(The pictures are of my grandchildren Sienna and Maya)
“A 3°C future will find us wedged between a geoengineered rock and a very hot place.” (The Economist )
Some interesting excerpts from the Economist this week
Three degrees of global warming is quite plausible and truly disastrous ( The Economist)
Science seems to be telling us that a 3°C world is a pretty likely outcome if nothing more gets done and might still happen even if things go very well indeed.
Judging by the results of specific studies, the differences between 2°C and 3°C are, in most respects, far starker than those between 1.5°C and 2°C.
Adaptation
Green roofs, water sprinklers and improved air-conditioning can all help. People can switch to more indoor living during the summer months.
What of the people with no air conditioners?
The increase in the “wet-bulb” temperature
The “wet-bulb” temperature is a measure that reflects this combined effect of heat and moisture on the difficulty of keeping cool.
Once the wet-bulb temperature reaches 35°C it is barely possible to cool down, especially if exercising. Above that people start to cook.
Richard Betts, a climatologist in Britain’s Met Office who has led several surveys of the impacts of high-end global warming, says that beyond 2°C small but densely populated regions of the Indian subcontinent start to be at risk of lethal and near-lethal wet-bulb temperatures.
Beyond 2.5°C, he says, places in “pretty much all of the tropics start to see these levels of extreme heat stress for many days, weeks or even a few months per year.”
Wet-bulb temperatures approaching or exceeding 3.5°C have been recorded, very occasionally, near the India-Pakistan border and around the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico.
Weather-station data published in 2020 showed that such extreme humid heat actually occurs more often than is recorded, mostly in very scarcely populated parts of the tropics. The study also found that its incidence had doubled since 1979.
Drought and drier conditions on 2/3 of planet
In less humid places, heat depletes water supplies. A modelling analysis of water scarcity at 1.5°C, 2°C and 3°C found that two-thirds of humanity will experience progressively drier conditions as the climate warms. At 3°C, periods of dryness currently treated as exceptional 1-in-100-year events are projected to happen every two to five years in most of Africa, Australia, southern Europe, southern and central United States, Central America, the Caribbean and parts of South America.
As a result, some modelling suggests that at 3°C more than a quarter of the world’s population would be exposed to extreme drought conditions for at least one month a year. California’s megadrought, which has affected the water supply for consumption, sanitation and irrigation as well as fuelling record-breaking fires, gives a glimpse into what this could look like for large swathes of the planet, almost all of which face far higher hurdles to adaptation than one of America’s richest states (albeit one with a high number of poor people).
Food shortages
In the summer of 2010 temperature records which had stood since the 1880s were broken in Russia, the world’s third-largest wheat producer; temperatures stayed up around 40°C for weeks. Wheat yields fell by about one-third: Russia banned exports in order to maintain its own supply. That led to price spikes on global food markets which have since been linked to civil unrest in a number of low-income countries.
Sea level rising from melting of The West Antarctic Ice Sheet
3°C world would be committed in the long run. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which until a decade ago was considered pretty stable, is crumbling at the edges. There is growing evidence that at around 2°C of warming it will begin to break down completely. “If that point is passed, the evidence suggests that the rate of ice loss from West Antarctica will increase dramatically,” says Nerilie Abram of the Australian National University.
Nor could the indigenous cultures of the Arctic or the rainforest survive in anything like their current form. Much of the Earth-as-was would be forgotten, as well as lost.
Adaptation
The limits to adaptation apply to nature, too. Animal and plant species adapt to warming climates by shifting to cooler ones where possible. Already fish are on the move, some species edging away from tropical waters to temperate, others from the temperate to the chilly. Land animals unable to trek to higher latitudes can, if they live in hilly places, find respite at nearby higher altitudes instead. But these strategies only work up to a point: mountains have peaks, and the Earth has poles.
Extinction for those that can’t Adapt
And it only works for species and ecosystems that are able to move faster than the climate warms.
Coral reefs do not have that facility.
They are predicted to disappear completely in a 3°C world (their boiled, bleached fate is worsened by the fact that higher carbon-dioxide levels make seawater too acidic for them). Some such failures to adapt make the world hotter still.
The Amazon rainforest, already weakened by logging and burning, would be very unlikely to survive in such a world. In its passing it would release further gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.
Is it ok because it’s not our problem - but our children’s problem?
Will this future arrive ?
- and if so - how quickly
And more importantly
What can we do about it
- Recognise there is a problem - acknowledge the science
- Identify ways to halt the rise in temperature
- Look to adapt - (aka Branson , Musk and Bezos exploring space?) What else?
As Einstein said
“Insanity is doing the same thing even though you know it’s going to kill you! “
The alternative point of view
The deniers - are they denying that temperatures will not rise to more than 3 degrees?
Or
Are they denying that if it does increase by 3 degrees it’s ok?
It would be interesting to hear their point of view and alternative scientific studies .
Maybe forums such as the Client Action Forum can create discussions that can enable us to be aware of the science and make informed decisions and identify paths of what we can do to make this world a better place for our children.
The ability to Choose and take Action
One of the most amazing gifts we have as a species - is that we have the ability to hope and choose.
I choose to be hopeful, I choose to be optimistic , and I choose to be aware of what is happenning around me and “take action” to make a difference
I look forward to collaborating with you - with a view to find solutions to this “wicked problem”
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