The latest alarm from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that all hell is going to break loose by the year 2030 if the world doesn't reduce its carbon emissions by 45%. That is predicted to be the time when we will have raised the average world temperature by 1.5 C from burning fossil fuels.
Is it even possible to meet the 45% reduction target? Yes, say these experts, if we take drastic action starting right now. We need a major conversion to electric vehicles, tremendous expansion of mass transit systems, carbon capture and sequestration for the cement and waste disposal industries, and a reversal of deforestation to make room for agriculture.
In other words, we need to stop using carbon fuels and start planting trees and crops to act as carbon sinks pronto.
Is this going to happen?
Well, right now in the U.S. we still have rapturous crowds dancing around the Coal President chanting "Lock her up! Lock her up!" In Ontario we just elected a premier whose first acts were to destroy every climate change initiative in exchange for "Buck-a-Beer!"
In other words, no, it's not going to happen. Human beings are incapable of making decisions other than those that bring them immediate gratification. Want to get elected? Promise to lower the price of gasoline.
Even if we did hold the warming to 1.5 C there will still be catastrophic changes ahead: sea level rise, extinction of many species including most of the fish in the oceans, incredible hurricanes, rainfalls that wipe out communities, crop failures, billions of refugees. But humans could still survive for the hundreds of years it will take for the carbon to come back out of the atmosphere.
The prognosis for reaching 2 C is far more dire. That is when feedback mechanisms will start clicking into place. We could end up with a runaway atmosphere like Venus which is 860 F (460 C).
There likely won't be anyone around to see that happen. We will have long since suffocated from lack of oxygen. 80 per cent of the oxygen we breathe comes from phytoplankton in the oceans. Already we have killed 40 per cent of the world's phytoplankton just from the 1+degrees C we have heated the atmosphere.
There is no time left. We either do the right thing and save life on the planet or we dance around the coal fire chanting "Lock her up!" while we toss back "Buck-a-beers."
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1 comment:
Old rich guys who profit from no action just do not care. I feel sorry for the younger generations who will have to live or die by our lack of action. Not all of us are like DT. Hope he is wearing an orange jump suit soon. Miss you guys at camp. Not the same. P&M
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