Scientists are now saying we are “out of time” to keep global heating at under 1.5°C. It’s simply too late. We’ve delayed any action far too long.
All our talk and meetings and phony “Net Zero” pledges don’t mean anything to an overstressed climate system that is rapidly breaking down.
You can’t fool Mother Nature.
The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) is moving out of reach, climate experts say, with nations failing to set more ambitious goals despite months of record-breaking heat on land and sea.
“We’ve run out of time because change takes time,” said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climatologist at Australia’s University of New South Wales.
As climate envoys from the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters prepare to meet next month, temperatures broke June records in the Chinese capital Beijing, and extreme heat waves have hit the United States.
Parts of North America were some 10C (18F) above the seasonal average this month, and smoke from forest fires blanketed Canada and the US East Coast in a hazardous haze, with carbon emissions estimated at a record 160 million tons.
In India, one of the most climate-vulnerable regions, deaths spiked as a result of sustained high temperatures, and extreme heat has been recorded in Spain, Iran, and Vietnam, raising fears that last year’s deadly summer could become routine.
Countries agreed in Paris in 2015 to try to keep long-term average temperature rises within 1.5C, but there is now a 66% likelihood the annual mean will cross the 1.5C threshold for at least one whole year between now and 2027, the World Meteorological Organization predicted in May.
"Electric vehicles (#EVs) significantly cut lifecycle greenhouse gas #emissions in almost all circumstances and are the key technology for decarbonising road transport."
E.g.: Lifecycle EV emissions break even with those of gas cars at only 16,000 miles or less. Beyond that the climate wins all the way.
But there is a whole myth making machine that is trying to make. you think otherwise. Get the fact check here:
In this overview of annual global energy consumption, there is a slight dip in 2020 when the COVID lockdown impacted energy use across the board. But notice two things:
1️⃣ That dip in 2020 quickly repaired itself in 2021, with fossil fuel use continuing its upward trajectory as if nothing had ever happened.
2️⃣ Energy produced by renewables is still minuscule compared to energy derived from fossil fuels. Renewables-based energy sits like tasty frosting atop the massive poisonous cake that is fossil fuel-based energy.
Over 80% of the world’s energy continues to be sourced from oil, coal, and gas. Only about 5% comes from solar and wind combined.
That’s not nearly good enough, and it’s why we are all passengers on a train heading straight off a cliff.
"Much of the reluctance to do what #ClimateChange requires comes from the assumption that it means trading abundance for #austerity, and trading all our stuff and conveniences for less stuff, less convenience. But what if it meant giving up things we’re well rid of, from deadly #emissions to nagging feelings of doom and complicity in destruction?
What if the austerity is how we live now — and the #abundance could be what is to come?"
It's not complicated. Anyone can understand that when forests burn, it's a LOSE-LOSE proposition for the climate and the environment.
We lose trees and grasslands and sometimes also peat that have been storing carbon, AND we send that previously stored carbon into the atmosphere, thereby sharply increasing CO2 emissions, which then push temperatures up even higher, drying out more of the forests and raising the risk of lightning storms which will ignite more fires — a massively destructive vicious cycle.
It's almost impossible to imagine anything worse than burning boreal forests, but that's what is happening, both in Canada and in Siberia. And STILL we keep on drilling for more oil in Alaska, mining the tar sands in Alberta, and fracking the hell out of everywhere else. Why? Because capitalism! 💰💰💰
MORE ON BOREAL FORESTS --
"Two of the countries at greatest risk are Russia and Canada, and not coincidentally, these are two places where the fossil fuel industry is making bad conditions even worse." https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/110423387240605334
Why are so many climate scientists so scared and so angry?
Maybe it's because they know better than most of us how bad our situation today truly is, and how horribly we've been betrayed by our so-called leaders.
Here's an excerpt from an excellent piece on this subject by Alan Urban...
Even if the planet stopped getting warmer right now, we would still be in big trouble. The ice caps would keep melting and sea levels would keep rising.
Look at what’s happening at a mere 1.2°C of warming. We’re already seeing some of the worst heat waves in human history, not to mention record-breaking floods, droughts, wildfires, and water shortages.
But of course, warming isn’t going to stop at 1.2°C. Because of the heat we’ve already trapped in the atmosphere, and because we continue to emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases every year, the climate is warming exponentially.
All of these climate-related crises are stretching farms to the limit, yet this is just the beginning. As crop yields decline and the population grows, we will see food insecurity get worse and worse until we’re in a global famine.
And that right there is why climate scientists are scared. They understand that human civilization was born during the Holocene, when global temperatures were very stable and stayed within a range of about 1°C.
As we push the planet out of that range and raise the temperature about 50 times faster than would occur naturally, it will become harder and harder to produce enough food to feed everyone, and this will lead to social instability, political upheaval, the worst migration crisis ever, and wars over resources.
Disasters that weren’t supposed to happen until we reached 1.5°C are happening now, so we can only imagine what will happen when we hit 2° or 3°C.
This is why top scientists from around the world are warning us that we face a ghastly future filled with untold suffering. They’ve been telling us over and over, year after year, summit after summit, that we have to stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible. But as you can see [below], the world keeps ignoring them.
Here we goooooo!! Canada is expected to announce this week that all new cars must be zero emissions by 2035. Only 12 years left to buy a gas guzzler, people!
The best way to stop carbon from accumulating in the atmosphere is to: 1) stop drilling for oil, 2) stop fracking for gas, 3) stop digging for coal, and 4) stop burning fossil fuels.
For those who haven’t seen it before, here is my review of The Climate Book, by Greta Thunberg…
I've read dozens of books about climate change, and this one is easily the best. It's packed with information, written to be accessible for anyone from high school (or a bright middle school student) on up, and most importantly it does NOT shy away from the true severity of our situation and the imperative need not only for individual action but for system change.
It's stunning to me that a young woman who just turned twenty years old was able to pull together such a massive project — coordinating the submissions of more than a hundred scientists, activists, and educators — while also writing a large part of the content herself. A truly amazing accomplishment.
This essential work should be in every school library and in every home. It will remain relevant for years to come, I believe, because although there certainly is plenty of data, mostly it's about ideas which will never age.
Here is a somewhat comical but also highly indignant commentary about the folly of “Net Zero by 2050”…
We insiders — by which I mean anyone paying attention — know that the plan to mitigate the climate catastrophe with Net Zero by 2050 is complete bullshit. But maybe you’ve absorbed that knowledge without really understanding why. So let’s talk about it.
What does Net Zero actually mean? Net Zero is the point at which the CO2 burden in the atmosphere is no longer increasing. We’re still putting some up, but we’re also taking just as much out.
This definition immediately tips off two major problems.
The “still putting some up” part is a major issue because the fossil fuels industrial/political complex hears that and stops listening. The “still putting some up” part is their job, and somebody else can do the “take just as much out” part.
In other words, it's Business As Usual for fossil fuels, including continuing growth. Someone else can do the preserving-life-and-the-climate part.
The second obvious problem with Net Zero is the very idea of “taking just as much CO2 out of the atmosphere each year as the fossil fuel industry is adding to it each year.” We know of only two ways to reduce the CO2 load of the atmosphere. One is time. But CO2 stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years, so time is not on our side.
The other way to reduce CO2 is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Carbon is “captured” from the atmosphere using a chemical solvent that absorbs CO2, after which it can be buried in the ground where the CO2 will stay safely out of the atmosphere virtually forever.
CCS technology both does and does not exist.
CCS does exist in that there are many ingenious systems for doing it, including several pilot programs demonstrating direct air capture, the holy grail of CCS. Many fossil fuelled electricity generation plants have been removing CO2 from their smokestack emissions for decades. Unfortunately, much of the currently captured CO2 is being injected into played-out oil wells, forcing more of the remaining oil to be recoverable, to burn as fuel. Totally self-defeating, as far as reducing the CO2 load in the atmosphere.
But CCS also does NOT exist in terms of a significant contributor to Net Zero. They remove so little CO2 from the atmosphere, and at such a cost, as to make them completely impractical. To make a dent in carbon emissions, hundreds of thousands of CCS plants are needed, if not millions. The cost is prohibitive. Not to mention the carbon costs of manufacturing all those plants.
But surely CCS technology will improve over the next decade or two. Maybe someone will even find a miraculous breakthrough that will make it truly practical?
Sorry, but no. It’s not that there hasn’t been enough research into CCS. It has been heavily researched and the science is known. It’s actually some pretty simple chemistry. We can tweak around the efficiency edges, but there are no breakthroughs waiting in the wings to be discovered.
"If global warming reaches or exceeds 2C by 2100, [scientists say] it is likely that mainly richer humans will be responsible for the death of roughly one billion mainly poorer humans over the next century.
The peer-reviewed literature on the human mortality costs of carbon #emissions converged on the "1,000-ton rule," an estimate that one future premature death is caused for 1,000 tons of fossil carbon burned. "
"Under the revised final regulation expected to be made public as soon as next month, the EPA will slow the pace of its proposed yearly #emissions requirements through 2030. The new pace is expected to result in #EVs accounting for less than 60% of total vehicles produced by 2030, the sources said."
Here's part of the introduction to an article describing "Climate 'solutions' that don’t help"...
Many shiny new 'green' ideas do more to preserve fossil fuels than to replace them.
The world continues to face a major obstacle to addressing the climate crisis: deliberate distraction with a proliferation of new whiz-bang technologies and ideas.
Some are well-intentioned, some are strategic, some delusional, but most are outright greenwashing to justify the continued use of fossil fuels and to distract from the inevitable move to less expensive renewable energy.
All the items on their list --
🔴 The mother of all distractions: Carbon Capture and Storage
🔴 Deceptively distracting: Dirty hydrogen branded as “clean” by its proponents
🔴 Net nothing: 2050 Net Zero targets
🔴 BS: Chevron’s “renewable” cow dung
🔴 Silly: Renewable race fuel
🔴 Embarrassing: Exxon’s Ill-fated green algae gas
🔴 Most intense distraction: “Least carbon intensive” oil and gas from Saudi Arabia and the UAE
🔴 Most annoying: A 50 billion tree planting project
🔴 Endlessly distracting: Traditional fission nuclear power
So he spent £6000 instead of £30 by taking a helicopter instead of the train, but he also generated ~1100 kg of CO2 instead of ~10kg per person for the train. (No idea how many people were in the helicopter)
Motor #emissions could have fallen by over 30% without #SUV trend, report says
"A report showed SUVs now represented a majority of the new car market (51%).
Automotive companies market SUVs intensively as they provide the most profit: they are sold at premium prices but have a proportionally lower manufacturing cost.
The authors of the report called for governments to place restrictions on vehicle sizes to reverse the SUV trend."
You often hear that so-and-so much #GlobalWarming is "baked in", that is, the world keeps on warming on the #GreenhouseGases already emitted.
"The best available evidence shows that, on the contrary, warming is likely to more or less stop once #CarbonDioxide (CO2) #emissions reach zero, meaning humans have the power to choose their #climate future."
"I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act."
The opinion piece below from Bloomberg/WaPo seems to agree with her...
"Global Heat Records Are Falling. A Little Panic Might Be in Order."
The planet could easily set a record-high average temperature in 2023, especially with an El Niño weather pattern kicking in later this year. We have already suffered through the hottest early June on record, with global land temperatures briefly touching 1.5C above the pre-industrial average. Ocean temperatures this spring have been the hottest ever at this time of year, in records going back 174 years.
Many people, including myself, have warned against panicking about such stunning new highs, given the temporary nature of El Niño’s boost. Even if we temporarily hit 1.5C of warming this year, it will still be theoretically possible to avoid long-term warming beyond that level and all the catastrophic consequences that would come with it.
But first we must kick our fossil-fuel addiction and stop spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And judging by how little the world’s policymakers seem to be interested in taking such steps, perhaps just a smidgen of panic might be helpful.
Scientists agree the world must zero out its emissions by 2050 in order to keep warming to 1.5C, a target set at the Paris climate accords in 2015. And so far 95 countries have made "net-zero" pledges.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the vast majority of those pledges aren’t credible. Current policies and practices have the world on pace to hit nearly 3C of warming by the end of the century. Even the most dependable net-zero pledges would still lead to close to 2.5C of warming, a recent study found.
One big problem is that significant numbers of "net-zero" countries have zero plans to stop burning oil, gas, and coal, according to a new study from the Stockholm Environment Institute. Of the 95 pledging countries, 45 talk about "continuing or expanding fossil-fuel production" right there in their net-zero pledges, according to the study. Only 5 of the 95 countries, in contrast, discuss transitioning out of fossil-fuel production as part of their net-zero pledges.
"A growing number of climate analysts believe that 2023 may be recorded as the year in which annual #emissions reached a pinnacle before the global fossil fuel economy begins a terminal decline.
“It’s not a question of ‘if’, it’s just a matter of ‘how soon’ – and the sooner the better for all of us,” said Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA."
Yikes. As if we didn't already have enough to worry about...
"Wood isn’t the climate-friendly material you think it is"
A new study shows that cutting down trees for paper, furniture, and fuel emits three times more carbon than flying.
Whether used to heat your house or build it, wood is often touted as carbon-neutral, especially by biofuel and lumber companies and even some environmentalists. The logic seems simple enough: Sure, logging unleashes planet-warming carbon into the air, but that can be replaced with new trees that suck carbon back out of the air.
But this doesn’t reflect how the emissions from harvesting wood actually work, according to a paper published this week in Nature. Even when the carbon captured by new trees is taken into account, wood consumption accounts for about one-tenth of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, the study’s authors found — less than electricity and heat generation, but more than passenger cars.
The emissions associated with timber harvests mainly come from burning logs and pellets for fuel and from rotting branches, leaves, and roots left in the forest or tossed in landfills, where they decompose and release carbon into the air.
Global demand for wood will grow by 54% between 2010 and 2050, largely driven by fuel and timber products like wood chips, as well as paper and cardboard. Logging to meet that demand will cover an area roughly equivalent to clear-cutting the entire continental U.S. The resulting climate pollution is likely to measure 3.5 to 4.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year — about three times the emissions from aviation and roughly equal to the deforestation caused by agriculture.
Climate optimists like to claim that as soon as we reach “net zero” — the point when we are (theoretically) emitting less CO2 than the amount being absorbed by oceans, rocks, or plants, and taken out of the atmosphere through carbon capture — then global warming will stop almost immediately.
It’s a nice message, one intended to make us feel better, reassured that our leaders know what they’re doing. Don’t worry, we are told, everything is under control. By 2050, if not sooner, they’ll have the situation turned around.
In the meantime, we can all relax and go ahead with Business As Usual. 😃 Keep shopping, keep buying, keep driving, keep flying. And don’t forget to do your part: buy those paper straws and recycle that water bottle!
BUT — there are big problems with this phony net zero claim, and the way countries report their emissions is one of them. Investigators have found huge discrepancies accruing through the use of spurious carbon offsets, outsourcing, and other UN-approved loopholes. Also, CO2 emissions from the military are not required to be included, nor are emissions from international trade.
Some estimates suggest that actual emissions could be at least twice as high as what’s being shown in the official reports. No wonder global temperatures keep rising even though we’re constantly assured that great progress is being made.
In addition, there’s a risk that climate change itself will trigger “natural” emissions of greenhouse gases as peat bogs dry out, as drought-weakened forests burn, as permafrost melts, and as the sea floor warms, releasing previously frozen methane clathrates. So it’s not just the emissions of human industry we need to worry about.
The point is, net zero is NOT zero. Don’t fall for their lies. It’s time for real change, for system change. We must demand the end of #capitalism and a pivot toward #degrowth.
Why we’re all likely screwed no matter what we do…
Yes, each one of us should cut our carbon footprint as individuals. It’s the right thing to do. We can stop flying, stop eating meat, and stop using Amazon. We can also vote Green, go to protests, even get arrested for the cause. Perhaps we should go that far — but the truth is no matter what you and I do, it won’t make a big difference.
That’s because decisions about the future of the planet are taken far above street level, far above voting level, far above legislatures or the UN.
The choices that matter most come from capitalist industrialists and investors in the United States and in China. Some decisions of consequence are made in Russia, India, and Brazil, but those are largely taken along paths already laid out in New York and Beijing.
First, let’s look at China…
China’s carbon dioxide emissions have relentlessly grown, more than quadrupling from 1990 to 2020. Since 2019, China’s emissions have exceeded those of all developed countries combined and presently account for 33% of total global emissions. Paradoxically, China leads the world in the production of installed capacity of both wind and solar electricity generation. Yet, 85% of China’s primary energy consumption in 2020 was still provided by fossil fuels.
Far from transitioning to a green and low-carbon mode of development, China is developing the most carbon-intensive large industrial economy in the world. The Party-State has abandoned the transition to renewables in favour of an ‘all of the above’ approach to energy generation: more solar and wind, but even more fossil fuels.
There are insuperable technical barriers to decarbonising China’s economy, especially in any time frame that matters for human survival. China is home to the world’s largest concentration of carbon-intensive, hard-to-abate industries like steel and cement. Thermal electricity generation (90% from coal, 10% from gas) accounts for 32% of China’s total carbon dioxide emissions. Replacing coal-fired power plants with solar and wind-powered generators could cut China’s emissions by about one-third — a huge gain if this transition can be implemented. But electricity generation is the low-hanging fruit of carbon mitigation — one of the very few sectors in which economic growth can be decoupled from emissions growth.
At least 47% of China’s GHG emissions come from hard-to-abate manufacturing and other industries, most of which cannot be significantly decarbonised with current or anticipated technology either at all or in time to avert runaway global warming and climate collapse. Steel, aluminium, cement, aviation, shipping, heavy road transport, chemicals, plastics, synthetic textiles, and electronics stand out. Decarbonising those industries has defied all efforts to date both in China and in the West.
Although I’ve chided Joe Biden for this (to make the point that when it comes to the climate and the environment, mainstream Democrats really are no better than Republicans), the choice was never actually his. That’s above his pay grade.
Decisions like these are made in corporate boardrooms, then passed down to politicians owned by the fossil fuel industry and their investors. If Biden had any intention of standing up against such plans, he never would have been allowed to run for President, let alone win.
The truth is that our future is in the hands of a small minority who care about nothing except making more money and gaining more power — at any cost.
Our capitalist owners are not interested in what happens to you or me. They don’t care what we think, what we say or do, whether or not we protest, or how we vote. None of that has any effect on them, and is beyond their concern.