, now fuck off. It ain’t over till it’s over as they say.
rcchomework t1_iu3i9f9 wrote
I think climate scientists tend to be too optimistic. I dont think we've decarbonized to any degree and I dont think we've even reached peak carbonization, because, several developing economies are still developing and adopting fossil fuel power, and several more places that made due without niceties like AC and powered heating can no longer manage and must put in a new electrical infrastructure to make sure they can survive.
I think, we, in the west, should do our best to make it habitable in these developing nations, because if we don't make sure they have access to cheap power, air conditioners, water purifiers, etc, then they will certainly find their way to our borders, and I am not sure what kind of society we'll become when that happens.
HomarusSimpson t1_iu3jehb wrote
>Hundreds died due to heat waves in Pheonix alone this summer - thousands in the UK, Spain and Portugal.
About 9 times as many people die from cold as from heat worldwide.
Always - what are the counter-factuals?
Wombat_Racer t1_iu3l0nl wrote
There is a lot of I think in the above statements, which is where ideas come from, but backed with data & peer review does wonders to remove, or at least highlight, any bias.
rcchomework t1_iu3lewc wrote
I'm not worried about the appearances of bias. I made my bias apparent.
Wombat_Racer t1_iu3lkuy wrote
But without confirmed facts, it is just your opinion. You could be right, but but until proven, it is just as valid as any other unproven statement
rcchomework t1_iu3me8o wrote
I get that you want a debate or whatever, but I'm just here to state my opinion. Im not really interested in looking up peer reviewed anything for you. I can say that I have seen some think pieces in the past about how much conservative optimism there is engrained in the climate science culture, but I couldn't and won't speak for their bias. What I said is just what I feel about the situation.
Carbonga t1_iu3mzgw wrote
To protect the natural world from us, methinks. Like trash jumping in the bin and closing the lid.
[deleted] t1_iu3n2za wrote
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white87wolf t1_iu3vkt4 wrote
Sounds really sanctimonious.
GnomerDomer t1_iu3wd3h wrote
The NYT and UN are not organizations to be trusted
Carbonga t1_iu41buv wrote
It isn't meant entirely earnest.
white87wolf t1_iu41tgh wrote
Neither is sanctimony.
fuktheenviornment t1_iu41vmj wrote
I thought paywall links were banned on reddit, nytimes is asking me for money to read this article.
Less_Noisy t1_iu41ya0 wrote
I think you have a valid point. It's really difficult to apply root cause when we've only been around in a sliver of time in the grand scheme of things. I do have one anecdotal observation. When I was growing up in Nashville, we would have 3-5 decent snow falls a winter of maybe 3-5 inches. Now it just doesn't snow there - only ice storms of sleet. I don't think that's from Nashville sinking. What's really causing it? I don't know. I just know it's not good to piss in your bath water.
You are right in that the droughts experienced in the west are not the main reason the Colorado is getting hammered. It being drained to water grass and grow avocados. I now live at the headwaters of the Colorado river. Up until the fifties the upper tributary I live close to was a big river and magnificent fishery. Now it's just a little creek that can't support native trout due to it being siphoned off to the front range and pollution from pesticides/herbicides and oil runoff from the trains.
FeralChapstick t1_iu42rce wrote
There's a paywall for me
compaqdeskpro t1_iu45ohv wrote
Growing up in the 2K's in Massachusetts, snow would start to ramp up in November, fall consistently throughout February, then March would kick off Spring. Now, it barely snows and stays in the 50's even through to Christmas, blizzards come through in February and March, and April is still freezing most of the month. That's only across a period of less than 30 years, and I've never lived to see an Ice Age. I doubt we have any control over this.
memberjan6 t1_iu4alku wrote
"warming this century will fall between 2 and 3 degrees"
By this they mean warming is increasing versus the 1.5 degree goal.
Their writing is poor.
lightscameracrafty OP t1_iu4dw16 wrote
This is how I know you didn’t bother to read the article.
aldergone t1_iu4w0hz wrote
i remember in the 1970 we were headed for another ice age
Cpleofcrazies2 t1_iu53irf wrote
That actually is not true in terms of the broad scientific opinion at the time. Oh there were some headlines about it but it was not anywhere close to being an accepted theory by the majority of climate scientists. A far greater number were already warning of the dangers of greenhouse gases and their effect on climate change.
Larcecate t1_iu53q60 wrote
I've seen this claim before, and traced it back to Sean Hannity. So, its just a mass media talking point.
Someone combed through studies on the subject from the 50s to 70s and while there was not the 97% consensus on global warming that there is today, there were something like 60% of studies predicting warming.
About 10% of studies predicted global cooling.
You've been misled by biased media outlets.
Scope_Dog t1_iu5dmc6 wrote
I'll just point out that none of these projections factor in any type of carbon removal. When we are fully converted to renewable energy, there will be vast amounts of excess unused power to go to things like carbon removal and desalination. These projections also don't account for the exponential (or at least non-linear) advancement of renewable energy tech such as batteries, etc.
rfriar t1_iu5g99x wrote
Optimistic?? If anything they were too pessimistic; they tended to use the worst case scenario under "business as usual", even as we continue to decarbonize. This article is more sane than most.
BitterPuddin t1_iu6ooof wrote
Those guys don't remember why 1.5 was the target.
Once you get over that, feedback loops come into play. Once we hit the Blue Ocean Event, and the permafrost/methane loop cranks up, it won't matter if you are driving a Tesla or not. Runaway global warming ensues, no matter what we do.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
nortob t1_iu78evi wrote
Bravo to them. Hard to think of a better use for petrodollars than supporting the Times’ journalism.
nortob t1_iu78lz6 wrote
YucieYocee t1_iu8b379 wrote
What did it say about Florida? Didn’t get this part?
Gemini884 t1_iu8mb72 wrote
There is no evidence for projected warming <3-4C of any tipping points that significantly change the warming trajectory. Read what scientists say instead of speculating-
https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/1495438146905026563
https://nitter.kavin.rocks/hausfath/status/1571146283582365697#m
"Some people will look at this and go, ‘well, if we’re going to hit tipping points at 1.5°C, then it’s game over’. But we’re saying they would lock in some really unpleasant impacts for a very long time, but they don’t cause runaway global warming."- Quote from Dr. David Armstrong Mckay, the author of one of recent studies on the subject to Newscientist mag. here are explainers he's written before-
https://climatetippingpoints.info/2019/04/01/climate-tipping-points-fact-check-series-introduction/ (introduction is a bit outdated and there are some estimates that were ruled out in past year's ipcc report afaik but articles themselves are more up to date)
Gemini884 t1_iu8msiw wrote
You did not read the article- "Now, with the world already 1.2 degrees hotter, scientists believe that warming this century will most likely fall between two or three degrees. (A United Nations report released this week ahead of the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, confirmed that range.) A little lower is possible, with much more concerted action; a little higher, too, with slower action and bad climate luck. Those numbers may sound abstract, but what they suggest is this: Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years."
Read IPCC report on impacts and read what climate scientists say instead of speculating-
https://nitter.kavin.rocks/MichaelEMann/status/1432786640943173632#m
https://nitter.42l.fr/ClimateAdam/status/1553757380827140097
https://nitter.42l.fr/GlobalEcoGuy/status/1477784375060279299#m
https://nitter.42l.fr/JacquelynGill/status/1553503548331249664#m
https://nitter.kavin.rocks/hausfath/status/1533875297220587520#m
https://nitter.42l.fr/JacquelynGill/status/1513918579657232388#m
https://nitter.42l.fr/waiterich/status/1477716206907965440#m
Gemini884 t1_iu8mu0g wrote
You did not read the article- "Now, with the world already 1.2 degrees hotter, scientists believe that warming this century will most likely fall between two or three degrees. (A United Nations report released this week ahead of the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, confirmed that range.) A little lower is possible, with much more concerted action; a little higher, too, with slower action and bad climate luck. Those numbers may sound abstract, but what they suggest is this: Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years."
Southern-Trip-1102 t1_iuawiey wrote
Do you not see what kind of incentive this makes for the Times?
Tam1 t1_iucm92c wrote
Thank you heaps for posting this. This was a really interesting and somewhat uplifting rabbit hole to go down
shillyshally t1_iu2isn0 wrote
"Neither of those futures looks all that likely now, with the most terrifying predictions made improbable by decarbonization and the most hopeful ones practically foreclosed by tragic delay. The window of possible climate futures is narrowing, and as a result, we are getting a clearer sense of what’s to come: a new world, full of disruption but also billions of people, well past climate normal and yet mercifully short of true climate apocalypse."
Dunno, I am not as sanguine as the New York Times.