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Missing Climate Goals Could Cost the World $20 Trillion (technologyreview.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: There are trillions of reasons for the world to prevent temperatures from rising more than 1.5C, the aspirational target laid out in the Paris climate agreement, according to a new study. If nations took the necessary actions to meet that goal, rather than the increasingly discussed 2C objective, there's a 60 percent chance it would save the world more than $20 trillion, according to new work published this week in Nature by scientists at Stanford. That figure is far higher than what most experts think it will cost to cut emissions enough to achieve the 1.5C target. Indeed, one study put the price tag in the hundreds of billions of dollars. If temperatures rise by 3C, it will knock out an additional 5 percent of GDP. That's the entire planet's GDP.
Wouldn't cutting emissions 40% - 60% in the first world cause hundreds of millions or even billions of deaths in places dependent on western aid? Or is that part of the plan?
This commentary published by The Wall Street Journal, written by Fred Singer, claims that warming (and therefore greenhouse gas emissions) has no effect on global sea level rise. Although Singer concedes the physical fact that water expands as its temperature increases, he claims that this process must be offset by growth of Antarctic ice weasels.
Scientists who reviewed this opinion piece explained that it is contradicted by a wealth of data and research. Singer bases his conclusion entirely on a cherry-picked comparison of sea level rise 1915-1945 and a single study published in 1990, claiming a lack of accelerating sea level rise despite continued warming. But in fact, modern research utilizing all available data clearly indicates that sea level rise has accelerated, and is unambiguously the result of human-caused global warming.
There is only one logical answer to this issue, and indeed many of the larger issues that are facing our world in the 21st century and beyond, and that is to reduce the human population to around 20% to 30% of what it currently is. The funds currently being discussed for carbon capture and scrubbing, emissions control, etc could easily cover universal birth control and abortion services, strict enforcement of single-child rules for couples, and in extreme instances more agressive forms of population reduction. If we don't undertake measures soon to do this, nature will force it upon us and it will be much, much more unpleasant.
Mean atmospheric O2 - 130 % of modern level.
Mean atmospheric CO2 content - . 1950 ppm. 7 times pre-industrial level.
Mean surface temperature - 16.5 C. 3 C above modern level.
I HATE cold weather. I would say this would be a better climate to live in.
"Could" is the keyword here... Makes the entire statement completely unfalsifiable and thus unscientific.
15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I remember about 15 years ago where they alarmists were telling us that it would cost $50 Trillion to implement climate change mitigations. If it is only going to cause $20 T not to do so, it would appear to be a good deal just to do nothing.
Anyway, we can stop talking about it, because the proposed actions always involve diminishing everyone's lives - living in cold houses in winter and boiling houses in the summer, driving rollerskate cars that will not survive a collision with a squirrel, driving electric cars that are made of unobtanium for most people with average incomes, not driving except to go to work and back and not even then if you can stuff 18 people into one car - yeah, these are all exaggerations for effect, but the bottom line is an approach to make life less worth living, so will not happen as the general public won't put up with it, which is why this approach has failed so far.
And it doesn't matter that America has pulled out of the Paris deal, we will still continue to set records for clean energy and CO2 mitigation via natural gas and solar and wind. Someday we may even get a handle on electric cars. But what America will not be doing is shipping trillions of dollars out of the country to pay for somebody else's climate compliance. They can live in caves and drive rollerskates. The US will not.
Faked and overhyped disaster scenarios about the death of all life if we don't stop global warming is no different then faked and overhyped disaster scenarios that it'll be super-dooper expensive if you don't buy my snake oil now.
Yes, if you assume the whole scientific community is just lying to you then you'll believe there's no point in listening to them.
Of course, since you're nutty enough to believe in a global conspiracy involving tens of thousands of people, any one of whom could make a huge name for themselves by disclosing it, there's no point listening to you.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
It "used" to be deniers saying there was no warming, but that didn't seem to work, so then they're saying it's natural causes.
It "used" to be deniers saying it's natural causes, but that didn't seem to work, so now they're saying it's humans causing warming but it's not going to get that bad.
Both sides are guilty of getting things wrong (failures are built in to the scientific method) and overstating the effect (either too much or too little). The media inevitably injects emotion to get eyeballs. You have to read between the lines.
The thoughtful have always realized that humans are causing warming, have been for most of the last 150 years, and will continue for the next 50 or so, when hopefully technology and social pressure will finally tip the needle. The warming is locked in for longer. There will be economic downsides and upsides, and some people will suffer and some will profit.
I come at it from the prospective of, we each need to have a conversation with our grandchildren in 50 years, where the trends for CO2 and warming continue, and can we say we did as much as we could to give them the same kind of world we thrived in. Arguments that "the environment could be better!" miss the point, we know we have a great environment now. It's selfish and myopic to assume that the environment in 50 years (assuming warming trends continue) will be better due to technology or what have you.
How do I edit my sig.
"... the proposed actions always involve diminishing everyone's lives - living in cold houses in winter and boiling houses in the summer, ..."
Nope, this is just your nihilistic attitude towards the subject at hand. You've decided this is a zero sum game and that you aren't going to be the loser. Well your myopic attitude is your problem. Not someone else's problem!
You see there were lots of right wing nay-sayers suggesting that programs that supported home insulation upgrades were inappropriate and wrong. "You can't pick winners and losers" they said. "Government grant programs are bad" they said. "It's all Al Gore and Big Government, and Climate Change isn't real" they said.
Except, home insulation programs are one specific example of how lives will not be diminished. How homes will not be "cold in the winter" and "boiling in the summer". How to avoid zero sum nihilism.
You see you are a zero sum nihilist, and you want the rest of the world to be as well. Good luck with that, but don't be surprised if the world chooses a different direction. And when they do, I'm sure we'll hear you whining about that too. "Well, if the Deep State hadn't silenced us, we could have won at the expense of everyone else!!! Damn you Al Gore!"
Sad. Pathetic. Small thoughts for small minds.
I once strongly believed in this, but to my left is a computer that is entirely capable of doing nuclear bomb simulation. I'm curious why there's never any models given that I can simply run.
There is.
http://theconversation.com/mak...
https://opensource.gsfc.nasa.g...