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.
THE POPE IS NOT ALONE!
http://www.onearth.org/earthwire/world-religious-leaders-climate-change
Exhibit C of why I wrote:
“What I find off-putting is that many of us have valid, sincere concerns but our questions are dismissed because this has become fanatical and political. Questions are just not allowed or you’ll be called any number of catchy names.
Science IS about asking questions and discussing ideas.
I care about the environment. After all, I have to live here, breathe the air, drink the water, and eat the food. If I have a question about the science, I expect to be able to find an answer without this immediate pushback that has become de rigueur.”
would be this phrase including the catchy “denialists”:
“This really is the stupidity that keeps on being stupid. It’s stupid to start and stupid to link to.
If nobody went back to check, we wouldn’t have learned they were wrong.
It also wasn’t denialists that showed they were wrong, either.”
I believe the point that was being made was that what is consensus today can be disproven tomorrow. Look at what was considered health food 50 years ago. That’s the exciting thing about science – we learn more every day. And the nobody going back to check I believe refers to the fact that we would be surprised how many times the accepted consensus has completely changed.
None of the people who have used the snappy name calling has actually addressed my sincere concerns.
That’s the frustrating thing about Climate Science. If you want to talk about it, you just get made fun of without anyone being able to actually deal with the issues, rathe than the people.
“Problem with scientists’ predictions is, nobody goes back to check.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/17/top-ten-science-based-predictions-that-didnt-come-true/
Top Ten Science based predictions that didn’t come true:”
This really is the stupidity that keeps on being stupid. It’s stupid to start and stupid to link to.
If nobody went back to check, we wouldn’t have learned they were wrong.
It also wasn’t denialists that showed they were wrong, either.
It was normal science. And what they were replaced with became the consensus.
Groty – darn it. I miss all the good stuff. I’m overdue for a trip to use the library’s wifi. Thank you for the link. I’ll check it out when I can. Have a great evening.
PhillyT – “Karen,
There is nothing wrong with asking questions.” Glad to hear your comment was not in response to my posted questions and concerns. You would be surprised how many conservatives are conservationists, environmentalists, or both. I’m a fiscal conservative and an environmentalist. It’s about health and not turning our home into a sewer.
We are already studying the topics you mention. There is an incredible flow of research funding into anything to do with CC. Obviously any movement to change our system from capitalist to socialist, or add “carbon taxes” is going to get pushback because it affects everyday life. You have to remember that if you buy any groceries at the store, anything through the mail, or basically any product at all, then you paid for fossil fuels to ship it. We have to be wary of anything that increases the cost of food or other products, because we’re already in a struggling economy. Anything that skyrockets prices is going to hammer the poor and lower middle classes the hardest.
I look forward to the day when we have cheap, clean, renewable energy that replaces all fossil fuels, which are limited by definition. We’re not quite there yet but we are close than we were a few decades ago. And I think I’ve mentioned before that one of my dreams is to go solar.
Of, all of those “wrong predictions” were proven not to be correct rather quickly after they were made. By science.
“Problem with scientists’ predictions is, nobody goes back to check.”
We are substantially better-off with science being wrong periodically than without science.
Karen: Too bad you can’t watch the video presentation. It’s so different from “the narrative” about the environment that most of us believe.
He calls global greening “the most important ecological trend on Earth” and says the biosphere on land is getting bigger “year by year”. By “two billion tons or more”. I’m not sure what that two billion tons refers to exactly or over what period it is measured against. I do know that it means there is a lot more naturally occurring green stuff providing habitat for wildlife, assuming his data are accurate. And it is happening almost everywhere, from the deserts (as already mentioned in a prior comment) to the Arctic.
I’m out. Have a nice night.
“This needs greater clarification as to the meaning of “emissions” or it sounds silly. Are we to stop breathing or do they mean carbon emissions not related to simply being alive (like factories)?”
Anybody thinking such a clarification is needed has no hope of understanding the issue.
Karen,
There is nothing wrong with asking questions. That is not what Republican candidates are doing, nor most conservatives. What they are doing is obfuscating, denying, playing political games (“I’m not a scientist” wink wink), or they are playing the bible/dominionist game in which they state that only god can destroy the earth and in the meantime its ours to do with as we please because the bible says so and the bible is true because it says so in the bible.
That’s not a conversation. It’s not scientific inquiry. It’s just horse manure.
So let’s ask some real questions then. Can we come together with the 97% of climate scientists who ARE in agreement on the subject and start doing some serious research on:
Carbon sequestration
Reduction of fossil fuel use
Rapid development of alternative energy sources
Mitigation of the damage done
Should we change our economic structure to price things at their ACTUAL cost, which is to say a cradle-to-grave cycle for everything we take, use, and throw away? (hint: it would make coal oil and gas obsolete overnight…and yes everyone, I know solar and wind have a waste cycle too, and yes they should pay for it. Thank you)
Why do coal oil and gas companies get to dump their waste into our clean air? Our clean water?
Can we change the way we farm? The way we use and abuse the water, soil and air?
Finally, for now, is it really worth doing nothing because the environment is a “liberal cause”? Do you understand how completely insane that is?
phillyT – you know that those 97% of climate scientists (a very very small group) who believe in climate change have declared the data proprietary product and refuse to release it to the public or other scientists? Does this sound like the scientific method we were all taught?
Well, I guess we need some Apocalyptic Music???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgcy-V6YIuI
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
A hundred years is a long time. We can go out in glory. It is time to find another planet. What are some choices? Any in our Galaxy? Where is Remulak anyway? Why does that Remulak guy not yak on the blog anymore? I am ready to migrate.
Philly T:
Actually, that’s pretty much what Frank Fenner said. That we were all doomed, had passed the tipping point, regardless of what we did. I disagreed with that statement.
This can be considered Exhibit B in my statement:
“What I find off-putting is that many of us have valid, sincere concerns but our questions are dismissed because this has become fanatical and political. Questions are just not allowed or you’ll be called any number of catchy names.
Science IS about asking questions and discussing ideas.
I care about the environment. After all, I have to live here, breathe the air, drink the water, and eat the food. If I have a question about the science, I expect to be able to find an answer without this immediate pushback that has become de rigueur.”
Go through the media and you’ll find myriad examples of how asking questions is a prohibited conversation, or you’ll be labeled uncaring, stupid, skeptic, capitalist pig, Rethuglicon . . . you name it. Re-read my questions and concerns and then ask yourself if they should provoke that kind of response. And if they do, is it really helpful to alienate people since “the cause” needs more supporters?
Ah the standard conservative argument.
Global warming isn’t real
But if it is, is isn’t caused by humans.
But if it is there’s nothing we can do about it.
http://i.imgur.com/3z4Tb66.jpg
@I.Annie
Obsessed??? Nope. You asked. I answered.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Groty – I live in a rural area with satellite internet with Fair Access Policy. I can’t watch videos online or I use up my bandwidth. 🙁
It’s my understanding that the forests that are increasing are for the most part planted stands of high dollar timber, rather than diverse forest, while there is a net loss of forrest globally because of the intensive clearing of the South American rain forest. Globally, we lose an area the size of Panama every year. Any effort at replacing forests are very important, for this reason, and I am glad that they are taking root.
When I went to the rain forest, I was told that virgin rain forest does not require a machete to get through. The canopy so effectively shades the forest floor that it blocks the light, keeping the understory growth quite low. The rain forest I went through was quite thick, so much so that I had the disconcerting feeling that I was in a sound proofed room. I couldn’t hear the stream that I knew was close by the trail. And the plants grew and obscured the trail so quickly, you could see a daily difference in growth. A forest that has been cut a few times is very different from the rare virgin rain forest. Still valuable, but different.
Another conservation issue is that the people there were poor and hard pressed, and cared more about feeding themselves and their family, obviously, than in preserving trees or habitat. They would clear the forest to plant, but the land is actually quite poor. The nutrients are mostly in the plant biomass, which has sucked it all out of the ground. So they would plant, play it out, clear another area, plant, play it out, clear another area . . . There was definitely room to improve with shared farming techniques.
Karen: Start watching at the 16:00 minute mark. According to data collected by Professor Ausubel, Russia has already released between 30 million and 60 million hectares of land to the wild. 30 million hectares is an area the size of Poland. He claims French forests have doubled since 1830. Timberland in the U.S. bottomed out in 1990, and has increased by almost 15 million hectares since. On a state basis, forests now appear to be increasing in all of the lower 48 states.
http://longnow.org/seminars/02015/jan/13/nature-rebounding-land-and-ocean-sparing-through-concentrating-human-activities/
Paul – doesn’t sound like they are being very considerate!
You see. This is exactly what I was talking about when I said this:
“What I find off-putting is that many of us have valid, sincere concerns but our questions are dismissed because this has become fanatical and political. Questions are just not allowed or you’ll be called any number of catchy names.
Science IS about asking questions and discussing ideas.
I care about the environment. After all, I have to live here, breathe the air, drink the water, and eat the food. If I have a question about the science, I expect to be able to find an answer without this immediate pushback that has become de rigueur.”
Put another log on the Fire!
Cook me up some bacon and some beans.
Go out to the car and hook it up and slash the tires.
Iron my socks and darn my ol blue jeans.
Oh, find my socks and then go fetch my slippers.
Warm me up another pot of tea.
And put another log on the fire!
And come and tell me why your leaving me!
(Song from the Global Warming Deniers- a rock group from Ferguson)