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Page added on September 10, 2010
SciAm: How Much Global Warming Is Guaranteed
All the world’s power plants, vehicles and factories that presently exist may not emit enough carbon dioxide to cause catastrophic climate change
Humanity has yet to reach the point of no return when it comes to catastrophic climate change, according to new calculations. If we content ourselves with the existing fossil-fuel infrastructure we can hold greenhouse gas concentrations below 450 parts per million in the atmosphere and limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels—both common benchmarks for international efforts to avoid the worst impacts of ongoing climate change—according to a new analysis in the September 10 issue ofScience. The bad news is we are adding more fossil-fuel infrastructure—oil-burning cars, coal-fired powerplants, industrial factories consuming natural gas—every day.
More at Scientific American
2 Comments on "SciAm: How Much Global Warming Is Guaranteed"
Edpeak on Sun, 12th Sep 2010 11:09 am
When they say “If we content ourselves with the existing fossil-fuel infrastructure we can hold greenhouse gas concentrations below 450 parts per million in the atmosphere and limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels—both common benchmarks..”
they forget to tell us that there is a lot of scientific evidence that those two are not compatible: that 450ppm is NOT enough to keep us under 2 degrees (Celsius, which is 3.6 degrees F) of warming…
But the worst is:
People will not read carefully and will think we’re not near “any bothersome effects”
If they read more carefully they will see we are not yet at “catastrophic” effects
And a very careful reading is that we’re not yet GUARANTEED (“point of no return”) to have a CATASTROPHIC level of global warming. That is, it’s entirely POSSIBLE just NOT YET ‘GUARANTEED” to read the CATASTROPHIC level.
Edpeak on Sun, 12th Sep 2010 11:15 am
What the Abstract actually says:
“We estimated the commitment to future emissions and warming represented by existing carbon dioxide–emitting devices. We calculated cumulative future emissions ..by existing infrastructure between 2010 and 2060, forcing mean warming of 1.3°C (1.1° to 1.4°C) above the pre-industrial era and atmospheric concentrations of CO2 less than 430 parts per million.
“Because these conditions would likely avoid many key impacts of climate change, we conclude that sources of the most threatening emissions have yet to be built. However, CO2-emitting infrastructure will expand unless extraordinary efforts are undertaken to develop alternatives.”
So it would avoid “many” key impacts…not even “most” impacts.
The way the issue is FRAMED it’s like EITHER 1) the scientists point at the things that are inevitalbe – idiot market-fundamentalists say “they are doomers, ignore them” or they say “well, it’s TOO LATE, so we might as well POLLUTE ALL WE LIKE”
or 2) the scientists say, well, “these are the additional, even-worse things, that are not yet guaranteed to happen…these things we CAN still avoid (footnote: ‘only if we very very sharply cut our pollution’) in THAT case the market fundies say “see! things ain’t so bad!” and Sci Am headlines play into the fundies and deniers and delayers who want more inaction, less protection, so more unregulated profits…unregulated industry maximizing profits NEVER causes a big mess…right? right BP..?