Is 'Prescription for Disaster' Our 'Most Optimistic' Climate Future?

New climate information from French scientists indicate that global warming of 2 C is the "most optimistic" scenario. Yet this is the amount of warming James Hansen has referred to as a "prescription for disaster."

Agence France-Presse reports on the new climate scenarios:

French scientists unveiling new estimates for global warming said on Thursday the 2 C (3.6 F) goal enshrined by the United Nations was "the most optimistic" scenario left for greenhouse-gas emissions.

The estimates, compiled by five scientific institutes, will be handed to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for consideration in its next big overview on global warming and its impacts. [...]

The French team said that by 2100, warming over pre-industrial times would range from two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to 5.0 C (9.0 F).

The most pessimistic scenarios foresee warming of 3.5-5.0 C (6.3-9.0 F), the scientists said in a press release.

Achieving 2C, "the most optimistic scenario," is possible but "only by applying climate policies to reduce greenhouse gases," they said.

The climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009 had agreed to a limit of 2 C in global warming, a deal many saw as a failure to stop runaway global warming. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said at the time:

"The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. [...] It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen."

James Hansen: "Limiting human-caused warming to 2 degrees is not sufficient. It would be a prescription for disaster."

In December of 2011, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies James Hansen stated at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union:

"The paleoclimate record reveals a more sensitive climate than thought, even as of a few years ago. Limiting human-caused warming to 2 degrees is not sufficient," Hansen said. "It would be a prescription for disaster."

"We don’t have a substantial cushion between today's climate and dangerous warming," Hansen said. "Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying feedbacks in response to moderate additional global warming."

"Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales," Hansen said.

Posted by Amma21

Feb 13 2012 - 9:05pm

"By analogy, just as the individual near-death experiencer may have to endure the pain and suffering associated with the trauma of almost dying before positive personal transformation can take place, so the world may need to undergo a “planetary near-death experience” before it can awaken to a higher, more spiritual, collective consciousness with universal love at its core." ----------------------------- Kenneth Ring, Heading Toward Omega100

Posted by Amma21

Feb 13 2012 - 9:10pm

POSITIVE ACTIONS (AND WE WILL NEED MANY, MANY OF THESE): --- "Promote personal discovery of positive images of the future—The power of positive visualization is widely recognized in mind-body medicine. Currently,many people can visualize a future of worsening global crisis, but few have been invited to develop their personal, positive vision of humanity’s future. Without a hopeful future to be drawn toward, people will tend to withdraw and to focus on the shorter term. We cannot build a future consciously that we have not first imagined. We are a visual species: When we can see it, we can build it. We need to develop the skills of consciously imagining positive, long-term futures for ourselves." - Duane Elgin

Posted by Amma21

Feb 13 2012 - 9:24pm

POSITIVE ACTIONS (CONTINUED) ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Develop ongoing indicators of an awakening human consciousness—There are a number of indicators that show deterioration of the biosphere as well as many social aspects of life. It would be of great value to have a countervailing set of positive trends that are regularly updated—an “indicators report” that suggests the pace at which a new culture and consciousness may be emerging in the world. Bringing positive indicators of change into public awareness establishes new benchmarks for dialogue, and provides an expanded frame." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Collective Consciousness and Cultural Healing - Fetzer Insitute

Posted by Aged seer

Feb 15 2012 - 3:37pm

I think the point is climate change. Last year there was an expose of professors and climate "experts" lying about their findings on Global warming, So the wording has been changed to climate change. Well, I remember weather much colder and much warmer. It is cyclical, and man has not as much to do with it as volcano eruptions, sun spots and things such as La Nina. Totally out of our control. Each must care for their little piece of home the best he can, but to cause all to suffer by denying the use of fossil fuel is Machiavellian.

Posted by Atomsk

Feb 15 2012 - 3:57pm

"I think the point is climate change. Last year there was an expose of professors and climate "experts" lying about their findings on Global warming, So the wording has been changed to climate change."

Misinformed, disingenuous bullshit, in every single respect. Read up on the "climategate" stuff this before you spout stupidity. Also, the wording was changed in the media thanks in large part to Frank fucking Lutz, a Republican propagandist, way before the Climategate stuff, exactly because "Global Warming" was too scary. Read up on this, he is actually pretty proud of it. That it was somehow changed to cover up "climategate" is preposterous idiocy.

Also, maybe you should try forming your own opinion and not just spout prepackaged think tank bullshit before you make a "contribution".

"Each must care for their little piece of home the best he can, but to cause all to suffer by denying the use of fossil fuel is Machiavellian."

*Your* fossil fuel use is killing people half a world away, in more ways than one. There is nothing "Machiavellian" in the idea that rich Westerners should cut back on their waste, destruction and pollution which at this moment is mostly externalised. Whining rich people who don't even understand how rich they are (ie. most Westerners) are so fucking disgusting.

Posted by Mairead

Feb 15 2012 - 4:44pm

Perhaps the best way to determine what's really going on -- at least at the good/bad level of evaluation -- is to look at glaciation and ocean acidity. They are massive sinks, and very hard to change.

According to the head of the North Cascade Glacier project , glaciers the world around have been losing mass at a non-linear rate since 1980. We've passed the tipping point and they no longer re-generate in winter.

The southern ocean (around Antarctica) is losing or has lost its ability to sink carbon as from 2007. The weather patterns have changed due to global heating past the point that the surface of the ocean could remain stable. Now the winds roil it, and it's less effective as a sink, though the amount of the reduction isn't yet well-known.

People who think they have some reason for not wanting to accept whats going on can ignore the reality represented by this data, but as Feynman reminded us, Nature cannot be fooled. Nor is she a respecter of persons, and she never, ever negotiates. That should cause anyone with good sense to reflect carefully on where their real interests are.

Posted by gregw2

Feb 19 2012 - 7:19am

The lambasters are out in full force and what they do not seem to understand is that some of us have been alive for quite a lot longer than even we want to admit. Sure climate changes are cyclical but what we are seeing and experiencing is an overall gradual increase in warming. It may not be as perceptible as some may wish and I am one of the ones that wish it wasn't so, but it is, and we have to deal with it, either collectively or individually. However we choose will be our fate and that is not erasable. It is like time. If we waste our time it is not renewable. We cannot regain it or change it. It is already spent and cannot be recaptured. What we have is the ability to see into the future and if we waste that information we will be guilty and held liable by our own home, our planet.

Posted by Aleph Null

Feb 19 2012 - 2:41pm

Very true. All over the world, anybody moderately perceptive and over 50 knows, from personal experience, that the weather patterns today are nothing like what they used to be. We have a visceral perception of climate change which can be life-changing - so ominous are our direct perceptions.

Ironically, it is impossible for older people to fully convey our sense of climate danger to the young, who are the most endangered.

Posted by Mairead

Feb 19 2012 - 3:07pm

The scariest part to me is the non-linear rate of change. It's hard to get people to understand what it means that the very rate of change is itself changing.

It's hard not to wonder whether we'll be able to survive without depriving the innocents, the stupid, and the malicious of their rights.

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