Exactly As I’ve Said
More lies and gross misinformation by the authors and editors over at Phys.org – Global emissions must peak by 2025 to keep warming at 1.5°C: We need deeds not words
Really? So does this mean we are supposed to accept the devastating fires wiping out Greece, the U.S. West as “normal”? Our how about the floods drowning towns in Europe?
The 1.5C “limit” is complete bullshit. Deadly, dangerous, life-altering, civilization ending climate change is already here. Depending on where you live, you are already experiencing this. Now imagine it being worse.
The so-called “future temperature target” has changed from 2C (determined by an economist), to 1.5C and BOTH are dead wrong. Average land temperatures in many locations have already surpassed 3C, while global average temperatures are just under 1.5C right now.
I’ve been harping on the miserable failure of climate scientists to adequately warn the world for some years, writing countless articles and comments to this effect. Nobody listens to me (but they should have), and now, a few others are trying to finally speak up:
An open letter to all climate scientists
Time to tell it like it isOK. Let’s not beat about the bush. While our world has been going to hell in a handcart, many of you studying and recording its demise have had nothing to say on the subject and have remained deep in the shadows, when what has been needed is for you to hog the limelight. The cod justification you have used is always the same, muttered excuses about the need for objectivity, about how you shouldn’t become involved in politics, about how you are merely faithful recorders of facts; a silo mentality that shields you from having to make difficult decisions or engage with others outside your comfort zones. You know who you are.
In truth, the reason you have never liked to stick your head above the parapet is for fear of being shot at by your peers. As a fellow scientist I understand that – I really do. There is nothing worse than being ridiculed within your own community. It can, I know, mean loss of prestige, a squeeze on funding, and a closing down of opportunities for advancement. I understand, therefore, why you continue to play down anything that might draw attention, why you lie low, tow the party line. I know, too, what you really think and feel about climate change, because I have talked to many of you in private, and the response – without exception – has been that the true situation is far worse than you are prepared to admit in public. So, behind the facade, I know that you are torn between speaking out and holding back, that you are as desperate as anyone for the measures to be taken that the science demands. Most of all, I know that you fear, as much as anybody else, for your children’s future in the world of climate chaos they will be forced to inhabit.
So, what to do. I don’t need to tell you that the chasm between what is needed to tackle the climate emergency, and what measures are actually being taken, flags the extraordinary scale of the uphill battle we face. If we are not to bequeath to our descendants a desiccated, lifeless, hothouse, then we need your help, your support. Now. Today. The time to worry about what your colleagues think of you is long gone. Prestige will mean nothing in the world to come, academic advancement won’t alter the fate of your children and grandchildren one iota. So, speak out, tell it like it is. Force those who need to know to listen. Welcome any flack and hurl it back ten-fold. Come down off the fence and choose the path you know, in your heart of hearts, is the right one.
Bill McGuire is Professor Emeritus of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at UCL and was a contributor to the IPCC 2012 SREX report on Climate Change & Extreme Events and Disasters.
So there you go, exactly as I said. Scientific reticence writ large. Failure to speak up. Failure to adequately warn the world. Failure to put the future into adequate perspective. Failure to put career and job aside and tell the unvarnished truth. Exactly as I’ve said.
This validation isn’t a feather in my cap, it’s a deep abiding sadness that everyone else can be so damned wrong, consistently. They’re proud of it to, always attacking detractors that point out their failures, still circling the wagons against “outsiders”. I saw and experienced this over on Real Climate and I’m still experiencing this anywhere I dare publish a commentary.
Climate scientists are poorly suited to adequately warn the world. They probably need coaching, or some kind of help. Their institutions are also poorly designed to encourage scientists to speak out. They should have declared a climate emergency decades ago, but didn’t (and still really haven’t, despite the recent pronouncement of 14,000 scientists).
Today, the IPCC Report comes out (again) and this too will fail to adequately warn the world despite “assurances” otherwise. A true global emergency is unfolding and we’re still dicking around, writing more reports, omitting critical information and downplaying the reality of what is already happening. But worse, even when it does happen, wiping out a town, a village, a harvest – we’re still in rank denial acrossed the board. By and large, we fail to see what this actually means.
I’ll tell you what it means – it will happen again and again and again, always increasingly worse until our ability to survive on this planet is no longer possible. It is an extinction-level event unfolding right now. We do not have any “time” left as all the disingenuous “reports”, articles and stories falsely claim. The world should pull back across the entire spectrum of human activity that is causing climate change immediately, without any more delay – but won’t. It’s still human thinking that there is time to “discuss” the impacts and “what to do” when in reality, we already know what to do. But industry and business and global leaders refuse to act decisively which is our guarantee of failure.
This is why you are still on your own. You always were. So-called leaders and even climate scientists are miserably failing to warn the world adequately. You have to make your own plans, make your own preparations, and understand that the worse is yet to come. Know that it is virtually unstoppable now and all the finely printed words that seek to assuage your fears are simply endless lies.
For what it’s worth:
‘Human activity is changing the Earth’s climate in ways “unprecedented” in thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, with some of the changes now inevitable and “irreversible”, climate scientists have warned.
Within the next two decades, temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and bringing widespread devastation and extreme weather.
Only rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gases in this decade can prevent such climate breakdown, with every fraction of a degree of further heating likely to compound the accelerating effects, according to the International Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on climate science.’
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/09/humans-have-caused-unprecedented-and-irreversible-change-to-climate-scientists-warn
It was about 15 years ago I advocated an 80% to 90% reduction in use of fossil fuels, starting with the complete elimination of the purely trivial uses such as tourism, cruise ships, motor racing, corporatised sport, production of overpowered vehicles etc.
I was vilified for suggesting such things, and for suggesting we will return to medieval living arrangements at best, and very likely face a stone-age-style existence.
So, now it is all coming to pass, just as you, S. A. , I, and thousands of other sane and compassionate people said it would, with professional liars -politicians, economists and the mainstream media etc. – still lying to the masses and still promoting the destruction of the habitability of the Earth and still promoting increased suffering for the masses.
We know what EVIL is: promoting death and destruction for personal short term gain. And there is no shortage of evil people….especially in places of ‘high office’.
So, the banks and corporations will continue to have it their way, and the Earth WILL BE rendered uninhabitable for humans in the pursuit of money and power. In their eyes, business-as-usual must continue, whatever the cost.
The only aspect we do not know yet is how quickly the meltdown of the planet will accelerate. The Earth and the life forms that have evolved on it have evolved as a self-correcting system, and it is only the crass stupidity of industrial humans that has overpowered those self-correcting systems.
Of course, there is no cure stupidity, other than death, and we can be certain that banks, corporations, and their lackeys that constitute governments will continue to resist taking appropriate action to the bitter end.
Recall my comments that “every word is wrangled over”? Here’s some proof of that (something I’ve known about the IPCC Reports for many years):
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_TS.pdf
I definitely understand the need for accuracy and precision, but what you will not find the IPCC Report is the true state of the climate and the expected impacts upon human survival.
The Summary for Policy Makers contains sections on the following:
The Current State of The Climate
Possible Climate Futures
Neither are accurate. They didn’t even get current levels of C02 correct (they used 410ppm, and it’s already 413.5). Doesn’t sound like much, it is actually enormous.
They also said “Land and ocean have taken up a near-constant proportion (globally about 56% per year) of CO2emissions from human activities over the past six decades, with regional differences.”
Hogwash. The decline in land and ocean absorption of C02 has been well-documented. How could they not include this fact?
This is why the IPCC Report is utterly useless. They can’t even get the basic facts correct.
Then they go on to spew more assumptions, “Globally averaged precipitation over land has likely increased since 1950, with a faster rate of increase since the 1980s (medium confidence). It is likely that human influence contributed to the pattern of observed precipitation changes since the mid-20th century, and extremely likely that human influence contributed to the pattern of observed changes in near-surface ocean salinity.”
Seriously? Just “likely” when it is an absolute certainty? The deliberate attempt to downplay what is a known facts is what the IPCC has always done. Spread bullshit and lies.
Virtually every paragraph I’m reading in the Current State Of The Climate is like this. Pablum bullshit.
You can read the Summary for Policy Makers here – https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf
Dredd Blog points out that the “thermal expansion” claims of rising sea levels is almost entirely bullshit. Nobody has proven him wrong, and nobody has proven the “thermal expansion” theory is correct either (it’s an assumption based on poor estimates), so I suspect he’s the one who is right.
So far, from what I’ve read, this report is crap. The “scenarios” are garbage (based on non-existent outcomes and technology).
Hmm?
Atmospheric CO2 peaked this year at around 420 ppm at Mauna Loa, with a few outlier results around 421 ppm.
With Industrial Civilisation adding of the order of 40 billion tonnes per annum, and with forest fires all over the place, and with the Amazon emitting more CO2 than it absorbs, we should not be surprised if Mauna Loa records a seasonal peak of 423 ppm in May 2022. And a seasonal peak of around 426 ppm in 2024….
The supposedly ‘safe upper limit’ of 450 ppm that never was safe is not far off now.
Meanwhile, another country catches fire:
‘Wildfires in Algeria: dozens of civilians and soldiers reported dead’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/wildfires-in-algeria-dozens-of-civilians-and-soldiers-reported-dead
As I expected, there is some websites / authors / journalists and science writers going gagga over the Sixth Report. Not me. Still finding errors and false expectations, which are still grossly misleading the world.
They updated their “estimates” (sooner, worse – as I predicted they would), but they’re still not on board with the false hopium and phony expectations. That’s to be expected as I’ve seen no evidence that the discipline has changed.
Climate scientists do not seem to have the breadth of understanding of Earth systems and how this directly affects human habitability. Or it’s something else – scientific reticence? Political posturing? Career protectionism?
I’m wondering when they’re going to finally admit they blew it. When temps are 2C? Maybe, maybe not.
We’re enduring our fifth? heat “dome” this summer, something that is supposed to happen “once every 12 years” or so. Hah! Time to put down the computer models and step outside and see the real world. They can’t seem to get it right.
The entire narrative of so-called democracies is governed by the short-term desire of bankers and industrialists to keep doing what they have been doing for the past three centuries -loot and pollute and exploit- whatever the long-term cost.
These anti-life arseholes apply pressure everywhere they can (some corporations are bigger than entire nations in their financial and cultural clout) to ensure as little as possible or nothing at all is done to preserve life on this planet.
Now there is no long term, and everything has become the short term, the arsehole think they can accumulate resources in bunker-style dwellings and leave the masses to starve to death, or get baked to death, or frozen to death.
What the above arseholes seem to not comprehend is that an uninhabitable planet means uninhabitable for everyone.
‘July was world’s hottest month ever recorded, US scientists confirm’
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/13/july-worlds-hottest-month-ever-recorded-us-scientists