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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.
Antarctica Conglomerate shares split, in related news.
Gently reply
Another prediction that won't come true. From Vice.com no less, the bastion of academic thought. They don't troll for clicks ever. I think we've reached peak bullshit. This will only discredit global warming further.
Investors are precisely those who IGNORE climate change! It is because of investors that we are in this mess.
What do they know about climate change? If they are so concerned about it, how about invest in projects to combat it.
If we're on our way to a lethal +8C world, that's bad news. But the world is a reflexive system. If we kill ourselves off at +4C, say, human greenhouse gas production ceases, and (after a long lag) the world finds a new stable point without us. So there's a tendency for the world to self-correct. On the other hand, there may be positive feedbacks (tipping points) that push us all the way to a Venus scenario. The moral is, it's a complex non-linear system, and straight line extrapolations are almost certainly wrong when they go far beyond historical experience.
Fiat Lux.
Yeah, sounds like several US securities and law violations that may need to be prosecuted in there...
We're getting less cold. Take a look at figure 6.3 on page 287, you'll see the max temperatures peaked in the 1920s and 1930s, and we're quite a bit lower than that now. What's changed is we're not getting as cold at night as we used to get; our low temperatures are higher - making the daily average higher. Kind of changes things, doesn't it?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
That is like 1.8 degrees more than Kevin Bacon.
Time to offend someone
I prefer the sound of stupid, I'll bookmark your comment.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Glad to be of service.
Pass the soda.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Investment firms are neither notable climate experts nor are they noted for their devotion to selfless ethics. Follow the money. I'll bet that they have huge positions in "green" companies and/or renewable energy, and they are hoping to drive those markets higher.
Alternatively (or maybe additionally), they may think that this will get them more publicity than standard advertising, and hence a lot of new clients who believe that your investment strategy can save you from an uninhabitable planet.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
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.
Sig?
Don't forget, the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs essentially torched most of the plant life on earth dumping quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere + heat far greater than we could ever manage short of nuclear war. Yet the earth still recovered.
However that doesn't mean we can't cause temperatures to rise beyond which agriculture becomes impossible over a large proportion of the leading to mass famine and war.
1. Notice that lots of people are making decisions based on the Global Warming hype, and that it's still believed by many but out of the news cycle for a few months.
2. Put together investment vehicles based on its expected effects. Sell a few to establish a low current price.
3. Publish a new global warming warning, bringing people's attention to the issue, spurring interest in the investment vehicles, and raising their price.
4. Point out that their price is rising, getting more people to buy them. Sell a few more but not enough to bring the price back down.
5. Profit!
6. Get a bubble going, with the price ramping up exponentially.
7. Once the bubble is inflated, sell off a bunch more, dumping the inflated paper and taking the money off the table. (Maybe buy some puts while you're at it. Do that through a different organization to avoid raising claims of securities fraud.)
8. BIG PROFIT!
9. Once the bubble collapses, exercise (or sell) the puts.
10. STILL MORE PROFIT!
This kind of thing has been going on for centuries. See _Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds_.
Using global warming as the driver has the advantage that governments are strongly bought-in to the idea and prosecuting a securities fraud based on it would also discredit the idea they're trying to push. So if the investment vehicles are not obviously fraudulent in some other way, things that could actually be expected to actually increase in value if catastrophic global warming did occur, the operators of the scheme would have more than just plausible deniability. They'd be doing exactly what financial service companies are supposed to do (identify or create investments that would pay off in an expected situation and sell them to those who expect that situation so THEY can profit if they're right) and expected to do (promote their product with publicity).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So we're now taking prophetic science advice from an investment firm?
We're taking science advice from a firm that makes economic forecasts
We're taking sceicne advice from a company that doesn't even take responsibility for their predictions because the responsibility is on the consumer
Of course my investment firm likes to call me up with great economic forecasts... they just so happen to coincide with businesses they've been paid to promote or have their own interests in. With full disclosure, of course.
More importantly, why is Slashdot posting random commentary?
Obviously the answer is so they can troll us with alarming climate numbers.
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.
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.
Because thats how you get people to ignore global warming.
Meanwhile we had a 1.5C increase in the last 250 years: http://berkeleyearth.org/data/ (I like those guys because of Richard Muller who is not afraid to change sides if the data contradicts his theory)
This here only talks about the recent findings:
http://berkeleyearth.org/berke... (2014-2015ish)
They estimate that there could be another 1.5C increase within the next 50 years, so 7.8 is completely ridiculous as that would mean almost double that.
source on the 1.5C/50years: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-...
Alarmist news like those may be well intentioned in trying to wake people up to the real dangers of CC, but in the end they will just dull the senses of the public to the doom and gloom of it all. Worst, people tend to realize that occasionally they are being lied to or fed exaggerations and may even come to reject CC completely because of that.
Just because they want to consider a hypothetical scenario does not mean there's a scientific basis for it. Of course 10 degree C increase is possible in the event of some dramatic natural events.
Such wild swing in temperature anywhere near +6 C, let alone more, within the next few centuries is extremely unlikely, however.
Get someone emotional before investment. Old trick new story.
[ infomercial ]
Are you concerned about climate change? If so I have the perfect investment solution for you that can survive every climate catastrophe we can think of! Scared of rising tides? You won't be in a Yacht. Tired of that eye sore backyard filled with dead grass? Soon, it will be beach front property and soon you'll be the talk of the town! Turn that winter hovel into a summer dream. Call to get a customized portfolio to make global warming into global payday.
[/infomercial]
Thinking this through in unrealistic, amateur scientific method...
Labrador is so tough that that Bear guy was pulled out while filming an episode because the temperature swing melted the fiord's ice and the chopper had no safe place to be. So, if Labrador was to be 14 degrees warmer, well;
- Ice maybe from November to March?
- Summers around 90F? Hmm, interesting.
-Permafrost/tundra gone. Massive insect population growth. The midges and whatnot are already unbearable, so this would be salt in the wound that is the black fly.
- Animal migrations, especially northern deer and a bunch of predators.
- Migratory birds would be moving a bit more north and staying longer.
- The children of everyone I knew up there would be doing home repairs, as the foundations would sink into the goo.
- Most of the roads would suffer. Good.
- The hydro projects would probably see a lot of melt for a few decades, and then maybe not so much.
But Earth uninhabitable? New reasons to explore electrical generation to support A/C and enhanced hot weather agriculture. We are cleverer than the socialists/alarmists think.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
There's no reason to worry. As we speak Trump and Kim Jong Un are working on a plan to solve Global Warming once and for all!
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The nitpicking over data points, taken out of context of the larger data set seems at best trolling.
This whole "thought," started a long time ago with the old adage.. "Don't shit where you eat"
We don't shit where we eat because we may get a disease, its not healthy, the ground doesn't produce the same, it soils our water.
Take that to the next step, burning our trash. Our neighbors don't appreciate it because it creates smoke, which makes one cough, naturally telling the human being that "smoke isn't great for the lungs." On a small scale when there were not 7+ billion people on the planet, that would be fine, but if every citizen of NYC or Paris burned their trash, people would get sick and do.
Coal burning plants have destroyed forests next to them due to the amount of waste produced. Sludge contaminating the water. Smoke contaminating the air. Acid rain killing all vegetation around them is well documented. Citation
Put enough industrial plants on the planet, and that "backyard of waste" is now the entire planet.
The full effect is the considerable change to our environment, from polluted waterways, acidification of the oceans, and a rising temperatures, just to name a few.
So what is the best name to use instead of "Climate Change", so that we can quit arguing over trivial data points when its fairly clear to anyone with eyes, ears and a nose that we are shitting on the environment that we live and eat in?
If they actually gave a rats rump about anything other than making a profit, and IF they actually believe the alarmist statements they're making - they would ensure their $.5 Trillion investment portfolio excluded those companies making the problem worse.
Also, like any amount of money will matter if the prediction of 8 degrees is realized. Sorry, but currency will fold long before that point.
Give us a solution which does not include a massive program of redistributing wealth to tyrants and dictators, from wealthier countries who do have a sense of altruism. The program must be globally agreed to and followed since countries like India, China, and Russia have been steadily increasing pollution and industrialization, not reducing it. The solution must be moral, meaning not cause undo harm to innocents.
I don't want to hear what China promised, because they are simply not good at keeping promises. They are good at deception, expansion, and colonization lately. Those latter 2 have steadily increased their pollution, not reduced it. I don't want to hear what any other country promised either, because a promise to reduce is not the same thing as action. Claims that China is improving come from China, but we have no independent verification that they have done anything except increase gas mask distribution and started standing up and using various filtering systems on the ground so people don't get poisoned walking across the street.
*crickets*
And therein lies the problem with the debate. The Paris accords which were proclaimed as the gospel of "fixing" global warming would have succeeded in De-industrializing the US, sent trillions of dollars from the US to anyone who wanted a free bucket of money, and relied on the promises of Governments who may not want to keep such promises and no mechanism of enforcing any rules.
The US, and most of the West _has_been_ curbing pollution and trying to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. At present, 15% of our power is coming from renewables, and slowly rising. As it should be. Simply dumping non-renewable sources means that millions suffer and die because we lose necessary power for hospitals, refrigeration, air conditioning, and yes the foundries needed to continue to produce wind turbines and solar panels (did you notice the humanitarian/moral issue there?).
And lets face facts: We will always have some dependency on non-renewable sources of energy. Renewable sources are not consistent, and dead batteries are very bad for the environment.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The finer points of string theory?
If string theory makes predictions that will affect the values of their investments, then sure. For example, if advances in string theory lead to a dirt-cheap energy source that's likely to hit the market in 10-20 years, this would make it a good idea to start divesting stocks in more expensive energy production methods. This is exactly the kind of thing that you'd expect to find in a report from an investment form.
Devote your time to investment and leave climate science to climate scientists.
That's exactly what they are doing: surveying research and providing a risk assessment.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I wish I were optimistic enough to agree with this, but I think history shows pretty clearly that investors tend to favor solid near-term monetary gains over avoiding ephemeral long-term loss.
A global investment firm....nuff said! They'll make a killing initially on the lDIOTS that fall for this garbage, take the money and run when it falls flat on it's rear!
is selectively posting only extreme results of computer modeling of the future/
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Sure... and the most likely explanation is that Schroder's placed a bunch of bad bets in the market (Brexit loss, Clinton win, Paris implementation) and are now trying to limit their losses with a feeble, FUD-based pump-and-dump scheme. Schroder's seems to be pushing green and alternative energy investments, and it's blowing up in their face.
+8C by the end of the century isn't a realistic scenario. Even if it were, it wouldn't make Earth "uninhabitable for humans". In fact, long term, it would likely be a more habitable Earth if we go by paleontological precedent; whatever the problems and costs of global warming are, they are clearly only transient problems.
It looks like more and more commercial entities are starting to plan for climate change. (Although, of course, the businesses causing it still have a financial incentive to continue.)
If the denialists are right, these plans will end up costing the companies millions or billions of dollars when nothing happens and the climate "hoax" is revealed.
So, be on the watch for those bankruptcies. After all, these businesses planning for climate change are totally doomed, right?
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
I'm not going to be here and neither are my kids most likely. Eventually we're toast due to the sun going supernova or the eventual heat death of the universe. Why does anyone think it's THAT important that humans continue to exist in the universe? I'm posing a serious philosophical question here. No matter what, no matter what our civilization evolves into, no matter what achievements we make it will all be erased eventually like it never happened. It's just a question of when. Sad but true.
Mr. Hawking in one breath you say the universe and life is pointless and absurd, there is no god and then you suddenly get concerned about the trajectory we're on and think we need to change it? It seems contradictory.
Go to Mars? Like we're not just going to start the same problems all over again. Enjoy the ride.
We'll make great pets
"Industrialization produces pollution". Such as horse excrement is better than automobile exhaust? Such as outhouses are better than flush toilets? Such as burning manure for heat in a ventless house is better than an oil furnace?
Industrialization creates options for tradeoffs between types of pollution and other concerns; industrialization creates the tools that make possible the measurement of pollution. Industrialization allows longer and better human life.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
So you are fine with a plastics factory next to your house? How about a stamping shop? Large food production facility? Detergent manufacturer?
Zoning laws prevent housing from being built too close to industries in the US because yes, they do pollute. While your horse statement initially looks okay to a moron, show me the amount of Hg, Pb, CN, and other nice emissions from industry which are known to cause harm and death to humans.
There is certainly a level of trade off between cars and horses, but don't sit there and pretend that industrial pollution is not harmful.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
...and it's "possible" for little bitty monkeys to fly out of my ass, too. Theoretically.
Wait a minute, I thought global investment firms WERE the problem? And now we're supposed to depend on their, like, totally unbiased appraisal of the future (in which they have invested heavily) to make green decisions? Something stinks here, and it's not the climate skeptics' skepticism.
...would relieve the politicians from having to order extermination squads to kill off all those pesky poor people. Want to bet on how rich you'll have to be to afford survival?
PlaynBass