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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
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.
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.
Bad science is still bad science, no matter which side of the coin you're on regarding climate change. This just exacerbates the argument for both sides.
That is like 1.8 degrees more than Kevin Bacon.
Time to offend someone
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.
That's an interesting point, good catch.
Yep! And it pretty much makes those headlines screaming about "hottest year ever!" seem rather suspicious, doesn't it? It's hotter not because the days are getting hotter, but we're not getting as cold. That's the hard, straight-ahead fact.
At the same time, that's a figure for the lower 48 states... I know Americans are full of themselves, but you understand that global warming is a planetary thing, right?
Can you point to a climate record where that of the US lower 48 doesn't match the trends of other similar sized areas? In terms of temperature, typically what happens across the US (basically all the temperate region of the North American Continent) also happens across the world...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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
Thank you for the thoughtful, rational reply. You guys don't seem unhinged at all.
And Cat videos.
Those are real.
Aren't they?
AREN'T THEY????!!!!!!
Please say they are!!!!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Mod Fail.
The AC is correct. Doomsday predictions do seem to be a one upsmanship game, as evidenced by this article and Algore.
The surest way to undermine your position is to make outrageous claims that can't be substantiated.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
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.
It's 12 fucking paragraphs until the article admits the real prediction from the source is only 4.1 degrees. Which, by the way, comes from an (unweighted!) average of 12 different scenarios which aren't even described meaningfully, let alone are the methods for arriving at the numbers explained. The entire point of this seems to be to give people a scary chart to include in their powerpoint presentations.
Just the fact that there is zero attempt to assign any probability to any of the 12 scenarios to actually come up with a meaningful prediction tells me this is garbage compiled by someone with no clue.
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.
It may surprise you, but people actually managed to build rather well working thermometers for well over a century now. Not in the milli-degree area but certainly good enough to see a change that surpasses a whole degree Celsius.
And another surprise: Places on this planet were inhabited by civilized people well over 200 years ago. And they still are. And maybe yours will be, too, one day.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Welcome to climate models and reports! I have no doubt in my mind that humans are causing climate change that is trending toward warming. I have every doubt in my mind that the catastrophic claims are even remotely likely.
Most people like warmer climate. See the population difference between Florida and Siberia...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Really, a claim with no evidence, no source, and only one sentence long gets a +5 Insightful? The mod groupthink is strong with this post.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
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.