Is climate change already dangerous?

[GliderGuider]

Here is an excellent overview of the current climate situation, with special attention paid to feedback mechanisms. Written by David Spratt of Climate Code Red.

Is climate change already dangerous?

This science survey measures the current manifestations and impacts of climate change against the "safe boundaries" metric; surveys the literature on tipping points and non-linear climate events; and provides a detail study of significant recent events in the Arctic.

Three big questions are asked and answered:

• Is climate change dangerous for just the current increase in global temperature?
  
• Is climate change dangerous for the further increases in temperature already implied by the current level of greenhouse gases?
  
• By looking at events in climate history where greenhouse gas levels were similar to today, can further light be shone on the "already dangerous" question?

The answers are both shocking, and necessary, if climate policy-making is to escape the delusional paradigm within which it is stuck.

In a concluding section, this report argues that with clear evidence that climate change is already dangerous, we are in an emergency and face "…an unavoidably radical future". And we know from past experience that societies, once in emergency mode, are capable of facing up to and solving seemingly impossible problems.

It's definitely worth reading the 23 page PDF: http://www.scribd.com/doc/168483927/Already-Dangerous-1

[redstatebluegirl]

1. I would say so!

3 F4 tornadoes in Oklahoma in a month and now Colorado flooding! Of course our illustrious Senator thinks it is a myth, but most of the educated population of Oklahoma doesn't agree.

[arcane1]

4. Adding billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere in a few decades isn't "geophysical evolution"

[NickB79]

7. As George Carlin used to say

"The Earth will be fine; it's the people who are fucked."

Of course the planet itself will still be here a million years from now, with all sorts of new species of plants and animals repopulating it once the current mass extinction event we've kicked off has run it's course. In the long term, the planet and the biosphere will sort itself out like it always has.

It's the short term that's the problem, because we and our descendents have to figure out a way to get through it. The truth is that, in a 4C warmer world, most of us and our descendents simply WON'T be making it through.

In my mind, I have a mental image of a couple of dinosaurs watching the asteroid impact 65 million years ago, and one says to the other "Asteroid impacts have been happening for billions of years before dinosaurs came around, whats' the problem now?"

[adirondacker]

8. you get 1 credit for spelling geophysical correctly! congratulations!

[Th1onein]

12. Why don't you ask the people in Colorado?

You know, the ones who lost their families and their homes in the recent floods?

[pscot]

3. maybe that pdf could be produced as a comic book

and put in every mailbox on the planet

[phantom power]

5. like Chick tracts for climate

except everybody goes to hell, without dying.

[GliderGuider]

9. Ooh! That stung.

Nice shot!

[pscot]

11. Exactly. Except we might want to

finesse that aspect; or better, use it. You can only be saved through climate action. Hell is for skeptics and deniers. Cleaning your solar panels is a sacrament. I'll personally script the one where Jim Inhofe roasts on a griddle.

[n2doc]

6. Ask a Syrian Farmer n/t

[hatrack]

10. Or a property owner in Big Thompson Canyon . . .

nt

[CRH]

13. Yes, with what we are seeing an .8*C above pre industrial times, ...

the much touted 2*C level will be very dangerous, not just for the storms, and droughts, but the disruption of agricultural and social order as well. At 2*C I think we will see the beginning of human migrations impacting communities, infrastructure repairs will be constant on state and national levels, and food to the market and the global grain stores will begin to falter. That so many still cling to 2*C is safe, is telling.

[GliderGuider]

14. What choice do they have but to cling, at this point?

Especially if they're some of the people who "stand in the doorway, and block up the hall" in the words of Bob Dylan. Admitting that one has helped fuck over an entire planet must be pretty hard on the soul. So they cling and deny, deny and cling. Rinse, lather, repeat.

The times they are a-changin'.

[CRH]

15. Highly recommended to read the entire paper. n/t

[CRH]

16. What do all of the people and organizations listed below, ...

have in common with the author of this article, David Spratt of Climate Code Red

Dr. Tim Lenton University of Exeter

Professor Will Steffen - Australian Climate Commissioner

Dr. Seymour Laxon- Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, University College London

Professor Carlos Duarte - Director of University of WA's Oceans Institute

Dr. Mark Serreze - Director of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre

Professor Peter Wadhams - Cambridge University and the Catlin Arctic Survey

Dr James Hansen - former NASA climate research chief

Glaciologist Jason Box - as quoted from Goldenberg, 2012

Researchers Celia Bitz and Philippe Ciais - both with peer reviewed papers

Kevin Anderson - Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

Alice Bows - Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

~~ None of the above believe the arbitrary bench mark of 2*C global mean temperature rise above the pre industrial level when the atmosphere was near 280 ppm CO2, is a safe level.

All of the above and their published research, have allowed David Spratt to form the conclusions of this paper.

The 2*C benchmark was set by politicians controlling the IPCC process and reports, not the scientists. Over the years the 2*C level has assumed a relevance not supported by peer review. The IPCC solutions (pathways) have been molded around, political whim.

[Nihil]

17. The politicians (and their owning corporations) do the same every time.

> The 2*C benchmark was set by politicians controlling the IPCC process
> and reports, not the scientists.
> The IPCC solutions (pathways) have been molded around, political whim.

Expect the same watering-down and delaying tactics for the next IPCC report,
and the next, and the next ...

Gotta feed those stock options and cash them before the real price tag becomes
widely known ...