Almost nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe political efforts to restrict global warming to 2C will succeed, a Guardian poll reveals today. Time to get serious about adaptation, geoengineering, air capture and transformational innovation.
File this under "D" for "Depressing" and "G" for time to "Get Serious" about adaptation, geoengineering, biochar and air capture technologies and transformational clean energy innovation. Because if what these scientists say is true, we're going to need a healthy dose of each to mitigate and adapt to the warming likely to hit populations across the planet over the coming century and beyond.
According to a survey from the UK Guardian:
Almost nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe political efforts to restrict global warming to 2C will succeed, a Guardian poll reveals today. An average rise of 4-5C by the end of this century is more likely, they say, given soaring carbon emissions and political constraints.
Such a change would disrupt food and water supplies, exterminate thousands of species of plants and animals and trigger massive sea level rises that would swamp the homes of hundreds of millions of people.
The poll of those who follow global warming most closely exposes a widening gulf between political rhetoric and scientific opinions on climate change. While policymakers and campaigners focus on the 2C target, 86% of the experts told the survey they did not think it would be achieved. A continued focus on an unrealistic 2C rise, which the EU defines as dangerous, could even undermine essential efforts to adapt to inevitable higher temperature rises in the coming decades, they warned.
Continue reading "Scientists Say Don't Bet on Holding Warming to 2C" »
Andy Revkin did an incisive piece on the claims around climate tipping points in the Times on Sunday. It was nice to have the antidote to Tom Friedman's apocalyptic column on tipping points just pages away.
In 2006 a retired software executive insisted to me that we had only 10 years to do something dramatic about climate change (because that's what James Hansen had told him). When I gently suggested that 10 years was not a scientific number but rather an arbitrarily political one, the executive accused me of being anti-science. But the funny thing is that in January of this year Hansen told the Guardian that we have only four years left for the U.S. to act -- coincidentally, the same length of time in Obama's first term in office.
The assumption behind all of it is that throwing out these numbers -- four years, 10 years, 350 ppm, etc. -- will provide the public and policy makers with a sense of urgency that global warming as an issue currently lacks. But there's no evidence to back up that assumptions. If any correlation were to be drawn, it would likely be the opposite, that the increasingly apocalyptic tone of those seeking action on climate change has resulted in an increasing number of voters (according to Gallup) who believe that the threat of global warming is being exaggerated.
Continue reading "Are Greens Tipping the Debate Away from what Really Matters?" »
Renewing America's economy, responding to the threat of global climate change, and finally securing the nation's energy independence all compel the transformation of United States energy system. Accomplishing this transformation requires the rapid development and deployment of a suite of clean, affordable, and scalable energy technologies.
The challenge is this: Over the next four decades, global energy demand is expected to triple. But at the same time, global greenhouse gas emissions must fall rapidly, decreasing at least 50 to 85 percent by mid-century to avert potentially catastrophic climate change.
Read the full article here.
