According to a S&P Global probabilistic model: “global warming is likely to reach 2.3 C as soon as 2040.” And they conclude: “This suggests that–as a baseline–all sectors, including households, may want to prepare for the impacts of physical climate risks associated with a 2.3 C world.”

That’s less than 15 years from now.

Now, let me be clear, they’re not saying that we will for certain reach 2.3C of warming by 2040. They’re offering a probabilistic analysis, and they have determined that it is likely enough that it’s something we might want to prepare for. They “estimate a 90% likelihood that, by 2040, the average global temperature will exceed the Paris Agreement’s goal of 1.5° Celsius (1.5 C) above pre-industrial levels.” And they estimate that “there is a 50% likelihood of it exceeding 2.3 C” by 2040.

There was never a climate doomsday clock, at least not from any legitimate scientific sources. Scientists don’t make predictions, they’re not soothsayers or fortune tellers. It is, however, useful to try and project into the future. They do this using models. Unfortunately, even the most accurate climate model can’t have anywhere near a high enough fidelity to tell each person on the planet exactly how they will be personally impacted by climate change. But that’s exactly what makes climate change so concerning. There are a lot of unknowns, and it just generally makes the future more unpredictable than it otherwise would have been.

The Earth’s climate has been relatively stable for essentially all of our existence as a species. That’s going to change. It already has. We’re in that process now. That is irrefutable. And these changes will happen at a nearly unprecedented rate. Even relatively rapid temperature changes in Earth’s history usually unfold over tens of thousands of years. What we’re observing is unfolding over decades. That in and of itself is concerning, even if we don’t necessarily know exactly how that is going to impact each person individually.

Honestly, the best thing is just not to find out. Why risk it? Does it really make you feel any better knowing that we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen as a result of this unprecedented process? We should cut global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero as quickly as possible so we don’t have to worry about what might have happened if we didn’t.

If driverless taxis ever go mainstream (and that’s a big if), it will be from companies like Waymo, not Tesla. Tesla shouldn’t be seen as a serious company. I mean, they do sell legitimate products, but their $1.6 trillion market cap isn’t based on what they sell today, but what their cult member investors think they’re going to bring to market in the future. You know, all the stuff that will usher in the post-human, techno utopia. It’s all nonsense, and someday it will all come crashing down, though that could take a while. People can stay delusional for a long time.

I’m sure most people will be doing relatively poorly when the inevitable crash occurs. But infinite growth is simply not possible.

https://youtu.be/1bvwOrGn1Zs

People like you are the problem. You don’t actually want to fix anything, you just want to be “right.” You just want your beliefs and preconceived notions to be reinforced and validated.

Yeah, ultimately the problem is our infinite growth paradigm. Infinite growth isn’t sustainable regardless of the energy source. The paradigm will end, one way or another, probably when we hit some hard ecological or resource limit. The resulting crash will be hugely consequential for our species and the rest of the planet.

We’ve really screwed the pooch when it comes to climate change, so far. Most of it is due to greed, corruption, and the incredible influence of the fossil fuels industry, but I think climate activists have hurt their own cause, in some ways.

For whatever reason, climate activists have really focused on EVs, really trying to push rapid adoption through tax incentives and mandates. But the industry wasn’t ready. Profit margins at the lower end of the market, where most car buyers are, were too low due to the still relatively high cost of batteries, so the industry focused on the premium/luxury end of the market where margins were higher. The EV market became flooded with expensive vehicles that there just wasn’t enough demand for. It has resulted in people associating EVs with expensive luxury, and that’s the opposite of what we want for mass adoption. Also, the build out of critical infrastructure has been haphazard. The monopoly tactics of Tesla, and Elon Musk being an insane lunatic haven’t helped either.

But passenger vehicles account for such a small overall percentage of global GHG emissions, I don’t know why so much of the focus was on EVs to begin with. We should have been focused on the real climate change culprit, and that’s electricity generation.

We have shut down a lot of coal power plants, which is definitely a good thing, but most of them have been replaced with natural gas plants, which is not a good thing.

And that brings me to the other big mistake made by many climate activists: they insisted that we focus only on renewables, and refused to support nuclear, even though nuclear is a zero GHG emission technology.

The fact is, renewables are a very different electric generation technology, compared to coal, natural gas and nuclear. The latter can increase output in real time, in response to increases in demand. With renewables, whatever is being generated at any given time is what’s available, and if people want more electricity than what renewables are already putting on the grid, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t throw more solar panels on the fire, so to speak. Renewables just represent a complete paradigm shift in the way we generate and consume electricity. Renewables change the economics of electricity generation and delivery, and we did not adequately anticipate impacts of that.

The question now is: will climate activists recognize these mistakes and change. We’ll see.

Everyone is always talking about how cheap renewables have become relative to fossil fuels, arguing that this should cause renewable adoption to accelerate rapidly. Renewable adoption is accelerating, but not nearly fast enough. It would seem that cost is not the only consideration, and that it will take more than just very cheap renewable technology to induce the kind of rapid renewable adoption that is necessary.

No it won’t.

The number one thing we should be focused on is reducing and eventually eliminating our fossil fuel use. We’re not doing that, but geoengineering is NOT a substitute.

They don’t call it global warming for nothing.

The techno-optimists would say that we can replace all of those “oil slaves” with “green energy slaves” (probably a combination of renewables and nuclear, fusion or otherwise). The optimists would say that the full transition to zero emissions energy is inevitable. I’m skeptical, myself. I think those optimists are oversimplifying at best and outright delusional at worst.

Renewable technology has come down in price significantly and more and more renewable electricity is being generated every year, but we’re still quite a ways away from green energy beginning to replace fossil fuels. Currently, zero emissions energy is just being added on top of fossil fuels, and it’s probably going to stay that way as long as we are operating within an infinite growth paradigm. Infinite growth requires infinite energy, so no energy source can go unutilized.

But I agree that we will likely hit some hard, physical limit to growth at some point, and when that happens the global economic system will experience an unprecedented crash. I don’t know when that will be, but when it does it will be a major inflection point for our species.

People, on average, are wealthier than they’ve ever been. Technology and living standards have improved so much for so many people. Those people are not going to do anything that would jeopardize their current living standard, nor their pursuit of even more wealth. They don’t hate billionaires, most of them wish they were billionaires themselves. If there’s anything they would get angry at billionaires for it would be the affordability crisis. Climate change is way down on the list of grievances, if it’s on the list at all. Climate change is an existential threat to their living standards, so they should care, but it’s a difficult threat for people to conceptualize.

No major kernel decisions were made,” jokes Russinovich in a post on LinkedIn.

Man, wouldn’t that be wild, though?

You know that meme that came out of the pandemic? “We are the virus.” I’ve thought about it and I don’t agree. We’re not a virus, we’re more like a large asteroid impact.

Periods of rapid climate change are often associated with mass extinction events. Earth could experience a mass extinction event like the one that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs, as a result of this period of extremely rapid climate change that we’ve created.

No, we’re not a virus, we’re a natural disaster on par with some of the worst to ever befall this planet.

It really depends on how you define “successful.” If your measure of success is based on how closely these societies resemble Western, liberal, capitalist societies, then, yeah, you’re probably not going to see a whole lot of “success,” but that’s not what these revolutionary movements were trying to achieve. I would say that first and foremost what essentially every communist movement was striving for was just autonomy and independence, and many have been successful in that regard. Vietnam is an independent nation, instead of a French colony. China, similarly, is no longer under the thumb of the British. You may not like what these nations do with their autonomy, but that is what they were striving for and they have achieved it.

…a strategy that limits fossil fuels in the short term or encourages people to limit consumption is “doomed to fail”.

Maybe, but the world has to reduce global carbon emissions by half, within a relatively short amount of time, to have any chance of limiting warming to a level that gives us the best possible chance of not passing critical climate tipping points, and the only way to do that is to significantly reduce our use of fossil fuels. Carbon capture will likely also be necessary, and maybe so will be geoengineering (god help us), but there is no possible strategy for limiting warming and hopefully avoiding passing critical tipping points that doesn’t involve rapid and dramatic reductions in fossil fuel use. So, if that’s doomed to fail, then the world not passing critical climate tipping points is also doomed to fail. I think a lot of people just figure that’s a foregone conclusion at this point, and maybe it is, but if that’s the case then let’s just be honest and say that what we’re facing in the latter half of the 21st century, and possibly sooner, is significant catastrophe.

To be replaced with a new kind of feudalism. Company towns will come back, only they’ll be whole cities. Our nations will be carved up by ultra wealthy lords, each will take ownership and control of their own company city. The Lord will be both our employer and the sovereign of the city. We will essentially be their property. We will work for them, buy from them, and follow all of their rules. They will demand a cult-like religious devotion. That’s our future.

the missed deadline adds to concerns that climate action has fallen down government agendas

I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. It’s just not a priority in most countries.

I don’t agree. I think these people are acting out of what they believe to be self interest, even if it is an unenlightened self interest. Why else would they desire to be at the “top of the collective?” What do they hope to gain if not special, INDIVIDUAL, privileges, opportunities, liberties, etc?