The same week as Pope Francis’s historic encyclical warning of the dire dangers posed to humanity over climate change , scientists have issue new warnings that we are likely past the point of no-return to save humanity from catastrophe and possible extinction. Famed Australian microbiologist Frank Fenner, a key figure in the elimination of smallpox in the 1970s, now believes that humans will be extinct in 100 years after making the planet uninhabitable. Others have pointed out that the United States and other nations continue to adopt insufficient targets from carbon reduction and that our passing the critical “3C” threshold now appears all but assured due to opponents and deniers of climate change or reforms.
Fenner insists that it is now a sure bet that we will pass the point of no return and that humanity has missed its window to act. He was reacting to the G7 announcement on Monday that it was asking all countries to reduce emissions — a meaningless effort that scientists around the world denounced as too little too late. The G7 simply asked all countries to reduce carbon emissions to zero in 85 years despite the overwhelming scientific data showing that such a target date would be too late to stop the disastrous course for the planet.
The view of the scientific community is that no treaty that emerges from the current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany, in preparation for November’s United Nations climate conference in Paris, can now avoid the global disaster.
Scientists generally use the target of 2 degrees Celsius as the level that must not be passed. At 3C, the trend is viewed as unstoppable. Even the Pentagon now rates climate change as a “Threat Multiplier” and an existential threat.
While the Obama Administration has moved aggressively, the U.S. target (a 26 percent to 28 percent decrease from 2005 levels by 2025) is viewed as based on clearly erroneous and rosy projections. The European Union has proposed a 40 percent decrease from 1990 levels by 2030 while China as usual is the worst with a call for an unspecified emissions peak by 2030.
There have been dozens of academic publications from around the world reaching basically the same conclusions from leading academics and institutions. For the less scientifically trained, Bill McKibben did an oft-cited piece in in 2012 explaining the stark realities of these figures and why they will not avoid disaster. McKibben noted that the target temperature has already increased 0.8C, and even if we were to stop all carbon-dioxide emissions today, it would increase another 0.8C simply due to the existing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That would leave only a 0.4C buffer to hitting 2C. The failure to act by humanity has squandered its chance to avert the global catastrophic results. Indeed, as Pope Francis expressly denounced, powerful industrial interests have succeeded in blocking efforts to act and delaying any meaningful reforms. For many scientists, it is the Nero complex of fiddling as the planet burns.
The 100 year prediction of demise seems a bit too specific a time frame but that period does represent the passing of the critical 3C line that is expected to trigger catastrophic and cascading global changes. Regardless of whether we are speaking of extinction in a 100 years or worldwide famine and natural disasters, many of us are left to marvel at man’s capacity for avoidance of difficult challenges, even when our very existence could rest in the balance. The refusal to act in the face of such overwhelming scientific evidence and warnings is a sad (and possibly lethal) conclusion of our species.
Prairie Rose – hardscape like concrete does heat the immediate environment in something called a heat island effect. Scientists were supposed to homogenize the data by compensating for heat island effect. There were a series of scandals in which a lot of original data was lost, and therefor no one could check their work. Then there was a kerfuffle because many of the Chinese temperature monitoring stations were moved during the study period, or were missing location data entirely. Plus they reversed a cooling trend in South America to a warming trend.
The main trouble is that all of these honest, hardworking scientists around the globe all base their conclusions on a single source, the Global Historic Climate Network (GHCN). Over the years, stations have been removed, especially in rural areas, and those remaining experience a heat island effect of urbanization. Computer models infill the data missing from stations that had been removed using the data from the remaining stations in urban areas. But then there are these modifications that really worry me. Earlier data is adjusted down while more recent data is adjusted up. Australia’s cooling trend was reversed to a warming trend. New Zealand’s raw data plateau was adjusted to be a warming trend. They reversed a cooling trend in South America to a warming trend. All these scandals periodically crop up and cause a flurry, mostly under the media radar. These mistakes or even conscious misconduct does no one any favors, and engenders divisiveness and mistrust.
There have been a series of misconduct that eroded the public trust. Honest, hardworking, ethical scientists all have the same data to work with, but it’s not the raw data. It’s homogenized data.
Personally, I find this all incredibly frustrating. When a private company, like a drug manufacturer, behaves this way, they get sued. When researchers act this way, there are political fights, blog fights, and people go into the trenches.
Meanwhile, as a few researchers throw away the public trust and try to avoid the consequences, it’s the environment that suffers. If anthropogenic climate change does exist, then this wrongdoing has alienated badly needed support. If it is not anthropogenic, then we’ve wasted quite a lot of money. No species can freeze the climate at its current level, nor should it. Changing climate is one of the drivers of evolution. We can however affect our own pollution.
The common ground between climate change supporters and critics is that we should maintain carbon dioxide at levels optimal for mammalian life. Obviously, if we continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere, eventually it will be detrimental.
Meanwhile, as we focus all of our efforts on CO2, we virtually ignore many real and present threats – de-vegetation (our oxygen factories), pollution of the entire ocean with mercury, which houses the phytoplankton that produces most of our oxygen, and a great many chemicals that we pump into our air, ground, and water daily. Reducing our pollution, including the massive application of chemicals to our crops, would improve our health today. Replacing lost vegetation and combating man-made desertification will improve our climate and our health. Vegetation humidifies and oxygenates the air, removes CO2, lowers the temperature, and cuts down on dust particles that can cause respiratory problems. (Someone should tell this to CA politicians who are plasticizing the area with Cash for Grass programs that promote fake turf instead of native plants.)
So my two main sources of frustration are these constant data adjustment scandals that keep popping up, as well as funneling most of our resources into only one goal, while ignoring many other real and present threats to the environment.
Anyone claiming that it’s all lost, we’re dead in 100 years no matter what we do can very likely touch off the hysteria of Y2K, in which the naive actually did kill themselves, or gave away all their possessions to build bunkers. And it creates a “why bother” mentality. If the end result is the same, why invest any more effort?
That’s hardly helpful.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/01/dispute-weather-fraud
Mr. Schulte,
Have you ever heard of Copernicus? Mankind is not the center of the Universe. Basic science.
TJustice – the Earth is not the center of our universe. However, we have no proof one way or the other that man is not the center of his universe. Basic science.
Just as there are climate change deniers there are population deniers that think we can continue to grow 1% or more every year (over 80 million now) indefinitely on a finite planet. This includes Francis who says population numberrs dont matter. But it is a math fact:
total emissions = (average per person) times (number of people)
Ignoring the second factor is sucide, not jsut for humanity but for so many other species, many already near extinction.
Well, THEN: let US fire Ner0bama and all the other $old-Out COs (Commanding/Corporate Officials) and SOS (Save Our Selves), NOW!
Thank god. No more hitlers, neros, kahns, or US presidents…
The guy’s name is Stewart Brand, not Brant Stewart. Sorry.
Fourth tetrad blood moon will occur 9/28/15. Hold on to your seat. Keep an eye on super volcano at yellow stone national park.
Malthus was wrong. Holdren is wrong. Ehrlich has been wrong about everything his entire life. It must be quite a miserable and depressing existence for you to be so pessimistic. Especially considering the exponential progress humanity has made in reducing human misery and suffering over the past century with the discovery of fossil fuels and a system that promotes private property rights. Oh well, on average you’re only going to be on Earth for about 80 years, so if you want to spend that time spewing nonsense about a dystopian future if government does not force us to enrich renewable energy interests, I suppose that’s one way to spend your 80 years here.
Enjoy this short video presentation from the New York Times, of all places, destroying the pessimistic worldview you share with the always wrong Ehrlich. Maybe it will restore some much needed balance in how you see the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/the-unrealized-horrors-of-population-explosion.html?_r=0
BTW, the Brant Stewart fellow who appears throughout the video talking about how he once also shared the pessimistic doomsday worldview promoted by Ehlich is also the fellow who introduced Jesse Ausubel to the Long Now Foundation back in January that I mentioned in yesterday’s thread and have been urging everybody I know to watch. Mr. Stewart, Ausubel, and Greenpeace founder Dr. Patrick Moore are all lifelong environmentalists who shed the pessimism and decided to be optimists. So there’s hope for you, Professor.
I thought chicken little said the world is coming to an end a lifetime ago
Keep going bayard, you’ve only scratched the surface.
“Fenner insists that it is now a sure bet that we will pass the point of no return and that humanity has missed its window to act.”
This completely blows up any argument TO act. Now the rest is up to Planet Earth.
Always great to see how you deniers are all so much smarter than all the world’s independent scientist. For a minute there I was actually worried, but now I am comforted by y’all and your deep understanding gained by reading propaganda developed by the biggest carbon polluters to con the world into not doing anything so they can make lots and lots of money they don’t need. Y’all have given me a much deeper understanding of Human ‘intelligence’
Prairie Rose,
Good questions, and if Fenner can demonstrate extinction caused by factors within his field of expertise due to climate change, then he will be speaking from authority. Until then . . .
Of course we could go extinct for any number of reasons, including our own folly, but for a scientist to predict this without evidence supporting it? I fear the media has latched onto this because of his fame as a scientist, and not because of any evidence he has provided.
Paul,
Yes, that park is definitely closer to the “center” point between Queen Creek and Surprise.
It is my belief that weather is cyclic. There have been years of hotter weather and then years of colder weather. We as humans have done much, especially in this country. Other countries have much work to do. Ironically, I recall at the time of Nixon’s presidency, they called themselves “civilized” compared to the U.S. Yet today they poison their people with heavy industrial pollution that can’t be seen through.
With what is happening in the world today, mankind will cause his extinction via war or disease long before so called climate change has any real effect. If it exists. Personally, I think that mankind is clever and will evolve a bit. These will be resolved but new ones will be presented.
Souls are eternal, only the body dies. We will all experience the future….
If you look @ Global Warming people as religious fanatics then it all makes sense.
And here I thought the microbiologist would have something viable to say about our demise in his area of expertise, as coming due to some superbug that would wipe out humanity.
But no, he has drunken the koolaide on Climate Change™, and has joined the religious magical thinking leap in projective prediction.
Even if what he is agreeing with is true, there is NO Climate Change™ scenario that will wipe out humanity, even if we wind up living in Water World. We are a far tougher species than that.
Paul,
That was about the same degree difference for where I used to live–Tempe. Yes, it is a huge and very busy airport–not a fun place to try to go through with small children! I wonder if placing the gauge near the Salt River would be better; it runs right smack through the center.
Prairie Rose – I was thinking maybe Margaret T. Hance Park.
99 percent of all the species that ever lived on this planet are extinct. To have the arrogance to think we are not capable of joining them says something about our supposed intelligence.
Chuck – to say that we will join them underestimates our intelligence. We are the people who built the pyramids with copper tools.
Jim22
You praise the examples of intelligence where ever you find them. Then there are those who see a flaw and point at the entirety and say ‘See, I told ya so.’ A lot of that going on.