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77% of Top Climate Scientists Think 2.5°C of Warming Is Coming—And They're Horrified

"I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the Global South," one expert said.

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  • Bit of a misdirect in the headline. This was not primarily a scientific projection. This was a political reckoning by scientists who had recently suffered the bureaucratic pain of serving on the IPCC, and voluntarily responded to a survey.

    As one climate scientist put it:

    "As many of the scientists pointed out, the uncertainty in future temperature change is not a physical science question: It is a question of the decisions people choose to make," Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe wrote on social media. "We are not experts in that; And we have little reason to feel positive about those, since we have been warning of the risks for decades."

    Change never comes from politicians first, but these are people who are zoomed in on whether politicians are changing their minds.

    They're not going to change their minds slowly over time. It's gonna be nothing at all until the electorate is too loud to ignore, and then suddenly 100% of officials will claim they've "always condemned fossil fuels", "from day one", and "in the strongest terms possible".

    We've seen time and again that policy changes tend to bubble just below the surface for long time and then suddenly emerge with multiple changes happening in quick succession.

    I was of voting age when just saying the word "civil union" in the context of gay rights was political suicide, and I'm not that old. Things can change quickly. Keep your hope alive and keep agitating. We can do this.

  • What we need is a Ministry for the Future without a killer heatwave killing millions.

  • While the developed world rests on its laurels having already developed key technologies that insulate from the worst effects of climate change, the Global South is attempting to push through rapid industrialization to achieve the same effects, bringing with it public infrastructure, electricity, robust food supply, reliable transportation, healthcare...

    Meanwhile, the developed world looks at the Global South and says "ah, but why aren't you being greener about it? despicable! how dare you raise emissions?" while simultaneously restricting the free trade of essential green economy components like solar panels and batteries. The fact is, we don't actually care about climate change. Our political entities and economies are not structured to reward innovation in that space, so we simply end up pulling teeth to push through minor advances. Germany used to be a world leader in solar panels before it stagnated due to political pressure. The US used to be a world leader in developing nuclear before it stagnated due to political pressure. Japan used to be the world leader in batteries before it stagnated due to, well, Japan.

    • While the developed world rests on its laurels having already developed key technologies that insulate from the worst effects of climate change

      But this isn't true. Can we fight temperature changes? Sure, we have air conditioning and heaters.

      There's lots of things we can't isolate ourselves from. Natural disasters, for example. We see forest fires and floods on a yearly basis, and it's getting worse. We'll face droughts, and diminished crop yields. It'll be particularly bad for all the areas near the equator (which are also incredibly populous and export a lot of food), and what will happen then?

      Famine yes, probably, but likely also an exodus away from these areas, which I'm sure will go well as countries are known to welcome people seeking a better life with open arms. We'll face humanitarian tragedies. I'd be surprised if there won't be camps, and with that comes disease. Maybe we'll even see another pandemic.

      Aircon won't shield us from that.

211 comments