IPCC: Major climate change now unavoidable and irreversible

[misanthrope]

I think everyone who has paid attention expected this news.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/09/humans-have-caused-unprecedented-and-irreversible-change-to-climate-scientists-warn

snip--

Within the next two decades, temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and bringing widespread devastation and extreme weather.

Only rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gases in this decade can prevent such climate breakdown, with every fraction of a degree of further heating likely to compound the accelerating effects, according to the International Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on climate science.

snip--

[Wounded Bear]

1. Because it's already happening...nt

[denbot]

2. Not for the conservative bubble.

Nothing penetrates that 1mm transparent film of denial.

[Champp]

34. Climate lies, Covid lies, and election lies are a Republican disgrace

They are working their asses off to be sure they fit the "deplorable" name, and so they shall be known throughout history.

[lagomorph777]

13. It's well underway. Didn't really need an announcement to see it with our own eyes.

Thanks, climate deniers. We're all fucked because of you.

[cstanleytech]

3. I think its pretty much a given that its going to happen and a number of people were fooling only

themselves by thinking we could get enough people to address it and work together to prevent it because in the end most people are dicks.

[John Ludi]

8. I lived primitive

in a yurt in the woods to lower my footprint and even made a series of youtube videos about it over a period of ten years (some off and on). I did inspire a couple people to embrace the lifestyle, which was nice...but most people want all their cool shit and, yes, in the end most people are dicks.

[Kaleva]

4. For a few years now, I've been spending much time on preparing for what's predicted to come

Shortages or unavailability of items. The biggest project is converting the large backyard into a vegetable garden and orchard and I'm working on building a 7'L X 4'W X32"D root cellar under the back basement entry way to store produce such as potatoes, winter squash, rutabaga, carrots, parsnip, onions, fermented tomatoes, fermented sugar snap peas, homemade sauerkraut and homemade kimchi. I already have shelves made in the basement to store dozens of pints of jams and quarts of canned vegetables and soups.

The vegetable garden is essentially completed and this spring I planted 40 foot row of asparagus, As for fruits, I planted a 40' row of raspberries and a 30" row of honeyberries, i have a 40' row already prepared for the blueberries that are expected to arrive early next month. Hopefully next year I'll be able to plant the apple, pear, peach, apricot, plum and quince trees in the spots prepared for them. Also next year I'll be using a 14' X 4' section of the raised bed in the vegetable garden to plant strawberries.

MY youngest stepson has 40 acres of land just outside of town and next to that my son-in-law has 20 acres. My son-in-law already has chickens there and my wife and I get our eggs from him and he also raised pigs which were recently butchered and processed of which my wife and I got a half of pig for $326. Bacon, pork chops, sausages, and half hams. Possibly next year parts of the fields will be worked up for the planting of potatoes, dried beans, pumpkins and squashes. Plants that need quite a bit of room to grow enough of.

[NurseJackie]

5. I wonder if those "Prepper" TV shows will make a comeback...

... perhaps they'll focus on more practical things (rather than zombie nuclear apocalypse).

Good for you and GOOD LUCK with your plans!

[Kaleva]

7. I think those who are preparing for a complete collapse of society are not realistic

Acquiring many guns and thousands of rounds of ammo to protect their stash. They may have enough to feed their immediate family for a year but what about other members of the family, friends and neighbors?

[misanthrope]

10. I have no options. I will die.

I depend on modern technology and medical science to survive.

[Kaleva]

12. Much of my effort is directed to helping my stepkids and grandchildren

The garden and orchard are far bigger then what my wife and I need.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Worse than that; read up on the end-Permian extinction, that's where we're headed (n/t)

[Klaralven]

9. It's time to focus on how society should adapt to climate change, rather than trying to stop it.

Although slowing it down is still valuable.

[lagomorph777]

15. No, very wrong. We still have to keep slowing it down or it will be even worse.

Yes, we will also have to adapt; people will of course build seawalls, etc. But prevention (even partial prevention) is vastly more effective than band-aids after the disaster.

[Klaralven]

19. We need to start adapting now

For example, we should prevent building of any long-lived buildings on land less than 15 feet above sea level, and less than 20 feet where hurricane slosh maps indicate more than 10 foot surges.

We should move railways away from the coasts and route them on higher ground. Railways and roadways along river flood plains also should be rerouted.

We should discourage population growth and sharply limit immigration to anticipate sharply reduced agricultural output in the future.

We should limit growth in the southwest in anticipation of further drought and desertification.

We should cut and maintain fire breaks in our forests and manage undergrowth and old/diseased/dead timber.

We should plan for the depletion of the Ogllala aquifer and limit irrigation farming in the Great Plains and return those areas to grazing of cattle.

[lagomorph777]

23. All useful ideas (of course, some more do-able than others, given the politics).

Some of your ideas actually also address climate change (e.g. discourage population growth).

But we have to keep our eye on the ball and continue working on the carbon problem, at the same time.

[Klaralven]

24. Coal burning can be limited, but I'm pessimistic about crude oil and nat gas

China uses a lot of thermal coal, but they also have aggressive solar, wind, and nuclear generation plans. So there is hope regarding coal.

Lots of nations use crude oil for transportation, and it is unlikely that volumes will fall much below 100 million barrels per day until the cheaper sources exhaust. Once the price goes up an order of magnitude, volumes will fall, probably in a couple of decades or more. All of the easily accessible giant fields have been found so only expensive to extract fields onshore, and hard to access offshore and arctic fields will be left by 2030 to 2050.

Reserves of natural gas will likely last longer.

So we are definitely headed towards 1.5 degrees C increase or more.

Any greater curtailment would require international political cooperation that is even more difficult than the politics of adaptive measures in the US.

Therefore, the US should undertake whatever adaptive strategies it can implement on its own.

[misanthrope]

30. Considering how deeply American culture is rooted in consumption

That's going to be a far harder task than asking people to wear masks and get vaccines.

[Kaleva]

27. It needs to be both

There's a chance, a very small one, that drastic climate change can be prevented but in the meantime govt's need to prepare their citizens to adapt in case efforts fail.

[roamer65]

11. There is only one way to achieve such drastic reduction in GHG's.

Population reduction.

We have painted ourselves into a corner.

[Kaleva]

14. Unless one plans on euthanizing people right now, population reduction will come too late to help.

[roamer65]

16. The coming resource wars will probably reduce it quite a bit.

As climate change gets worse, there WILL be wars.

[Klaralven]

21. Wars are not effective at reducing population except indirectly

Global population is increasing at about 80 million per year.

You need disease and famine to achieve any reduction. These can be the result of wars, but anything short of all out thermonuclear war will not result in prompt deaths on that scale, and thermonuclear war will result in many more delayed deaths due to disease and famine as a consequence of societal collapse.

[misanthrope]

31. Drought and famine will precipitate the conflicts

Disease will occur when modern civilization frays and access to medical care narrows.

[lagomorph777]

17. Climate change will cause population reduction,

...whether we like it or not. But it won't be pretty. Would have been nice to do it on our own terms. But religion and the innate "need to breed" are working against the survival of our species and the planet.

[roamer65]

18. +1000

[TheFarseer]

20. We need to invent something

That can capture a bunch of carbon in a hurry because it’s pretty clear we are not willing to alter our lifestyle in any material way.

[misanthrope]

32. Nature invented wonderful carbon sequestering devices when lignin appeared

They're called trees and we've laid waste to a great deal of them, releasing that carbon into the atmosphere and into the seas.

[jalan48]

22. The fossil fuel industry is a powerful entity that gives money to both sides of the aisle.

[myccrider]

25. I knew a scientist at NOAA 10-15 years ago...

an internet acquaintance, who said that the climate generally lags 20 years behind the stimulus, in this case CO2 levels in the atmosphere. So, according to him, our current climate is what we would have leveled off at had we stayed at the CO2 concentration of 2001. If he’s right, we have another 20 years of warming ahead even if we stopped all CO2 emissions right now. But that’s too expensive, or something.

Depressing, huh?

[misanthrope]

33. Here's the saddest part of that observation

It wasn't privileged knowledge. The average person could have seen something similar for themselves in the yearly seasonal changes.

Summer solstice is just past mid-June, right? However, as the sun begins to recede in the northern hemisphere after then, you don't see weather conditions follow immediate suit. The hottest part of the summer -- the height of hurricane season, too -- is in the months following the summer solstice.

The same applies to the winter solstice in December. January and February are colder.

We're just sadly reactive and self-involved critters.

[tanyev]

26. Considering how many people on this planet won't get a shot or wear a small piece of cloth

to save their own lives from a pandemic, we never really had a chance with climate change.

[misanthrope]

29. Sadly, I believe you are correct

It's just an inherent aspect of the species. We are our own Great Filter.

[H2O Man]

28. Recommended.

Thank you. The tired "we only have 30 years..." has sedated people to the reality that we passed the "too late" line decades ago.

[WarGamer]

36. Actually I probably draw the linein the 19th Century...

By then the momentum was set in place.

[WarGamer]

35. Of course.

And as I've stated here previously, we need to adjust Federal spending for PREPARATION and less on mitigation.


Solar Panels, Teslas and LED light bulbs, quite honestly... won't do SHIT when China and India are inaugurating brand spanking new Coal fired power plants weekly...

It's past time to prepare for the fallout because it's coming.

States need to stop issuing permits for NEW construction on beaches and flood prone areas.

Analyze future population movement and make sure infrastructure is in place.

Go forward with nuclear energy generation. Not because it's green, although it is... but because more power will be needed the warmer it gets.

Start making changes to Agriculture.

You can't grow fucking rice and almonds in California. Big Ag has too much power in Sacramento. They'll have residents on water rationing while allowing Big Ag to pump water from the reservoirs and aquifers.

Arkansas is the leading grower of rice in the USA... I wonder why (looks at maps and sees lakes and rivers everywhere there)

Single Family Housing is inefficient. I know some won't like this... but we need large block style housing as seen behind the Iron Curtain in the Cold War.

Make "work from home" universal for as many people as possible. That way you can build NEW cities in better locations for people who don't commute and can live in a more remote setting.

Summary:

There is no more time for Conservation and all that nonsense... time to prepare. NOW.

[Kaleva]

37. Until folks start getting their teeth knocked out by climate change, there won't be support for that

Humans are reactive and not proactive.

Even here at DU, I don't see much urgency about preparing for what climate change has brought and will bring. I read posts here by people who say they live in fire ravaged California, the drought stricken South West, the Gulf coast, Florida and along the East coast and I wonder "Why haven't they moved yet?".

[misanthrope]

38. I am on the Gulf Coast

and have been begging my wife to relocate for about 20 years now. She won't do it.