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Global Investment Firm Warns 7.8 Degrees of Global Warming Is Possible (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A leading British global investment firm has a warning for its clients: If we keep consuming oil and gas at current rates, our planet is on course to experience a rise in global average temperatures of nearly 8 Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. This would make Earth basically uninhabitable for humans. Although this is the darkest scenario we've seen so far, there's reason for cautious optimism: the new projections point out that it's unlikely investors will simply ignore this risk, meaning that our present level of fossil fuel consumption could decrease. Still, by current climate research standards, this is a pretty wild number. It is four times as high as the "safe limit" for increasing temperatures caused by climate change, internationally recognized to be around 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Schroders, the British investment firm which controls assets worth $542 billion, released this forecast as part of a range of potential scenarios in its "Climate Progress Dashboard" in late July.
In the few comments here so far there's a lot of naysaying. I totally sympathize with that, given that big business a) is often talking out of its ass when it comes to science and b) is largely responsible for the situation we now find ourselves in. But I still think that what Schroders is doing has real value.
First, because the warnings are about disastrous financial losses, and are coming from a respected member of the club, the conservative business types, (who have a history of laughing at climate change and shrugging it off), are much more likely to take the matter seriously.
Second, when I did a quick Google search I didn't find any other meta-models like this that start at various end points, work backwards to today, and project various scenarios based on what we're doing at this moment in time, and what we could and might do between now and an X degree increase. I think this approach will lead to a better grasp of the problem, a more vivid imagining of the consequences, and a greater will to change, among the non-technical and non-scientific types who are currently making the decisions we'll all have to live with.
Third, it's a conservative voice pointing out that even if we cut greenhouse gas emissions deeply and swiftly, we're still in for a LOT of fallout from the long-tail effects of what we've already pumped into the atmosphere. That's an observation that IMHO tends to be under-represented in the media coverage of AGW.
The Vice article sensationalized this, 'cause that's what Vice does. But Schroders' admittedly self-serving blurb, is somewhat more matter-of-fact in tone. On balance, I feel that this 'dashboard' is a good thing.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
What you're seeing there in the 20's/30's is the dust bowl that wreaked havoc on the central US during that time (high heat, vast drought). It is really interesting to see that. But it was a regional effect. Globally the story is different.
A related important point was well explained recently by NYT: extreme high temperature events are increasing in frequency.
https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
I notice Slashdot is the latest science/tech site to fall before the coordinated onslaught of relentless, right wing Global Warming deniers. Sensible people hardly ever bother commenting on Global Warming stories anymore. And increasingly, summaries getting posted are drawn from stories several iterations removed from original sources.
Oh, well. Technology marches on, and thanks to China, the cost of solar is now so low we're only a few storage innovations away from watching corporations that have been funding GW deniers either adapt or crash and burn.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
What you're seeing there in the 20's/30's is the dust bowl that wreaked havoc on the central US during that time (high heat, vast drought). It is really interesting to see that. But it was a regional effect. Globally the story is different.
Really? I'd love to see that, because, just like this graph from teh American Institute of Physics pretty much all 20th century tempurature records have a big warming throughout the 203s and 30s, then switched to cooling through the 40s to mid 70s.
A related important point was well explained recently by NYT: extreme high temperature events are increasing in frequency.
https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
That is the claim, but the report the NY Times uses states the exact opposite. Look at that "leaked" report, and check page 287. The number of extreme high temperature days has not increased; it's the average lows that have increased. That raises the average, but if anything it points to a lessening of the extremes of tempurature. Lows aren't as low, and highs are slightly less high.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The point of the NYT article is that the data clearly says that hot weather extremes have been increasing and cold weather extremes have been decreasing. That's not really debatable, it's hard numbers.
I'm currently looking for global daytime temperature trends and will update soon. The US data, while interesting isn't necessarily speaking to global trends, and the warming/cooling trends are highly inhomogeneous. In fact the graph you point to specifically says that the Southern Hemisphere didn't see that cooling.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
which country contributes most to aid?
That's what I thought bitch. http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/...
But the majority of US aid is in the form of private charitable donations distributed outside of the national government. That is something that Leftists absolutely refuse to believe in as it so closely mirrors the idea of having private ownership of the means pf production.
Therefore, such giving is not counted in Leftist statistics.