Arthur Gilroy is worried about a civil war in America. I’m not. Not yet anyway. I am far more worried about this worst case scenario playing out (which appears ever more likely), however, and what it will mean for humanity’s survival:
The world’s best efforts at combating climate change are likely to offer no more than a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the threshold of disaster, according to research from the UK Met Office. […]
The chilling forecast from the supercomputer climate model of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research will provide a sobering wake-up call for governments around the world, who will begin formally negotiating three weeks today the new international treaty on tackling global warming, which is due to be signed in Copenhagen in December. […]
If action is sluggish or non-existent, the model suggests that climate change is likely to cause almost unthinkable damage to the world; under a “business-as-usual” scenario, with no action taken at all and emissions increasing by more than 100 per cent by 2050, the end-of-the-century rise in global average temperatures is likely to be 5.5C, with a worst-case outcome of 7.1C – which would make much of life on earth impossible. “Even with drastic cuts in emissions in the next 10 years, our results project that there will only be a 50 per cent chance of keeping global temperatures rises below 2C,” said Dr Vicky Pope, the Met Office’s Head of Climate Change Advice.
“This idealised emissions scenario is based on emissions peaking in 2015 and changing from an increase of 2-3 per cent per year to a decrease of 3 per cent per year. For every 10 years we delay this action another 0.5C will be added to the most likely temperature rise. If the world fails to make the required reductions, it will be faced with adapting not just to a 2C rise in temperature but to 4C or more by the end of the century.”
Banks come and go. Economic disasters can be overcome. No Nothings like Limbaugh rise and fall. But what we are doing to our climate will last a millennium or more, and risks the extinction of humanity. I think that’s far more serious than any imagined scenario where wingnuts in the exurbs and small towns rise up to foment war against urban areas.
