Scientists deliver ‘final warning’ on climate crisis: act now or it’s too late

Captain Smoker · Mar 21, 2023

Fallout-NL said:
Here's another one for you:

(...)

The entire point of the last few posts that I did is that government targets and expectations in renewable energy expansion are regularly outpaced by reality.

Here's also another one one for you:

• Wind and solar made up 92% of India's power generation capacity additions in 2022 (released 4 days ago)

India is currently #3 in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, behind the US and China.

Fallout-NL · Mar 21, 2023

Great. Hope those 'additions' are sufficient to offset the emissions of 173 coal fired plants.

Milky Way · Mar 21, 2023

1.5 is dead. Even 2 degrees is dead. It's over

mbpm · Mar 21, 2023

I remember this

Kouriozan · Mar 21, 2023

It's already too late tbh, France is having major drought since last year (yep, even in Winter we barely got any rain) and it's not looking like this summer will be a rainy one either.

Sulik2 · Mar 21, 2023

Don't have kids and have a plan for what you want to do when civilization collapses mid century.

NovumVeritas · Mar 21, 2023

In Germany you have the same issues, from last years summer, the rain wasn't enough this year to be enough.
The thing is, they're always talking about change and we have to stop the climate crisis, but it's just not enough.
I am not even sure if all countries are even interested in this, or just shrug it away.

Nola · Mar 21, 2023

Darkstorne said:
It's not about moral superiority, it's about everyone having to change their lifestyles and consumption patterns. We don't need to wait for governments to force us to live sustainably, and when most people are still choosing not to, that's still a problem. I'm NOT saying companies and governments don't need to change too, just that I find it distressing to see a common trend of people pretending there's no point in them changing when governments and companies won't.

It is 100% about moral superiority, that's why people make those stupid comments that happen to be narrowly aimed at people that they think post here while smugly inferring they are not that person.

I can go live in the forest tomorrow and drag my family with me and not even so much as make a fire and it will solve literally nothing. Individual actions can not stop this. This requires the collective action of governments to force wide scale changes and impose it upon societies. There is literally no other possible mechanism.

Yeah, maybe don't go out and buy a 15mpg ford f350 or whatever, if you can afford it add some solar panels and eat less meat, but that is not going to do Jack shit unless that is backed up by government action.

CorpseLight · Mar 21, 2023

Take a look at the dozens of dollar stores opening every year in every state, filled with cheap plastic junk that gets purchased and thrown in the trash, creating more and more plastic pollution.

The people in power stopped worrying about doing the right thing and only did the right thing to enrich themselves.

Greed won. These companies will never be curbed and instead focus on creating cultural issues to argue about instead of focusing on the important things.

The culture war shit isn't going to stop either as the world gets hotter. Whwn the world is on fire - Do you think the rich and politicians are going to just sit back and allow the masses to focus on blaming who is rightly to blame? No they will just amplify all the bullshit even more to divide people.

Booshka · Mar 21, 2023

Fallout-NL said:
Great. Hope those 'additions' are sufficient to offset the emissions of 173 coal fired plants.

Ya they won't be, just get piled on top for more profit and infinite growth.

Get excited about wind in Texas as The Willow Project moves forward in Alaska, the report outlines that the problem is consumption and the structure of economic systems-that's what needs to change.

Fallout-NL · Mar 21, 2023

Nola said:
Yeah, maybe don't go out and buy a 15mpg ford f350 or whatever, if you can afford it add some solar panels and eat less meat, but that is not going to do Jack shit unless that is backed up by government action.

Yup.

I mean hell, I kind of do all of that. My wife takes the train to work. I work from home myself. The car mostly sits in the driveway. We don't fly, period. We eat vegetarian as much as possible and go for chicken if we don't. And I've okayed a local contractor to install 14 solar panels just last week.

And I don't feel better about anything. Not one bit.

OgTheEnigma · Mar 21, 2023

Captain Smoker said:
Even chinese coal plants can't keep up with renewables by a factor of 2 and a lot of planned coal plants over there get cancelled as solar/wind outpace expectations.

Here's the outlook for the USA in 2023, 86% of it is carbon-free and no coal at all (and this doesn't include the rising additions in residential solar)

That chart is just additions. Is there going to be a greater removal of CO2 emitters than the 7.5GW of natural gas added?

Even if you increase renewable generation by 100 times, this would count for nothing if all fossil fuels aren't retired. The most important metric is the net amount of warming gases released. Even if we got that down to 0 today, we'd still have the issue of residual warming, for perhaps hundreds of years, until the climate reaches a thermal equilibrium (unless we go heavily carbon negative).

Majin Boo · Mar 21, 2023

Captain Smoker said:
The entire point of the last few posts that I did is that government targets and expectations in renewable energy expansion are regularly outpaced by reality.

Here's also another one one for you:

• Wind and solar made up 92% of India's power generation capacity additions in 2022 (released 4 days ago)

India is currently #3 in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, behind the US and China.

I am not sure I understand your agenda. No one is saying that these things aren't happening, or that they are not good. What most people including the scientists that issue these warnings and reports are saying is that this is not enough, not even close. That is the entire point of these warnings. And I think the danger of focusing so much on what is being done is that it can downplay the enormous task we are facing, could distract from the harsh reality ahead of us and may hide the fact our current "strategy" (or lack thereof) won't get us there.

Nola said:
This requires the collective action of governments to force wide scale changes and impose it upon societies. There is literally no other possible mechanism.

^100% this. This is what we should focus on, there are numuerous concepts of how to do this at hand, it just needs a couple of governments to pick them up and start.

Älg · Mar 21, 2023

anamika said:
Just getting millionaires to stop flying their private jets everywhere would make a difference and governments cannot even enforce that.

The celebs who have racked up the most CO2 emissions this year using their private jets

https://thetab.com/uk/2022/07/25/celebrity-private-jets-carbon-emissions-climate-change-263281 This list has making the rounds on social media. 10. Travis Scott CO2 flight emissions this year: 3,033.3 tonnes 9. Oprah Winfrey CO2 flight emissions this year: 3,493.17 tonnes 8. Mark...

www.resetera.com

Private aviation contributes a tiny amount to total global emissions. It is a fine cause to rally around, but not much more.

mbpm · Mar 21, 2023

Nola said:
It is 100% about moral superiority, that's why people make those stupid comments that happen to be narrowly aimed at people that they think post here while smugly inferring they are not that person.

I can go live in the forest tomorrow and drag my family with me and not even so much as make a fire and it will solve literally nothing. Individual actions can not stop this. This requires the collective action of governments to force wide scale changes and impose it upon societies. There is literally no other possible mechanism.

Yeah, maybe don't go out and buy a 15mpg ford f350 or whatever, if you can afford it add some solar panels and eat less meat, but that is not going to do Jack shit unless that is backed up by government action.

I agree, it's plain to see what meaning to draw from this.

Why do governments exist?

One of the reasons is they are currently the most effective way to draw from millions of people and use their efforts to make a change on a global scale and deal with global threats.

Why do corporations exist?

To disperse responsibility from the contributions of hundreds to thousands of workers so if their combined efforts come to nought they can continue functioning and thus command their will to build profit in a larger scale fashion.

Both those things are the largest and most reliable assets towards collective action. Just look at how America and Britain were dragged into the Iraq War 20 years ago despite record anti-war protests in both countries. Try and get that done without a government as a man on the street or another protest group in the face of that resistance and you'll just get hit over the head. The inverse applies here as well.

That's real power. Call that change you can believe in. We're not even close to that.

Captain Smoker · Mar 21, 2023

Fallout-NL said:
Great. Hope those 'additions' are sufficient to offset the emissions of 173 coal fired plants.

Global coal plant additions are stagnant since 2015 and are soon going to reach the inflection point where we retire more of them than we build.

We are already down to ~10GW of yearly net additions compared to the 2000s where we had net additions of ~70GW to ~80GW per yer.

So yes, these "additions" are doing their part to offset the impact of the coal industry, it's the main reason why coal goes out of business.

Booshka said:
Ya they won't be, just get piled on top for more profit and infinite growth.

(...)

Greenhouse gas emissions around the globe already reached a plateau on a yearly basis.

Depending on the trajectory of the next 2 or 3 years we're going to see the inflection point soon enough.

OgTheEnigma said:
That chart is just additions. Is there going to be a greater removal of CO2 emitters than the 7.5GW of natural gas added?

Yearly CO2 emissions in the USA are stagnant since years.

Partly (or mostly) because we outsourced the production to China, but I already covered them.

OgTheEnigma said:
Even if you increase renewable generation by 100 times, this would count for nothing if all fossil fuels aren't retired. The most important metric is the net amount of warming gases released. Even if we got that down to 0 today, we'd still have the issue of residual warming, for perhaps hundreds of years, until the climate reaches a thermal equilibrium (unless we go heavily carbon negative).

If you increase renewable generation by 100 times there wouldn't be any fossil fuels in usage.

Regarding the rest, I don't argue against the fact that certain damage is already baked in, this should be clear to everyone.

My problem lies in the defeatist attitude of a lot of people here ("nothing is done", "well glad I wont live until the apocalypse happens", "don't get children", "we all gonna die anyway"), when the reality points to an increasing adoption of green tech around the world, accelerating faster than any forecast imagined. That doesn't mean that "oh look actually everything is fine" of course, but we've also never been closer to the actual "Peak Fossil Fuels" moment then now, that's the first big hurdle to take and some motivation to increase our efforts more and more.

Hyun Sai · Mar 21, 2023

anamika · Mar 21, 2023

Älg said:
Private aviation contributes a tiny amount to total global emissions. It is a fine cause to rally around, but not much more.

Millionaire spending incompatible with 1.5 °C ambitions

Key drivers of individual emissions include energy-intense transportation, especially private aircraft and yachts, and multiple real estate ownership, often in different continents (Barros and Wilk, 2021; Beaverstock and Faulconbridge, 2014). Studies investigating celebrities, including US$ billionaires, have found that individuals can cause emissions of up to 1600 t CO2 per year through the use of private aircraft alone (Gössling, 2019). The largest source of individual emissions is however yachts: Barros and Wilk (2021) estimate that close to two thirds of the overall carbon footprint of those billionaires owning yachts is caused by yacht-ownership. This implies a contribution to climate change that is up to 6500 times greater for these individuals than the global average of 4.5 t CO2 per capita and year, or up to 300,000 times greater than the contribution of the poorest, at 0.1 t CO2 per person and year (The World Bank, 2022a).

Doggg · Mar 21, 2023

anamika · Mar 21, 2023

Regarding discussions on what needs to be done, here is a 2022 Nature paper with a proposed model for the UK:

View: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1637819612141166592

Grug · Mar 21, 2023

We have trigger warnings for a lot of potentially traumatic topics yet people seem to say stuff without blinking along the lines of "Man I'm glad I don't have to watch my non-existent children die in a climate apocalypse."

Some of us actually do have children and it's pretty upsetting to read people taking so coldly about this stuff. A bit of sensitivity never goes astray.

Nameless · Mar 21, 2023

This would call for corporations across virtually all major sectors to actively spend and/or lose money. And for a massive chunk of global population to do a 180 on some warped, short-sighted political & ideological positions. One guess how this plays out...

spam musubi · Mar 21, 2023

Just remembering the thread on Kohei Saito and his degrowth proposal that we had a few weeks ago, and the way people were responding in a knee-jerk manner and rejecting the fundamental idea was very depressing…

FliX · Mar 21, 2023

I saw some deck chairs that need rearranging, I'll be right back to read the report after that.

We're fucked.

Epitome · Mar 21, 2023

Grug said:
We have trigger warnings for a lot of potentially traumatic topics yet people seem to say stuff without blinking along the lines of "Man I'm glad I don't have to watch my non-existent children die in a climate apocalypse."

Some of us actually do have children and it's pretty upsetting to read people taking so coldly about this stuff. A bit of sensitivity never goes astray.

Fucking this and the Agent Smith energy of the entire human race is a cancer that must be eradicated.

sersteven · Mar 21, 2023

There is no act now. It's already done. We're set in. The amount of change needed is LITERALLY impossible at this point. The global markets have shown short term capitalist growth is more important than the longevity of our society. Like others have said, its essentially over. This is not doomerism. It's just a very depressing realism that as a man in my early 30s, I have to look forward to an incredibly unstable world. I get to look forward to water rationing, global strife and wars most likely than peace, retirement and comfort. It is what it is.

It's a big contributor to why I don't and won't have children.

No one will care truly until its too late. And by that I mean the general population. It's going to go exactly how I assume it will go. Conservative, capitalists and moderates will continue to keep their head in the sand until it's too late, the knocking on the door effect. The outcry won't start until we're suddenly looking at rationing of water, food, and energy. Then there will be a huge outcry to do something, all of a sudden it will be "We have to act. Why didn't they warn us". But the systems will be crumbling. Coasts will recede, animal populations will continue to suffer, and the most of the pain will be felt in the poorest nations while the rich ones will put up even bigger walls and let their rich hide behind them and huddle around the limited technological comforts they'll be able to provide.

Deleted member 12746 · Mar 21, 2023

I find it morbidly fascinating that something as basic as selfishness is standing in the way of fighting the climate crisis.

Empyrean Cocytus · Mar 21, 2023

We're boned.

Jason's Ultimatum · Mar 21, 2023

I feel bad for the young kids growing up. It makes me think the world will devolve into humans acting like animal when law and order is gone. Just like you see in movies and shows. It's depressing.

Foffy · Mar 21, 2023

We handled COVID expertly, no issues at all, good sign for us handling climate well too!

QuigleyMcShine · Mar 21, 2023

Someone needs to give me $12k for a new roof so I can spend $19k on solar panels. Then I'll need help scrounging up $30k for an electric car. Then I can say I'm doing my part! Surely if I just buy all the right stuff it'll be okay!

maigret · Mar 21, 2023

Carbon emissions from global SUV fleet outweighs that of most countries

Popularity of sport utility vehicles driving higher oil demand and climate crisis, say experts

www.theguardian.com

The continued global rise in sales of SUVs pushed their climate-heating emissions to almost 1bn tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.

The 330m sport utility vehicles on the roads produced emissions equivalent to the combined national emissions of the UK and Germany last year. If SUVs were a country, they would rank as the sixth most polluting in the world.

Purchases of SUVs have soared in recent years, rising from 20% of new cars in 2012 to 46% of all cars last year, the IEA reports. The rise continued in 2022, includes significant growth in the US, India and Europe, despite the overall number of cars sold falling slightly.

In 2021, the UK's National Audit Office reported that rising sales of SUVs and an increase in road traffic had cancelled out reductions in CO2 emissions from electric car sales.

.

FTF · Mar 21, 2023

Not to be all doom and gloom but we're basically fucked and it's over, etc. And that is so damn sad to think about. I do what I can but it just seems like such a losing battle.

Juturna · Mar 21, 2023

Alacrity said:
I find it morbidly fascinating that something as basic as selfishness is standing in the way of fighting the climate crisis.

"I'll be dead before it's a real problem, so therefore it's not my problem" Rinse. Repeat. Profit.

DarkSora · Mar 21, 2023

Well I hope we are at least get a remake of Ocarina of Time before we're screwed. :/

Deleted member 128704 · Mar 21, 2023

Captain Smoker said:
Even chinese coal plants can't keep up with renewables by a factor of 2 and a lot of planned coal plants over there get cancelled as solar/wind outpace expectations.

Here's the outlook for the USA in 2023, 86% of it is carbon-free and no coal at all (and this doesn't include the rising additions in residential solar)

Given the information you've supplied, and thank you for that, why is the situation now more dire than ever? Why are we being given a 'final warning' instead of a 'well done, keep going?'

JaseMath · Mar 21, 2023

BrokenIcarus said:
who's using all that energy though?

Dead Guy · Mar 21, 2023

It's been too late for the last 10 years now. Best get prepared for the fallout

Soi-Fong · Mar 21, 2023

Grug said:
We have trigger warnings for a lot of potentially traumatic topics yet people seem to say stuff without blinking along the lines of "Man I'm glad I don't have to watch my non-existent children die in a climate apocalypse."

Some of us actually do have children and it's pretty upsetting to read people taking so coldly about this stuff. A bit of sensitivity never goes astray.

Juturna said:
"I'll be dead before it's a real problem, so therefore it's not my problem" Rinse. Repeat. Profit.

Half the fucking posts in this thread is just defeatist doom and gloom. The "glad I won't be here to witness this" posts is the exact fucking opposite reaction that these scientists want. Hell, these type of posts show just how privileged Era is in general.

Many of my family live back in the Philippines and they'll be getting worst heat waves as the decades roll on. I'm trying to do my part, vote for the right folks, volunteer where I can, etc There is a ton of work to be done (by governments and corporations especially) and the defeatist attitude that folks show plays into the hands of the corpos that just want you to give up.

There are people out there trying to do good work to help solve this problem. Throwing up your hands isn't going to help anyone.

Crazyorloco · Mar 21, 2023

Zom said:
This is like the 10th final warning, pls hurry up.

This is why I think nothing will change.

We've heard this before. People need things to impact them significantly in a negative way for them to do something.

Geido · Mar 21, 2023

Game over!

Enjoy your remaining years, think well about bringing children into this world.

Jedi2016 · Mar 21, 2023

They were never going to do enough. The problem still isn't real to them, and it won't be until the world is literally on fire.

elyetis · Mar 21, 2023

It would be exagerated to say that nothing is being done, even if it might come from $$$ interest rather than ideology, renewable energy is growing, EV too...
My pessimism doesn't go as far as "we are totally f*cked" as some do, it seems to be more of a slow battle where at some point I do think we might get to ~ neutral emission.
I just don't expect a drastic change on that front simply given how politic play out and how unpopular pretty much everything is. If I take just what comes on the top of my head based either on in my country, or topic I've seen on Era. In France we have a side which argue against nuclear power, another side who want to remove wind turbine; asking shops to close their door if they are heating ( winter ) or cooling ( summer ) is apparently too much of an ask; lower max speed on highway is somehow too much too. And even here I can see how much of a political suicide it would apparently be to do something against the sprawling suburbs, huge SUV or even gas stoves with it's leaking infrastructure.
WIith that being said even if I think we won't achieve that 1.5°C goal, it's not all doom and gloom, it's not like it's a magical number where nothing can be done after that. Stopping at 1.7 or 2.0°C or whatever will still be better than doing nothing and keep making thing worst and worst.

Dyle · Mar 21, 2023

Yeah, we've known this for decades now.

Lurcharound · Mar 21, 2023

Covid is a good microcosm (if you can call it that) of the issue from global perspective. Stuff will be done, and probably more than it might seem to many, but the impact will be still be severe because it won't be able to outweigh all the negatives and in particular there will be too much opposition for too long (I'd argue there already has been too much for too long personally) for anything remotely decent as outcome.

World won't end of course, but there will be a lot of negative change (loss of life, loss of species, climate displacement, etc) and some seriously ugly times for human society.

Darwinian times coming in hard. The issues with capitalism and lack of ability to truly plan forward globally vs by country are the kneecap issues here.

Sordid Plebeian · Mar 21, 2023

I'm sure they'll issue another final warning next year too. Wish people would listen.

JetmanJay · Mar 21, 2023

Going to take a miracle of science to pull our asses out of the fire.
All of ya'll here with kids, push them into science related fields.

Falchion · Mar 21, 2023

Well that's bleak. Amazing how the rich are accounting for 70% of the carbon gap for the 1.5° range 🤯

cursed knowledge · Mar 21, 2023

in my opinion real change won't happen until we change our systems in place

everyone here should read and study about climate justice, market concentration, precarization of work, tax evasion by the wealthy, degrowth, neoliberalism and its erosion of public services, etc. not only read and understand but organize and help other people to know what's going on,

we need to do better now and only voting won't fix it

Lausebub · Mar 21, 2023

JasonMCG said:

I think most people would not be happy, if those companies stopped doing what they are doing.

Individuals consuming less or differently or companies producing less or different things, have the same outcome. Companies, politicians and individuals have to work together if we want to fight climate change, at least in democracies. Almost every climate policy here in Germany, which affects the average citizen gets massive amount of headwind, because people don't want to loose the living standards they have right now.

Scientists deliver ‘final warning’ on climate crisis: act now or it’s too late

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