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Global Warming On Pace For 4 Degrees: World Bank Worried

iONiUM writes "From the article: 'Over the years at the U.N. climate talks, the goal has been to keep future global warming below 2C. But as those talks have faltered, emissions have kept rising, and that 2C goal is now looking increasingly out of reach. Lately, the conversation has shifted toward how to deal with 3C of warming. Or 4C. Or potentially more." Overall it seems that poorer, less developed nations will be largely impacted negatively, while some countries (like Canada and Russia) will actually experience benefits. Where does that leave the rest of the 1st world countries?"

15 of 439 comments (clear)

  1. Quick... by Synerg1y · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's invade Canada before it becomes a super power in the new "warmer" world.

    1. Re:Quick... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      25 years from now, barring amazing new desalinization technologies, Canada's water rights will be one of the biggest international policy debates in the United States. I really really want to read this post and laugh at what an idiot I was in 2037, but I think water will be a big problem soon. Imagine 2012's Midwestern drought 5 years in a row to get where I'm coming from.

    2. Re:Quick... by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why should I care about bankers. I pay attention to what scientists say.

      Look, even the Koch's are giving up the ghost. Time to face reality. The universe doesn't subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and doesn't donate money to the Heartland Institute, and it most certainly doesn't give one sweet fuck about you, I, our economic ideologies or political ideologies.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:Quick... by ArhcAngel · · Score: 5, Funny

      yet...

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    4. Re:Quick... by pclminion · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because scientists are ALWAYS correct. Hell we have hard enough time predicting the weather beyond 5 days in the future. What leads me to trust these predictions 50 years from now?

      As an analogy, think of a snow globe. Shake it up so all the pieces are swirling around. Can you predict the exact path that will be taken by each of those pieces? Not easily. Can you predict with confidence that after, say, five minutes, they will all be sitting on the bottom of the snow globe? Yes. Your inability to predict phenomenon A at timescale X has nothing to do with your ability to predict phenomenon B at timescale Y. Every time I here such an argument I can't help but think it's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

    5. Re:Quick... by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sigh.

      Okay, let's take a real world example, then: will the average temperature this winter be colder than the average temperature in the summer in the Northern Hemisphere?

      Yes. Yes it will.

      That is a statement of climate, not of weather. It's also a statement that we can make with fairly strong confidence, despite the many factors involved in modelling the climate. If you want to get more specific, like how much colder one is than the other, you have to improve the models and simulations.

      Climate science isn't voodoo. There's data to draw on, models that can be devised, and hypotheses that can be verified. Sometimes the models fail, or the hypotheses are shown to be incorrect, just like in any other field of science.

      So if a climate scientist predicts that the temperature will climb over the next 50 years given current trends and lack of action, and the result of this will be certain climactic effects--like more drought or more powerful and less predictable storms (like Sandy)--they're not just pulling this stuff out of thin air.

      There is literally no long-term downside to improving our approach to the environment. All the down-sides are short term. Even the economic benefits in the long run (or at least, the lack of economic penalties) are enormous.

    6. Re:Quick... by microbox · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You pay attention to what *some* scientists say. Follow the money.

      You say that brazenly like someone who never followed the money themselves, and knows nothing about the academic process. Mainstream science has been unequivocal since the late 70s. The well-oiled and well-funded denial machine has been operating in its modern form since the 50s.

      --

      Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
  2. The temps go higher, time-frame lower every year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1 degree over the next 100 years, 2 degrees over the next fifty years, 4 degrees over the next 25 years. Next year some "scientists" will probably be calling for a 10 degree rise within the next 10 years. Every year, I hear something that sounds less-and-less like hard science coming out of these "scientists" and more-and-more of something that sounds more akin to millennialist religious fanatics proclaiming the end of days.

    Posting AC because posting anything that even mildly questions GW will get your karma blown into the shitter.

  3. Re:Cause? by petteyg359 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who gives a crap about whether it is "natural" anymore? The overall effect is quite undesirable, so regardless of whether we're causing it, we damn well ought to be doing something to counteract it, if we care to survive.

  4. Nations? What nations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If we hit a warming of 4 degrees, you can forget about nations or countries as we know it. The civilization may well collapse. If we hit 6 degrees, say hello to the next mass extinction. "It would cause a mass extinction of almost all life and probably reduce humanity to a few struggling groups of embattled survivors clinging to life near the poles." Details on this article.

    No idea if this is change one can believe in, but it looks like a very serious change... er, problem.

  5. Re:Cause? by SirGarlon · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you want to counteract it, you kind of need to understand the root cause. However, given that there's been 90% consensus among the scientific community for more than a decade, the root cause is not really in question. At this point, posing the question of what causes climate change is code for saying, "addressing the known cause would have adverse impact on me, so I deny the known cause."

    --
    [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
  6. Re:Devil's Advocate by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Informative

    Your posting bullshit:

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998-intermediate.htm

    No folks, AGW did not stop in 1998.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  7. Re:And in the mean time US OIl production increase by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And who is buying their exports en masse, using their cheap and dirty power imputs to stock the shelves of Walmart and every other big box retailer, driving down the cost of goods? All the while, externalizing the environmental costs on all of humanity. We are drug addicts blaming the dealer. No one is blameless.

    Saying "China bad!" while buying their industrial output hand over fist, not realizing the consequences of our own actions isn't looking at the whole problem. The fix? Get off the consumption treadmill - build durable, local, and repairable. Live in walkable communities.

    We don't have a chance in hell. I live 10 kilometres from my office, but biking is risking your life - the infrastructure is car centric, sharing the narrow congested pothole filled roads with cars doing 60km plus. I then sit a a screen all day. I could telecommute, but our culture is such that it would be a bad career move, because physical presence is still oddly preferred, even though the real estate savings and productivity gains objectively make sense to a smart company.

    The fact that we can't tackle these simple changes in our communities even before getting into international treaty complexities gives me little faith.

  8. Re:The temps go higher, time-frame lower every yea by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Posting AC because posting anything that even mildly questions GW will get your karma blown into the shitter.

    I know what you mean. I can't bring up questions about spontaneous generation, Homunculus theory, or creationism without people modding me troll! It's almost as if raising arguments against the scientific consensus, arguments which have specifically been brought up for decades, arguments which no one makes unless they have an agenda which involves denying reality, is looked down on in rational debate!

    I mean, Darwinists used to say that evolution was gradual, NOW they say it's punctuated equalibrium, sometimes going thousands of years without change! It's nuts! Clearly god created all life in 6 days!

  9. Re:Cause? by Burning1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    So far exactly zero of the 'models' have managed to predict anything, so it would seem our science on the matter
    is incorrect.

    You sir, are a tool.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_climate_model#Accuracy_of_models_that_predict_global_warming