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World Will Not Meet 2C Warming Target, Climate Change Experts Agree
Guardian poll reveals almost nine out of 10 climate experts do not believe current political efforts will keep warming below 2C
Almost nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe political efforts to restrict global warming to 2C will succeed, a Guardian poll reveals today. An average rise of 4-5C by the end of this century is more likely, they say, given soaring carbon emissions and political constraints.
Water shortage will cause greater ruin than peak oil. (Photograph: Pedro Armestre/AFP/Getty Images) Such a change would disrupt food and water supplies,
exterminate thousands of species of plants and animals and trigger
massive sea level rises that would swamp the homes of hundreds of
millions of people.
The poll of those who follow global warming most closely exposes a widening gulf between political rhetoric and scientific opinions on climate change. While policymakers and campaigners focus on the 2C target, 86% of the experts told the survey they did not think it would be achieved. A continued focus on an unrealistic 2C rise, which the EU defines as dangerous, could even undermine essential efforts to adapt to inevitable higher temperature rises in the coming decades, they warned.
The survey follows a scientific conference last month in Copenhagen, where a series of studies were presented that suggested global warming could strike harder and faster than realised.
The Guardian contacted all 1,756 people who registered to attend the conference and asked for their opinions on the likely course of global warming. Of 261 experts who responded, 200 were researchers in climate science and related fields. The rest were drawn from industry or worked in areas such as economics and social and political science.
The 261 respondents represented 26 countries and included dozens of senior figures, including laboratory directors, heads of university departments and authors of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The poll asked the experts whether the 2C target could still be achieved, and whether they thought that it would be met: 60% of respondents argued that, in theory, it was still technically and economically possible to meet the target, which represents an average global warming of 2C since the industrial revolution. The world has already warmed by about 0.8C since then, and another 0.5C or so is inevitable over coming decades given past greenhouse gas emissions. But 39% said the 2C target was impossible.
The poll comes as UN negotiations to agree a new global treaty to regulate carbon pollution gather pace in advance of a key meeting in Copenhagen in December. Officials will try to agree a successor to the Kyoto protocol, the first phase of which expires in 2012. The 2C target is unlikely to feature in a new treaty, but most of the carbon cuts proposed for rich countries are based on it. Bob Watson, chief scientist to Defra, told the Guardian last year that the world needed to focus on the 2C target, but should also prepare for a possible 4C rise.
Asked what temperature rise was most likely, 84 of the 182 specialists (46%) who answered the question said it would reach 3-4C by the end of the century; 47 (26%) suggested a rise of 2-3C, while a handful said 6C or more. While 24 experts predicted a catastrophic rise of 4-5C, just 18 thought it would stay at 2C or under.
Some of those surveyed who said the 2C target would be met confessed they did so more out of hope rather than belief. "As a mother of young children I choose to believe this, and work hard toward it," one said.
"This optimism is not primarily due to scientific facts, but to hope," said another. Some said they thought geoengineering measures, such as seeding the ocean with iron to encourage plankton growth, would help meet the target.
Many of the experts stressed that an inability to hit the 2C target did not mean that efforts to tackle global warming should be abandoned, but that the emphasis is now on damage limitation.
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26 Comments so far
Show Allthe only "damage limitation" that will happen is when the earth's plague known as humanity is wiped out. until then, enjoy the momentum-increasing ride toward pure hell.
I believe you have taken a big step in "wiping out humanity" by dispensing with your own.
Our species failed to abandon spiritual, epistomological, and utilitarian anthropocentrism, as urged by the early deep ecologists, and we are now careening toward the consequences of that failure to apprehend that we are mere members, not appointed masters, of this planetary ecosystem. Our spiritual failing is producing a decidedly biological fate. Nevertheless, nonanthropocentrism does not necessarily beget misanthropy. We are, after all, just animals, though I must admit, it's hard to love our own species when, in spite of sentience evolved to the point that we should know better, we continue to overpopulate and destroy the planetary systems upon which we depend. I am alternately disappointed, angry, depressed, fatalistic, scared, and so on, but then something simple will happen--I'll see a crow do something funny, or a pair of eagles ride an updraft--and I'll feel that innate biophilia rise again. I do believe that in some way, shape and form, "life" will go on (put another way, I don't think even our worst, most destructive responses will utterly sterilize the planet). I take comfort in that. "Hellish" or not, I do try to enjoy the ride.
Mammon pushes our limits.
we are all walking dead people. this is not good. meanwhile, the citiznry continues to plod along, drugged by ritalin, television, and the internet, oblivious to what is crashing down all around them. shit is really sad you guys. really really sad.
Ya' know, ya don't want to be negative in the sense that you are not helping but hurting... but then again... the whole thing stinks of mind bending, mind boggling reality.
Does the progression of this climate change get so bad that it makes the catastrophe movies seem nice or will it be really JUST people in vulnerable places suffer terribly... will it be that say, people in the northeast(like myself) do not experiance the very worst... just the economic pain that will result from other places experiancing destruction and devastion?
If this climate change is going to happen ( which I'm 99.99 percent sure it will-is happening)how will it go down. I just wish it would come and I could quit guessing and just.... Will I be able to keep my house? will we keep the jobs we have, will they still exist... will a job even maake a difference. Will there even be a bank to pay our mortgage to...?
If there is just some grey dismal economic existance that is still kind of in place but where your going nowhere...(worse that we all ready have) what is that.
The weird thing is that we all know that certain destruction lies ahead, yet none of us are really doing anything to try to stop it... Our government, for example, could issue fixed low interest rate loans to people who invest in alternative energy for their homes. This would only be a little change, but it would help to decentralize power. Decentralization of power will also cut back on those crazy nuclear reactors that we use to make light now.
One last thing, has anybody seen our planet at night lately? It glows. It is emitting light as if it was a star. Climate change....
Right. One of the things we need to do is shut off the outdoor and office building night lights. We can support that on many grounds, the importance of melatonin production in humans, and other species, and the importance of a starry sky to our spiritual health, given that our spirituality evolved under such a sky. We are not dumb, but we are severely distracted.
Voluntarily walking the plank.
You could make the case that homo sapien is the stupidest animal in the history of Earth.
"You could make the case that homo sapien is the stupidest animal in the history of Earth."
It would be a bit of an understatement. Not only is the human genome self-exterminating, it seeks to eliminate all primate genomes.
Stupid doesn't even come close.
humans treat knowledge like staple groceries...things to 'have', but only to look at in your pantry as you head out the door to get fast food...not really to 'use'...
You know things are bad when scientists start basing their predictions on hope.
Considering that Mother Nature has been way ahead of us on the curve, those predicting a 6 degree rise or more might not be too far off.
Meanwhile the public snoozes along, full speed ahead toward a cliff.
And here come the water wars. For ferocity, you haven't seen nothing yet.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
I think that it will only take minimal physical destruction to start a chain reaction of economic destruction.(maybe it's begun?) That will cause humans to go to survival mode. That's when the real hell starts. Imagine 3 or 4 billion people fighting over food because the trucks can't deliver because there's no deisel because the commodities markets collapsed and the supply stopped because the infrastructure of the delivery system collapsed etc etc.
The good thing is that once the destruction is complete, then the pollution will stop. Then the survivors can build a new society that respects the earth and lives off the dividends of nature.............oops. We already destroyed that society.
Well, there must be some kind of hope for "humanity".
How to slow down and perhaps diminish the effects?
First of all the breeding contests between China, Islam and emerging Catholic countries must be abated.
ALL NATIONS must allow the forests and jungles to return and deforestation in any form must cease.
A high-priority global effort to find and implement a viable substitute for fossil fuels absolutely must occur.
All forms of radioactive materials even in minute amounts must be more rigidly controlled (including DU dust and open to the atmosphere 1940s to 1960s test sites) and all CFCs must be banned and controlled, globally.
Weather patterns will keep changing, probably toward an intensified water cycle with stronger storms, floods and droughts.
Ice fields and winter snowpack will shrink, jeopardizing water supply systems in some regions. There is evidence that all these things have already begun to happen.
We, the human race, are slowly, but surely eating the world. It doesn't matter any more how many people starve to death in Africa or how many have AIDS. It doesn't matter what Allah commands the faithful or whether or not we have saved up a pension. Our grandparents and parents were fools who grasped and grabbed and gobbled up all they could. We follow in their footsteps, cutting down 1,000 year old tree's, burning up oil, wasting irreplacable natural resources in the name of capitalism.
In the western industrial nations we are too comfortable sitting on our flat behinds to do anything to save the world that gave us life. In the rest of the world, unchecked child birth together with chronic poverty, religious conviction and ignorance chokes the land and starves the people.
We talk about 80% by 2050.
An 80% reduction in carbon emissions is not possible without a TOTAL and FUNDAMENTAL reorganization of our society and the infrastructure that underpins it. All of it.
80% is not everyone giving up their SUV for a hybrid vehicle. Its more like half of us giving up our vehicle altogether and the other half driving 75% less than they do now.
80% is not going to the farmer's market on summer weekends. Its more like giving up the transportation networks that provide us with fresh apples and strawberries in the winter. Its going back to a world where we eat what is in season and only those things that are produced somewhere nearby where we live. Bye-bye Washington apples! Bye-bye California strawberries!
80% is giving up our daily feast of fresh meats and moving toward a more vegetable-oriented diet that requires less industrial power to support.
80% is giving up air travel. Period.
80% is turning off the TV, game consoles, dishwashers, washing machines, cellphones, and all of the power consuming devices that make our lives what they are.
80% is consuming less, MUCH LESS, of every single thing we take for granted today. Less clothes, less shopping, less food, less soap, less water, less plastic, less gasoline, less electricity, less heat, less air conditioning, less empty space, less entertainment, less driving, less, less, less of everything.
80% means we cannot have 4000 square foot homes with vaulted ceilings and walls of windows for families of 4 people.
80% means a world so much different from this one, that we would not recognize it.
And that is where the crux of the problem really is. We need to change our BEHAVIOR, not our technology. And the government will never advocate that kind of change. The people will not vote for it and society-at-large will not support it.
Do I think a world with less would be a bad one? I don't. But we better figure out how to get there fast because the one thing we have less and less of each day is time...
It all boils down to giving up the Reaganite "American Way" and embracing the wisdom of the ages.
By far the most energy-intensive residential appliances are space heating/cooling, then food refrigeration, water heating, then TV/media.
The food refrigerator is not really necessary but is rather a component of the "super-urban" paradigm, built by the mutual support group of capitalist godzillas: peabody coal, westinghouse power, whirlpool refrigerator, general motors SUV, and kroger supermarket.
Instead of all that we can get our local produce at the weekly farmer's market, and keep it in the root cellar in warm climates and in the cupboard in cool climates.
"First of all the breeding contests between China, Islam and emerging Catholic countries must be abated."
China has strict family size policies and it's population is is no longer growing to a significant degree.
The population in poorer nations is related to poverty not religion. As a Catholic, the idea that large family size among the poor in Latin American countries has anything to do with Catholicism is positively dated. Most importantly, the poor aren't the ones emitting greenhouse gases - the stable-population rich countries are.
Economic growth completely dwarfs population growth - which is on target to stabilize by the end of the cnetury. It is exploding economic growth in the rich countries that are the source of CO2 emissions growth.
Read this article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jan/29/politics.greenpolitics
(the last entry of the URL is: politics.greenpolitics)
But the rest of your comments are well taken.
When I moved to a city neighborhood with everything is walking distrance and frequent bus service everywhere, I found the car-free life positively liberatory. I also liked the human-scale social interactions when you encounter the poeple in your neighborhood on the sidewalk or bus instead of hidden behind the tinted glass and steering wheel of a car.
As an oldster with a balance problem, I bought a recumbent tricycle which I pedal to shop for groceries, visit my local seniors center and get around locally. For longer trips I use a taxi. This is still cheaper than running a car. No gas, no insurance, no maintenance, no parking problem--Freedom! And best of all, I'm not contributing to the problem for my grandchildren of global warming.
Ok, so now that the damage is done how about trying to do something about it? maybe instead of bashing them GM crops do some more research into them see if they can grow with less water.
Water shortage. Ocean levels are gonna rise. How about thinking of more efficient ways to desalinize ocan water and send it inland where it's needed?
On the other hand, did anybody check, maybe them 4-5 degrees will warm up the north allowing crops to be grown all year round in northern Canada and Siberia. maybe we should start being proactive and think about that instead of constantly whinig.
I can't stand the whining any more. If you can't stop something start thinking how you can adapt to it. Then again about 30 years ago everybody was afraid of a new ice age. Maybe this will go away just that fad.
In the mean time, corporations and politicians are making money off of them carbon trading schemes. How does that help?
There are plenty of species already adapted to arid climates. The responsible approach is to judiciously support the wild individuals exhibiting the more efficient genetic lines through such methods as top working. As a consumer you can for example ask the producer how close to this permaculture approach has he adopted, and exchange accordingly.
Desalination is really only feasible for seaside communities to avoid having to pump the water long distances. Solar distillation works with any water source - one or two gallons of distilled water per 6ft square per day. Seawater requires corrosion-resistant materials in the pumps/pipes. Freshwater is MUCH easier on the equipment.
chameleon writes:
"Then again about 30 years ago everybody was afraid of a new ice age. Maybe this will go away just that fad."
Standard DENIER rhetoric. And utter nonsense.
30 years ago, a few crackpots were hollering about a "new ice age". Absolutely NOTHING AT ALL like the current BROAD SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS about the human-disrupted climate. Show me the 30-year old reports from the IPNIA, the International Panel on the New Ice Age. There was no such report, because there was no such group, because there was no science-based fear of a "new ice age". You are a fool or a liar.
Your whole post is filled with denier nonsense. Hey, sure, climate disruption is good for you! More crops in Canada and Siberia! Big technological fixes, genetic engineering, ocean desalinization, hooray! i mean, with the brilliant track record and positive results from grand technological schemes, how could there possibly be any unintended disruptions caused by genetic engineering or ocean desalinization? FULL STEAM AHEAD, DAMN THE WHINERS!
Alertness to the impending CATASTROPHE of climate disruption is not "whining".
YOU are whining.
Hello, reading comprehension? I am not denying it's happening. If you really wanna split hairs I might have suggested that a 40yr warming trend does not create a certainty just like the cooling trend didn't cause an ice age. What i actually said is let's try to focus on how we can live with it.
"YOU are whining" Really, I just offered three solutions. The only thing i hear otherwise is "raise taxes" and "carbon trading". That's not gonna cool the plaet.
Alertness to the impending catastrophe without trying to adapt to it IS whinng.
The Earth has been warming for longer than 40 years. See graph at http://tinyurl.com/qa3pm
Changes resulting from global warming -- melting of arctic sea ice, permafrost and glaciers all over the world, heat waves and chronic droughts -- are happening faster than predicted by computer models, which haven't incorporated all the postive feedback loops that make change nonlinear.
Higher taxes on carbon emissions would force reductions, which might head off some of the warming. So could simply reducing energy use, which is quite feasible. We also need to switch to alternative forms of energy. None of this is likely to happen if people who don't understand the situation keep fogging up the discussion with denial.
Adaptation will undoubtedly be necessary, but we need someone who has done a thoughtful study on this to spell it out in some detail. Just reading about peoples' feelings is tiring, and not very helpful. We need specific solutions.
You're both talking about laws and technology to solve this problem. A problem created with laws and technology.
By GREED!
There is ONLY ONE SOLUTION!
The human population must be brought back to a pre-industrial level. And a new way of life must be adopted. One without huge energy expenditures.
I, for one, do not see this happening in any peaceful or voluntary fashion. Call me a pessimist.
We need to recognize that the idea that we can "adapt" to global warming is based on wishful thinking rather than the geological evidence. Of course the Earth has gone through similar warming periods in the past, but WE haven't!
The warming polar regions will sooner or later shut down the temperature-driven global ocean circulation that mixes and oxygenates the deep ocean waters. In anoxic conditions, deepwater anaerobic bacteria thrive on organic material falling from the surface water. They metabolize hydrogen and sulfur, producing poisomous hydrogen sulfide gas which diffuses upward. When it eventually bubbles up into the atmosphere it kills much of the surface life, possibly including us this time.
This may sound alarmist, but it is merely what a reading of the geologic record shows has happened several times in the past, a probable cause of many mass extinctions. Current examples of anoxic water include the Black Sea depths and lakes which have minimal oxygenated water input. Atmospheric oxygen diffusing downward has kept the hydrogen sulfide gas from erupting so far, but warmer waters won't be able to hold as much dissolved gas. . .
i love your nom de CD... assuming you may be referencing our late lamented Joe...
And, you make an important reference to hydrogen sulfide gas, i'll look it up. Thanks.
chameleon/04.14/7:27p - please explain to me (us) your take on an "efficient" way to desalinize ocean water and send it inland (uphill)?
so you think a 4-5 degree warm up, allowing year-round production of crops in norther canada and siberia is a "proactive" solution to a life-ending scenario?
has/does your support, and obvious consumption, of genetically modified foods affected your thinking/reasoning abilities? that's a yes or no question.
"in the mean time, corporations and politicians are making money off of them carbon trading schemes." is that a whine, or just a comment?
i'll take the whining over the stupidity any day. a certain percentage of the whiners have the ability to think and reason. on the other hand, the stupid people will be the first to start whining because they don't know how to grow a green bean.