Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds
Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.
Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating above preindustrial levels, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit will be met.
Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.
Numerous experts said they had been left feeling hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided.
My favorite part was when corporations lied their asses off to the entire world for over 50 years while simultaneously telling is this is all our fault but if we recycled and didn’t use too much water, gas, or electricity we could undo the harm that we were personally responsible for.
Me too, thanks. I love a good gaslighting
I’m rather fond of the part where they admitted to those lies, and the US didn’t force them to pay restitutions equal to the cost of mitigating the damage they’ve caused.
In 2068, I’m sure some entrepreneurial politician will run on the “Prosecute the oil companies!” platform, long after a bunch of them have gone bankrupt and all the damage has long since been irreparably done.
Until then, we just need to keep looking for the Least Bad politician (the guy who has one hand out to fossil fuel and another to privatized wind/solar) rather than the guy who insists wind farms spread COVID with 5g, and hope we don’t live long enough to reap the whirlwind.
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Alright time for corporations to take responsibility and shut down all of their emissions. No more new cars, or gasoline for existing cars, or oil, or meat, a lot of the electrical grid is coming down, construction is halted, no more deliveries or shipping.
We are so fucked unless we force “all” the big corporations to pay for the pollution they caused while making trillions in profit over the decades they polluted and hid the scientific knowledge showing climate change. And even then,if we stop polluting right now, we still might not Make it as a civilisation.
Yeah just throw money at the carbon dioxide to make it go away
You say this sarcastically like it’s not really an option
China is the world’s biggest polluter in absolute terms
All includes China I’d think
They would never accept those terms
Even if China literally just never prouced another gram of CO2 ever, we’d have the same problem slightly later. We really do all need to take part, especially those of us in countries that produce more carbon per person. China produces about as much per person as Europe does, but that’s still way too much
Not really, because we’d transition to EVs and solar quickly enough that we wouldn’t increase the global temperature
It’s easy to point the finger at China when so many products the western world consumes is manufactured there.
To be fair, China actually does emit about as much per capita as Europe when measuring by consumption nowadays. Unfortunately that just means both are way too high, and several other major economies are even worse
Absolutely not. If we look back since the Industrial Revolution the US are, closely followed by Europe and then China.
We can’t change the industrial revolution emissions
Somebody better tell the climate that, because so far it hasn’t been respecting national borders, kinda unfair tbh. I mean, as long as we’re not the literal worst by one or two statistics, we shouldn’t bear any of the consequences of our actions, right? Until we can teach physics about global politics and bullshitting with statistics, though, maybe we should all focus on doing whatever we can to reduce the effects of climate change.
yeah and for sure that pollution china is making is all for domestic uses so its all on them /s
I dont understand, everyone bought bigger SUV’s and it didnt help
Anyone who hasn’t had their head up their ass has been aware of this. Life will be extremely shitty by the mid century. If you haven’t made the horrible choice to reproduce, be sure that you don’t. There will be no future worth living for those born today.
not sure about no future but certainly a shitier one all around. but yeah I don’t know how anyone is not aware that 1.5 is a long past pipe dream at this point.
But for a brief period of history we made a few people even more disgustingly rich than ever, so it’s totally worth the climate catastrophe and of course economic ruin to come in the next few decades.
Guess who is trying to deep-six EVs?
This is no longer a sigpost on the way to oblivion, but a giant neon billboard in our living room. violent explosion shit! The billboard exploded and set our house on fire… Better blame some Arsonists
The only chance we have that I see is the rapid development of fusion into a proper, usable power source, the supplantation of effectively all carbon emitting power plants with non-emitting plants (fusion or otherwise), the effectively complete electrification of the global commercial transport system, and a massive scaling of production direct carbon capture, leveraging the various aforementioned non-carbon emitting electricity sources to make it happen.
The only chance we have that I see is the rapid development of fusion into a proper, usable power source,
Fusion is a marketing story to distract the attention. It is so difficult to realize a practical commercial fusion technology that it will not be available this century for sure.
In any case as I explained in the other comment the root cause is overpopulation. Solving the energy problems might mitigate for a while the situation, but it will not solve the situation. Famines, conflicts and mass migration will happen anyway.
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Yep.
Our experts estimate that the various societies on Earth have a 96% chance of solving the Great Filter using humanity’s great superpower of technological innovation, but paradoxically only a 3 to 7.5% chance of successfully implementing the necessary societal and political changes before complete extinction.
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