What They Don't Tell You About Climate Change (economist.com)

Countries are scrambling to limit the rise in the earth's temperature to just two degrees by the end of this century. But Slashdot reader dryriver shares an article titled "What They Don't Tell You About Climate Change." No, it is not that Climate Change is a hoax or that the climate science gets it all wrong and Climate Change isn't happening. According to the Economist, it is rather that "Fully 101 of the 116 models the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses to chart what lies ahead assume that carbon will be taken out of the air in order for the world to have a good chance of meeting the 2C target."

In other words, reducing carbon emissions around the world, creating clean energy from wind farms, driving electrical cars and so forth is not going to suffice to meet agreed upon climate targets at all. Negative emissions are needed. The world is going to overshoot the "maximum 2 degrees of warming" target completely unless someone figures out how to suck as much as 810 Billion Tonnes of carbon out of Earth's atmosphere by 2100 using some kind of industrial scale process that currently does not exist.
That breaks down to 1,785,742,000,000,000 pounds of CO2, "as much as the world's economy produces in 20 years," according to the Economist.

"Putting in place carbon-removal schemes of this magnitude would be an epic endeavour even if tried-and-tested techniques existed. They do not."

Comments

Carter

[jmccue]

When Carter was president of the US (late 70's), he was trying to get Climate Change on the national radar, but then Regan got elected and he stopped any action that could have had a chance of making a significant impact.

I remember as a kid him saying something like "We need to start now, otherwise we will not have enough time". Well I guess all young people can do now is try and live on high ground and I would say various coastal cities need to re-evaluate where to build new high-rises.

Of course now it seems coastal real-estate is hotter then I have ever seen it. So, seems the future looks gloomy.

I went to college with two climate scientists

[Cyberpunk Reality]

One is now a paleoclimatologist specializing in tree rings, the other a historical hydrologist. Between one thing and another, I still get together with them a couple times a year. When climate change/global warming comes up in the course of conversation, they have a lot to say, but one thing comes through quite clearly even when they don't say it outright. (And they have both said it outright to me at different times.) They're scared. And despite both being married, neither has any children. Make of my anecdote what you will.

Re:I went to college with two climate scientists

[PopeRatzo]

When climate change/global warming comes up in the course of conversation, they have a lot to say, but one thing comes through quite clearly even when they don't say it outright. (And they have both said it outright to me at different times.) They're scared.

My wife is a mathematician who works in coastal areas modeling waves and often works with climate scientists. I've gotten to know several of them over the years and you're right: they're scared. You get them talking about climate change and their eyes take on an almost desperate, haunted quality. When they hear someone try to say "it's all a hoax", they just get ineffably sad or angry as hell.

We were at a barbecue some years ago and a fight almost broke out between a climate scientist and an economics major who had bought into some dienialist theory about how we should embrace climate change. I was one of the people who had to step in and calm it all down. Personally it was kind of a shame because it would have been satisfying to see the economics student get laid out by a guy twice his age, but my wife insisted and I was afraid they would knock over the table with all the liquor.