Let's take stock of the opinions and understanding on the subject matter.
Personally;
I think it's a problem that's been understated. A conservative scientific body has largely provided us with a pretty muted understanding of the speed of change - new reports consistently exceed old target thresholds.
Moreover, multiple tipping points are a reality - we've already tripped over a few - and as the situation worsens, we accelerate into the other tipping points.
Global political economic response is slower then even the conservative targets set decades earlier would've wanted it to be - and there's continued political obfuscation. There's too much diffusion of responsibility. And not enough political will to take the kind of actions we really need to take to reduce the issue.
Moreover, the way the whole system works - it only dissipates so much carbon per annum. We've long exceeded the amount it can dissipate, so we're adding carbon into the atmosphere... and that additional carbon will continue to trap and intensify the heating issue. Moreover, the dissipation rate is dropping; we've filled up the ocean's ability to drain away the carbon, and we're destroying the trees that we need to sink this carbon, contributing towards a run away acceleration.
I think there's a non-trivial chance... probably in the 10-20% range, that we will confirm within the century that we are on our way to unstoppable positive feedback loop that will stabilize once the conditions of our planet are closer to Venus than it is to present day Earth.
I think we'll be lucky if we end this century with the death of a billion to two billion people - after accounting for the famine, disasters, displacement, economic upheaval that the knock on effects of climate change will deal us.
But what really gets me about all of it... is that we could've had a better and healthier economy and environment if we hadn't made a few key political-economic missteps.
1. The use of GDP as the standard for global development... Simon Kuznets, the guy that came up with it warned that it was a narrow accounting indicator - not a total welfare indicator.
2. The demonization of nuclear power - the alternative of continued coal power propogation reduced potential energy growth, while increasing radioactive waste per kilowatt hour... it's the most insane and myopic thing.
3. Economically accounted for externalities - at least then the free market could've been properly motivated to not give a shit.
4. Corn subsidies and the populization of beef products - ok so that shit is tasty... but there's so much other good stuff on this planet, it's just so senseless that we destroy so much of it for such marginal amounts of utility. It's not even the tastiest meat. Most people would prefer chicken over beef if you gave them the option of one or the other.
My only hope is that by the time we experience climate change induced shocks that galvanizes immediate global action, that we haven't tipped over the tipping point that makes continued escalating warming an inevitability.
Maybe the accelerating nature of technology will allow us to do some truly miraculous things - claw back the green house gases already in the atmosphere, draw back the acidity and carbon in the oceans, restore life.
More likely, the accelerating nature of technology... will allow us to burrow underground and setup the goddamn matrix.
Personally;
I think it's a problem that's been understated. A conservative scientific body has largely provided us with a pretty muted understanding of the speed of change - new reports consistently exceed old target thresholds.
Moreover, multiple tipping points are a reality - we've already tripped over a few - and as the situation worsens, we accelerate into the other tipping points.
Global political economic response is slower then even the conservative targets set decades earlier would've wanted it to be - and there's continued political obfuscation. There's too much diffusion of responsibility. And not enough political will to take the kind of actions we really need to take to reduce the issue.
Moreover, the way the whole system works - it only dissipates so much carbon per annum. We've long exceeded the amount it can dissipate, so we're adding carbon into the atmosphere... and that additional carbon will continue to trap and intensify the heating issue. Moreover, the dissipation rate is dropping; we've filled up the ocean's ability to drain away the carbon, and we're destroying the trees that we need to sink this carbon, contributing towards a run away acceleration.
I think there's a non-trivial chance... probably in the 10-20% range, that we will confirm within the century that we are on our way to unstoppable positive feedback loop that will stabilize once the conditions of our planet are closer to Venus than it is to present day Earth.
I think we'll be lucky if we end this century with the death of a billion to two billion people - after accounting for the famine, disasters, displacement, economic upheaval that the knock on effects of climate change will deal us.
But what really gets me about all of it... is that we could've had a better and healthier economy and environment if we hadn't made a few key political-economic missteps.
1. The use of GDP as the standard for global development... Simon Kuznets, the guy that came up with it warned that it was a narrow accounting indicator - not a total welfare indicator.
2. The demonization of nuclear power - the alternative of continued coal power propogation reduced potential energy growth, while increasing radioactive waste per kilowatt hour... it's the most insane and myopic thing.
3. Economically accounted for externalities - at least then the free market could've been properly motivated to not give a shit.
4. Corn subsidies and the populization of beef products - ok so that shit is tasty... but there's so much other good stuff on this planet, it's just so senseless that we destroy so much of it for such marginal amounts of utility. It's not even the tastiest meat. Most people would prefer chicken over beef if you gave them the option of one or the other.
My only hope is that by the time we experience climate change induced shocks that galvanizes immediate global action, that we haven't tipped over the tipping point that makes continued escalating warming an inevitability.
Maybe the accelerating nature of technology will allow us to do some truly miraculous things - claw back the green house gases already in the atmosphere, draw back the acidity and carbon in the oceans, restore life.
More likely, the accelerating nature of technology... will allow us to burrow underground and setup the goddamn matrix.
