Major climate changes inevitable and irreversible - IPCC's starkest warning yet

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: The Guardian

Human activity is changing the Earth's climate in ways "unprecedented" in thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, with some of the changes now inevitable and "irreversible", climate scientists have warned.

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.

The comprehensive assessment of climate science published on Monday, the sixth such report from the IPCC since 1988, has been eight years in the making, marshalling the work of hundreds of experts and peer-review studies. It represents the world's full knowledge to date of the physical basis of climate change, and found that human activity was "unequivocally" the cause of rapid changes to the climate, including sea level rises, melting polar ice and glaciers, heatwaves, floods and droughts.



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

---

Report here: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/ (though it's currently offline, and showing an archived version from before the release - whether because of genuine demand, or DDoS, I don't know)

BBC: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

The report says that ongoing emissions of warming gases could also see a key temperature limit broken in just over a decade.

The authors also show that a rise in sea levels approaching 2m by the end of this century "cannot be ruled out".
...
"Today's IPCC Working Group 1 Report is a code red for humanity," said UN Secretary-General, Antnio Guterres.

"If we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe. But, as today's report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses. I count on government leaders and all stakeholders to ensure COP26 is a success."

"The IPCC report underscores the overwhelming urgency of this moment," U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said in a statement. "The world must come together before the ability to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is out of reach."

Emissions "unequivocally caused by human activities" have pushed today's average global temperature 1.1C higher than the preindustrial average -- and would have pushed it 0.5C further if not for the tempering effect of pollution in the atmosphere, the report says.

That means that, as societies transition away from fossil fuels, much of the aerosols in the air would vanish -- and temperatures could spike.

Scientists warn that warming more than 1.5C above the preindustrial average could trigger runaway climate change with catastrophic impacts, such as heat so intense that crops fail or people die just from being outdoors.

https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-change-ipcc-report/un-sounds-clarion-call-over-irreversible-climate-impacts-by-humans-idUSL1N2PF0BD

[multigraincracker]

1. Back in 1961 I was 12 years old and decided I wouldn't

bring any kids into this screwed up would and I stuck to it.

[tecelote]

2. I understand the sentiment. I thought the same for years but, late in life had kids.

Not only are they the best thing to ever happen to me, but I believe they will be part of the solution.

Many kids today know that they are the ones that need to change the way we live. They're up to it. They are our best hope.

[Javaman]

33. I made the same choice a decade later.

I'm glad I stuck to it as well.

I watch my friends have kids and just wonder.

once (about 6 years ago) we had a long discussion about their kids future. they were talking which college to go to, etc.

I bluntly said to them, "your child will need survival skills for things we don't even know about yet. but to start off with: weapons training (i'm very antigun BTW), close combat martial arts, how to grow food with little water, how to survive in hot wet bulb weather, and learn to speak Spanish at least if not also Chinese.

They looked at me like I was crazy.

[multigraincracker]

36. I really had a different reason.

My friend and myself were playing swords with dads, custom made, bamboo fly rod and broke it. He didn't say a word, but I saw a tear in his. The only time in my life I ever saw that. I was sure that would come back to me with my kids. By the time I was old enough to have kids, it became a more timely and for the reasons we are talking about now.

I love kids and take my friends kids fishing and spoil them.

[Champp]

3. Republicans have earned major responsibility for this

Republican greed sucks. Bigly.

[Lancero]

4. Hardly Republican greed. Even when Democrats are in charge...

We take token measures, at best, because apparently making the hard - But very much so necessary - choices needed to prevent environmental collapse isn't worth doing because it costs us votes.

One party doesn't care about the planet. One party isn't willing to stand up for the planet. One bares responsibility for their actions, the other their inaction.

As far as the environment is concerned, we're all guilty of destroying it.

[Dial H For Hero]

6. For that matter, China's greenhouses emissions are over twice that of the US.

It’s quite understandable; they look at the West and see a lifestyle directly related to energy consumption and want it for themselves. And who can blame them?oo

[Pinback]

8. Good points.

I have long been frustrated that climate action is regarded as a political liability for Dems because of short-term transactional mentality and large donors’ priorities. And besides, who else are the tree-huggers gonna vote for?

Humans — and Americans in particular — are quite capable of ignoring urgent signals, especially when aided by widespread propaganda campaigns telling them there’s nothing to see. And when money is more important than life itself (well, more important than the lives of us plebeians, at least), it’s challenging to get people to focus on the changes that are so urgently needed.

The Biden administration is doing more than we’ve seen in the past, and as voters exert more pressure for meaningful action (and as real events demonstrate the obvious devastation of climate change), there is still a chance to make the necessary changes before it’s too late.

[Champp]

24. Republicans have lied about it systematically, just as they lie about Covid

So I'm sticking with oily Republican greed and lies as Major Drivers. Dems complicit, yes, but there are degrees of wrongheaded idiocy, and the Republicans are the fugging CHAMPS.

[Hortensis]

44. Lancero, lack of commitment among voters is why Democrats

in office have usually lacked the power to make the big changes we all want. Not always, but too often.

The weakness you decry is in the electorate, and sadly, as you say, we can't blame that all on Republicans, who tend to be very strong in their beliefs. To take strong climate action, enough people have to give more than usually weak, sporadic, not always even "token" support.

Btw, sounds like you probably don't know, but professionals in the environmental sciences, and others who want to make a bigger difference through government, run as Democrats (gee, why I wonder?) and there are a bunch of them in office right now.

[bronxiteforever]

20. +100 The GOP doesn't believe in climate change science

Their denials and attacks on scientists were and still are a major stumbling block to our survival.
But hey they had a snowball

[Javaman]

34. we are all to blame.

while repukes continually throw their bodies in front of any climate change legislation, we have known this was going to be an issue for at least 50 years.

we all continue to use gas cars, we all still buy plastic crap, we all want things right now.

we here in the U.S. have 5% of the world population yet use 25% of the worlds resources.

unless you live in a cabin in the woods with no plumbing or electricity of any kind, you contribute to this problem one way or another, no matter how good you want to convince yourself that you are about the environment.

[jaxexpat]

5. Lay that graph along side one showing world population growth.

Global warming will never be stopped or even slowed down without the reduction of human birthrates to pre-industrial levels. That means that of the existing population, only a small set of humans (about 1 billion of the current 8 billion) would reproduce at all.

So if you're serious about the future or about climate change, tie those tubes. Consider it a vaccination against extinction

[Duppers]

12. Absolutely!

This is why my only child has decided to never have children.

[jaxexpat]

15. Now, to get her 7 Billion friends to also forego parenthood.

[Duppers]

16. My only offspring is my son.

And I agree with you.

[Backseat Driver]

31. Are you also advocating for deliberate life-long celibacy?

https://americanpregnancy.org/unplanned-pregnancy/birth-control-pills-patches-and-devices/birth-control-failure/

Didn't work out very well for growing the Shaker sect even though these folks were hard-working, creative, and productive.

[jaxexpat]

39. Call it whatever you want.

I'm just saying that if we want a living planet we're going to need to lose 5-6 Billion human inhabitants ASAP. I guess I'm thinking attrition is the most "humane" means to accomplish that. The problem is, perhaps, people who distract from the factual approach to real problems with trivial drama and distractions more suitable for people without a care in the world. I am, of course, talking about mass sterilization of 7 out of 8 people across the entire planet within the next 5 years. Anything less is a waste of effort. If we don't get down to 1 billion inhabitants over the next 50 years it's over forever, folks.

In answer to the first question: Are you seriously asking such a question of a neo-paganist, born-again Methodist?

Oh, and the very concept of "growing" anything, except for edible foods, is a concept that will need to totally disappear from the human mindscape if there's to be any success in survival of the species. You're not going to "grow" a: family, business, party, religion, legacy, philosophy, industry, support group, etc. You're going to shrink everything that leaves a human footprint over the whole planet. And do so intentionally. The only question here-to-fore unanswered is, "how many years too late will we be in doing this?"

[Pinback]

22. Adoption doesn't create any more births.

Just sayin’.

[Jetheels]

30. They should offer paid non-maternity leave.......a paid month off every year you don't have a baby.

You know, perks for single people or for those of us who have decided not to produce offspring.

[Javaman]

35. both covid and climate change will take care of the population

when major areas of the world experience continuous wetbulb conditions, there will be massive climate migrations and deaths.

the next major world war won't just be about water, it will be about arable farm land.

crops will dwindle as the major produce farm land vanishes to lack of water, forest fires and drought.

the earth will eventually heal aka made livable for humans (which will take about 2000 years with a greatly reduced world population), but in reality, the earth doesn't give a shit about us. The earth will continue to turn and I hope whatever replaces humans, because something will, will have learned from our stupidity.

[RVN VET71]

40. Population will either spontaneously control itself

or there will be genocidal wars of dimensions too horrid to consider, wars that will by their very nature, scar the already tattered and beaten earth to leave the survivors fighting for scraps of land and puddles of water.

Forced celibacy won’t work. Even massive sterilization efforts won’t work. Hell, for that matter even warfare can't make a noticeable dent in the population of the planet -- and that population typically explodes once again following even the most brutal of wars -- witness the so-called “baby-boomer” generation

So either there will be a “natural” trimming back of the population, accompanying the “unnatural” trimming caused by the climate debacle we are already seeing in the melting of the polar ice and burnings of the forests, or the population will continue to grow and ultimately exceed the limits of the earth to provide it sustenance. We all need food and water to live. So what happens when there are more of us than there is water and food to feed us all? What happens at that point is the stuff of science fiction and horror movies.

Sadly, the road the human race is on today is not likely to leave much of anything when it has finally killed itself off. Maybe microbial life in the rising seas. It may evolve into something resembling -- or exceeding -- intelligence, but there will be nothing left of human existence for that new intelligent life to learn anything from.

The bitter pill in all of this, the bitterest of bitter pills, is that had mankind been a species ruled by reason -- instead of a species “capable of reason” who often just ignored its capability -- things could have been so different, even glorious.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Commentary on RealClimate, a blog run by major climate scientists

1. Extremes: Back in 2012, the literature assessed by AR5 connecting changes in extremes to climate change was scant. As we wrote at the time, attribution of single events was difficult and experimental. But as was exemplified by the recent reaction to the PNW heatwave, things have moved on considerably. This has allowed the IPCC authors to produce regional assessments of past changes in heat extremes, intense precipitation and agricultural/ecological drought in drying regions (see below for a discussion on what that means), and produce assessed projections of a whole suite of what they call Climate-impact Drivers (CIDs) – which includes floods, marine heatwaves etc. People who (even a couple of weeks ago) were quoting the AR5 statements on extremes as if that was current are going to have to update their talking points (that is, of course, if they care about correctly reflecting the most up-to-date science…).
...

2. Sea Level Rise: The previous IPCC reports, notably AR4 and AR5 (to a lesser extent), have had a hard time dealing with SLR. This has been due to multiple issues, including a historical lack of comprehensive literature to assess, very uncertain observations of ice sheets, and difficultlies in blending different lines of evidence. In this report they’ve tried much harder to put the data together more coherently, there is more evidence, and they haven’t shied away from being explicit about the low-likelihood/high-impact possibilities (mostly associated with a collapse of WAIS). Literally, the sea level projection runs off the page… (Stefan will have a more detailed assessment later).

3. Use, Abuse and Misuse of the CMIP6 ensemble: I’ll discuss this in more detail in another post, but I want to commend the IPCC authors for dealing with the increased spread in the CMIP6 ensemble climate sensitivity in two very sensible ways. Firstly, the use constrained projections for all the temperature (and sea level) time series out to 2100 allows them to downweight (effectively to zero) the high (and low) ECS models that are outside of the assessed range (note this would not have made much (if any) difference in CMIP5). Secondly, they choose to focus on the patterns of change, not for certain time-periods, but for specific “Global Warming Levels” (GWLs). That is to say, what the expected pattern of rainfall (for instance) might be when the global mean temperature reaches 1.5ºC, or 2ºC or 4ºC etc. This allows them to include all the models (including good models with improved climatologies that happen to have high ECS like the NCAR CESM2 or the HadGEM3 models). Additionally, the GWL impacts plots neatly divorce the limited scenarios that were used in CMIP6 from the ability to assess impacts. Thus if policy-makers or others want to explore the impacts of other scenarios that might reach specific warming levels earlier or later than any one of the SSPs, they can do so easily, without having to rerun the models.

...

5. Droughts and floods are complicated: The picture on droughts and floods is more complicated than most people think. First, there is a great deal of regional variation, second the historical metrics we use to assess drought (such as the Palmer Drought Severity Index) don’t perform very well in a changing climate, and third the attribution of meteorological or agricultural or ecological drought varies as well. Analyses that average over too wide an area, or that look at the wrong metrics, will come to erroneous conclusions. The IPCC authors went to a lot of trouble to disentangle this and the assessment in Fig. SPM3 of evidence for observed drought changes focuses specifically on agricultural and ecological drought (based on soil moisture), as opposed to hydrological drought (runoff) or meteorological drought (based on rainfall). This is because we don’t see strong attribution in total rainfall amounts, but we do in evaporative demand (which depends on temperature). Thus when we have a longterm precipitation anomaly (such as in the American South West (WNA in the hexagon plot above)), we can’t (yet) attribute the rainfall change, but we can attribute the soil moisture change. Floods are also complicated because they too don’t solely depend on a single factor (such as intense precipitation) – but instead are a function of prior state of soil moisture, water management practices and other hyper-local effects. Work here will continue to advance, but the picture is clear only in a few regions so far.

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/ar6-of-the-best/

Also:

We are not reaching 1.5ºC earlier than previously thought

In this latest AR6, a more comprehensive assessment was undertaken to estimate when a warming level of 1.5℃ might be reached. As a result, some early media reports suggest 1.5ºC warming is now anticipated 10-years earlier than previously assumed (AFR, THE TIMES).

We want to explain here why that is not backed up by a rigorous comparison of the SR1.5 and AR6 reports. In fact, the science in the previous SR1.5 report and the new AR6 report are remarkably consistent.

In a very low emission scenario (i.e. the so-called SSP1-1.9 scenario), our best estimate of when 1.5ºC warming might be reached in the AR6 report is around 2034.5 (the year on which the 20-year period 2025-2044 is centred, as stated in Table 4.5 of that report). In SR1.5 the comparable estimate was 2035 (stated in Table 2.SM.12 of Chapter 2 in the report’s underlying material). These two dates are exactly the same within rounding.
...
In summary, when apples are compared to apples (i.e. best estimates of scenario-based exceedance times), then the SR1.5 and AR6 provide remarkably consistent numbers: 2034.5 versus 2035. Such a remarkably robust scientific finding is boring to report on, so expect a few headlines in the media that compare apples and oranges. Luckily, a rigorous approval process is sensitive to such issues, which is why now a rather powerful footnote accompanies these findings:

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/08/we-are-not-reaching-1-5oc-earlier-than-previously-thought/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=we-are-not-reaching-1-5oc-earlier-than-previously-thought

[bucolic_frolic]

9. Reminder: The anti-vax, anti-mask guys are also the climate change denial guys

and they believe in bamboo ballots, reinstatement, and violent tourists.

It began with Reagan. "Trees cause pollution" he told us.

[jaxexpat]

19. Ah yes. Those days of youthful exuberance when trees caused pollution.

The "Morning in America" moments of yore. The days when the religious right tripped over themselves to vote for an agnostic fraud and self-delusional know-nothing as commander and chief for his second term over the son of a Methodist minister from Minnesota. "Because god says he's more Christian", at least that's what I heard from the pulpit of a Pentecostal church in August 1984. I expect about 90% of that gap toothed congregation obeyed dutifully.

[bucolic_frolic]

21. When I had allergies my Republican doctor told me "trees cause pollution"

It became the inside skinny that 'only Republicans get real doctoring in this town'.

[jaxexpat]

23. That's funny. In a sad and despondent sort of way.

[Magoo48]

10. World efforts, including ours, are tantamount to doing nothing in light of what is needed.

Sadly, because greed and the dominance of wealth based, extraction, vulture economic models which the morbidly-rich support, we’re fucked, and our next generations are left holding the bag. Good lucks kids; you’re gonna need it.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

11. Brought to you by the most selfish, self-centered people who ever lived.

Republicans.

These are the same people who have no sense of community, either local, national or global. For them it's always "Me! Me! Me!" Because of them the pandemic is going to last another year, and possibly longer. It's too late to keep the world from burning up from global warming -- and their children and grandchildren will suffer because of their arrogance.

Now I understand why the MAGAts look at TFG as a god.

[LymphocyteLover]

14. Repubs are a huge part of the problem but still way too many people just don't care or

don't take it seriously or just worry about the short-term effect on the economy etc

[LymphocyteLover]

13. CLIMATE ACTION NOW!!!!

[Miguelito Loveless]

17. It should now be legal for those of us who tried to warn these people

to slap the deniers silly.

[marie999]

18. Almost nothing is going to be done by humans to even slow down climate change.

The only thing that will work is a pandemic that kills at least 6 billion people in the next 10 years.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

26. Pretty much what I'm thinking as well ... though -3B people

should probably do the trick as long it's not only the 3B poorest people ...

[Javaman]

37. the interesting thing is

if it is the 3B poorest people who die, the worlds economy (aside from obvious reasons) will collapse, because the wealthy will have no one to do their work.

and the concept of "wealth" will change dramatically.

[Marthe48]

25. Humans too smart for their own good

We'll just merrily skip into oblivion because it was easier and more convenient for us. God forbid we think about the havoc we've wreaked.

But after we annihilate ourselves, the planet will recover somewhat, and continue on its path.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

27. Could take a very long time though, all this carbon we ripped from the ground

took many many millions of years to be sequestered their the first time.

Not to mention the mass extinction of species that's going to occur.

Not sure it's going to be as bad as the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs (and a LOT of other species) but it'll be pretty damn significant.

Unless of course the situation devolves to global nuclear war.

[olddad65]

28. The planet will recover....once humans are extinct.

[Bayard]

29. Humans are like an infection on Mother Earth

She's reaching the point where she will rise up and shake us off.

[ananda]

32. So how many Republicans will read, much less heed, this report?

How many could you fit on the head of a pin?

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. In my experience, the deniers will paint the scientists as 'biased'

and say that, since there are fossil fuel advocates who say it's fine to pump more CO2 in the air, then some kind of independent body is needed to examine the claims and see which is right. They will paint this as "taking the necessary action", and say it's too soon to make any changes in out behaviour before this new comparison is complete. Ignoring, of course, that the IPCC is the independent body, created over 30 years ago, to examine and summarize the evidence.

A more specific example is the Berkeley Earth project:

Berkeley Earth is a Berkeley, California-based independent 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on land temperature data analysis for climate science. Berkeley Earth was founded in early 2010 (originally called the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project) with the goal of addressing the major concerns from outside the scientific community regarding global warming and the instrumental temperature record. The project's stated aim was a "transparent approach, based on data analysis." In February 2013, Berkeley Earth became an independent non-profit. In August 2013, Berkeley Earth was granted 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status by the US government. The primary product is air temperatures over land, but they also produce a global dataset resulting from a merge of their land data with HadSST.

Berkeley Earth founder Richard A. Muller told The Guardian

...we are bringing the spirit of science back to a subject that has become too argumentative and too contentious, ....we are an independent, non-political, non-partisan group. We will gather the data, do the analysis, present the results and make all of it available. There will be no spin, whatever we find. We are doing this because it is the most important project in the world today. Nothing else comes close.

Berkeley Earth has been funded by unrestricted educational grants totaling (as of December 2013) about $1,394,500. Large donors include Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (FICER), and the William K. Bowes Jr. Foundation. The donors have no control over how Berkeley Earth conducts the research or what they publish.

The team's preliminary findings, data sets and programs were published beginning in December 2012. The study addressed scientific concerns including urban heat island effect, poor station quality, and the risk of data selection bias. The Berkeley Earth group concluded that the warming trend is real, that over the past 50 years (between the decades of the 1950s and 2000s) the land surface warmed by 0.91±0.05 °C, and their results mirror those obtained from earlier studies carried out by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Hadley Centre, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Surface Temperature Analysis, and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. The study also found that the urban heat island effect and poor station quality did not bias the results obtained from these earlier studies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth

The deniers were at first cock-a-hoop that a physicist was going to examine the raw data - now, they said, someone who really knows what he's doing would debunk the hysteria. Muller's findings were that all the existing climate scientists had been performing good science, and their results were reliable. So the deniers denounced their previous hero:

For example, when the study team was announced, Anthony Watts, a climate change denialist blogger who popularized several of the issues addressed by the Berkeley Earth group study, expressed full confidence in the team's methods:

I'm prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong. ... [T]he method isn't the madness that we've seen from NOAA, NCDC, GISS, and CRU, and, there aren't any monetary strings attached to the result that I can tell. ... That lack of strings attached to funding, plus the broad mix of people involved especially those who have previous experience in handling large data sets gives me greater confidence in the result being closer to a bona fide ground truth than anything we've seen yet.

— Anthony Watts

When the initial results were released, and found to support the existing consensus, the study was widely decried by deniers. Watts spoke to The New York Times, which wrote: "Mr. Watts ... contended that the study's methodology was flawed because it examined data over a 60-year period instead of the 30-year-one that was the basis for his research and some other peer-reviewed studies. He also noted that the report had not yet been peer-reviewed and cited spelling errors as proof of sloppiness." Steven Mosher, a co-author of a book critical of climate scientists, also disapproved saying that the study still lacked transparency. He said: "I'm not happy until the code is released and released in a language that people can use freely." Stephen McIntyre, editor of Climate Audit, a climato-skeptics blog, said that "the team deserves credit for going back to the primary data and doing the work" and even though he had not had an opportunity to read the papers in detail, he questioned the analyses of urban heating and weather station quality.

[Kablooie]

41. It's frustrating that they always use Celsius. To Americans 1.5C sounds like nothing.

But 35F might get someone's attention.

101.5 degrees is nothing unusual

135 degrees is oven cooking temperature.

With the abysmal ignorance of so many Americans, information has to be tailored to their level if it has any chance of getting through.

[muriel_volestrangler]

42. Michael Mann: The Climate Crisis Is Here, But There's Still Time to Limit the Damage

Two decades ago, the so-called “hockey stick” curve, published by my co-authors and me in 1999, was featured in the all-important “summary for policy makers” (or “SPM”) of the 2001 Third IPCC Assessment report. The curve, which depicts temperature variations over the past 1,000 years based on “proxy” records such as tree rings, corals, and ice cores, showed the upward spiking of modern temperatures (the “blade”) as it dramatically ascends, during the industrial era, upward from the “handle” that describes the modest, slightly downward steady trend that preceded it.
...
The new report also suggests that the recent warming is not only unprecedented over the past two millennia, but possibly, the past hundred millennia—let that sink in. As the IPCC report lays bare, we are engaged in a truly unprecedented and fundamentally dangerous experiment with the one planet we know that can support us and all other known life.
...
It’s possible to turn the ship around, but it won’t be easy. The IPCC has determined that planetary warming of 1.5°C (and possibly even 2°C) will be exceeded in a matter of decades “unless deep reductions in carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.” That means we must reduce our carbon pollution from transportation, electricity and other sectors here in the U.S., and around the world. Climate change will be costly and disruptive, but it’s not yet beyond our capacity to adapt.

President Joe Biden’s pledge to halve U.S. carbon emissions within a decade and decarbonize the electricity sector entirely by 2035 goes a long way toward that goal. But it must be followed through with action. The bipartisan infrastructure package working its way through congress is, at best, a damp squib from a climate standpoint. That places a lot of pressure on the prospective $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that Biden, congressional Democrats (with one or two possible exceptions), and the American people overwhelmingly support.

https://time.com/6088531/ipcc-climate-report-hockey-stick-curve/

And that means pressure from the constituents of those "one or two possible exceptions". Please help save the world, Arizona and West Virginia.

[LiberatedUSA]

45. Highway To Hell comes to mind. N/t