Three major newspaper stories. Zero climate mentions.
Section A, page 12 of today’s New York Times contains a big story about the unprecedented weather pummeling California. Titled “Extreme Heat Turns State Into a Furnace,” the piece contains more than 1,700 words of devastating detail about how heat, fire, and toxic air are affecting people in the state. But none of those details were about why things are getting so bad. None of those words were “climate change.”
The Associated Press’s article today is similar. Titled “Scorched earth: Record 2 million acres burned in California,” it contains 1,100 words about the weather’s unprecedented nature. It lists several different record-breaking data points, and quotes state officials saying how “unnerving” it is to have broken these records so early in the wildfire season. And yet this article—which will be re-published this morning in newspapers across the country—also does not mention the reason why these records might be happening.
The Washington Post also has an article about unprecedented climate change-fueled extreme weather on its front page this morning, but it doesn’t mention climate change’s role. It’s about how 50 hikers are trapped inside a shelter within a rapidly-growing 130,000 acre wildfire, unable to be rescued. “This is one of the largest and most dangerous fires in the history of Fresno County,” the local fire chief said. “I don’t think everyone understands that.”
Um... There's actually quite a bit. What is the basis of your claim?
The most famous is the limits to growth model (developed by the Club of Rome in the 1970's, which we're unfortunately tracking quite closely). You can read about that model here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth , though there are many academic articles about. That is a quantifiable, falsifiable model that has had about 50 years of predictive power. The next 30 years according to that model are horrific.
Another scientific effort is what is being calculated by the global footprint network - https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/climate-change/. We've been in a deficit also since about the 1970's, and that overconsumption is directly connected to the current scientifically documented biosphere collapse which suggests that we're in the middle of the 6th mass extinction event on earth.
> Micronesia is gone – sunk beneath the waves. Pakistan and South India have been abandoned. And Europe is slowly turning into a desert. This is the world, 4°C warmer than it is now.
90% of where humans currently inhabit would be inhospitable to human life. That's about 6-7B people that will have to move across 1000's of km on the order of less than a decade. Likely into the Arctic and Antarctic ... where .. topsoil formation typically takes 100's of years.
Moreover, if you think xenophobic Europeans or Americans are going to allow Africans, Asians and Central Americans in, when they're putting existing climate refugees into concentration camps RIGHT NOW, you should perhaps rethink your worldview.
Not sure where you're getting your information. We've consistently underestimated how fast things are happening, and how much sooner they're happening.
All of those problems you identified are accelerating global warming and will be made worse by it. Unless we reduce emissions drastically immediately (and stop the biosphere collapse), we're likely en route to at a bare minimum a +3C world, with a ~20% chance of a +4C world within our lifetimes.
Estimates of what survive at a +4C world range from a few hundred million to a maybe 1-3B people. That's what, somewhere between 50-90% of humanity dying off. Look to your left, look to your right, unless we do something today, those people are going to die.
The World Bank in 2012 came out with a report as to Why We Need to Avoid a 4C world. At that time, they suggested that +4C is a low probability as early as 2050's-60's. Their assumptions then were that we'd stop curbing emissions in 2015 (they've gone up), and they also drastically underestimated how much higher CO2e concentrations would be increasing in the atmosphere (they assumed CO2e concentrations would go up by 1.5 ppm / year, but instead, they've gone up 2.6 ppm / year)
The issue with climate is compounded by something called "thermal inertia", which in practice means that the action we take today won't bear fruit for another 30 years.
So yea, unless we drastically reduce emission and stop the biosphere collapse, this generation, meaning YOU, meaning the elites who ignore this, and yes me, will likely be responsible for the largest die off of life since ... well the last mass extinction event.
So yea, pay attention to the science. Pay attention to the scientists and the literature.
Given that IPCC and other world bodies suggest we need to be reducing emissions by 7.6% every year for the next decade (starting this year). We're doing the almost exact opposite.
The US and China are increasing hostilities and are locked in a downward spiral of increased military spending (and associated emissions).
Most of the economic elite, while paying lip service is in utter denial about the direness of the situation.
With a few exceptions (New Zealand), every developed and developing society is prioritizing the economy and economic development over the preservation of a viable human future.
There are thousands of measurement stations spread across the globe - on land, in the ocean and in the air.
Four independent datasets are generated by different groups:
Scientists use four major datasets to study global temperature. The UK Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit jointly produce HadCRUT4 .
In the US, the GISTEMP series comes via the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Sciences (GISS), while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) creates the MLOST record. The Japan Meteorological Agency ( JMA) produces a fourth dataset.
In fact, the researchers say the world's affluent citizens are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer conditions.
"Consumption of affluent households worldwide is by far the strongest determinant—and the strongest accelerator—of increased global environmental and social impacts," co-author Lorenz Keysser from ETH Zurich says.
"Current discussions on how to address the ecological crises within science, policy making and social movements need to recognize the responsibility of the most affluent for these crises."
...
"The structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies leads to decision makers being locked into bolstering economic growth, and inhibiting necessary societal changes," Prof Wiedmann says.
"So, we have to get away from our obsession with economic growth—we really need to start managing our economies in a way that protects our climate and natural resources, even if this means less, no or even negative growth.
To highlight some important elements of their work:
A group of researchers, led by a UNSW sustainability scientist, have reviewed existing academic discussions on the link between wealth, economy and associated impacts, reaching a clear conclusion: technology will only get us so far when working towards sustainability—we need far-reaching lifestyle changes and different economic paradigms.
In their review, published today in Nature Communications and entitled Scientists' Warning on Affluence, the researchers have summarized the available evidence, identifying possible solution approaches.
"Recent scientists' warnings have done a great job at describing the many perils our natural world is facing through crises in climate, biodiversity and food systems, to name but a few," says lead author Professor Tommy Wiedmann from UNSW Engineering.
"However, none of these warnings has explicitly considered the role of growth-oriented economies and the pursuit of affluence. In our scientists' warning, we identify the underlying forces of overconsumption and spell out the measures that are needed to tackle the overwhelming 'power' of consumption and the economic growth paradigm—that's the gap we fill.
"The key conclusion from our review is that we cannot rely on technology alone to solve existential environmental problems—like climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution—but that we also have to change our affluent lifestyles and reduce overconsumption, in combination with structural change."
I don't follow. The burning of fossil fuels is risking human extinction. Sure, I can now fly from New York to Shanghai. But evidence increasing points that civilization and possibly humanity won't survive this benefit.
This has been known by Exxon for ~40 years, and they have worked to suppress and sow disinformation.
The intent of the analogy is to make clear that consumers have little recourse over their "choice" to consume this material.
Lots can be said about the tradeoffs of industrial civilization. We now see that it is leading us to extinction.
It's like bacteria in a petri dish, for 50 years it accelerated our consumption of our limited resources and made the petri dish increasingly hostile to life within it.
We all know how the story of bacteria in a petri dish turns out.
That's not what the argument is saying. We obviously didn't know the ill effects of the product when it first came out (think original Coke with cocaine).
Yes, it may have given us some material benefits, but now it is clear that it is hurtling the human race towards extinction (and likely much life on earth with it).
Heroin dealers are a great analogy here. Yea, if you cut off the supply to an addict they go through a process of withdrawal. And these companies have been working hard to manufacture demand and get more addicts.
The world did fine without tonnes of plastics for quite a bit of time. Yea, it would require rethinking industrial civilization (unclear it would survive), but we need to stop weaning ourselves off this toxic asset ASAP and as quickly as possible.
In contrast, the oil and gas companies are going to spend $5 TRILLION over the next 10 years to develop NEW oil and gas reserves, and expect to grow their markets, sales and obviously, emissions.
But not when you know your product causes harm and spend BILLIONS to suppress and sow confusion around the science.
We have an excellent precedence in terms of big tobacco and the lies and disinformation they fed the public about the link between lung cancer and smoking.
This argument often gets trotted out, but it's misleading.
Imagine your grandparents were introduced to heroin and became addicted to it, and you built a society around celebrating and finding new ways to use heroin. Then your parents were hooked on heroin, and people may have found out that heroin actually isn't that good for you, but by this time, the heroin produces had amassed such wealth and power that they worked hard for 40 years to suppress and sow confusion around the science around.
Now you're born into a society of heroin consumers, and to some degree you're also addicted to it.
Is it the fault of the consumers that the world now runs on heroin? Especially considering that the heroin producers have known for 40 years, and have spent BILLIONS lying to the public and government?
Three major newspaper stories. Zero climate mentions. Section A, page 12 of today’s New York Times contains a big story about the unprecedented weather pummeling California. Titled “Extreme Heat Turns State Into a Furnace,” the piece contains more than 1,700 words of devastating detail about how heat, fire, and toxic air are affecting people in the state. But none of those details were about why things are getting so bad. None of those words were “climate change.”
The Associated Press’s article today is similar. Titled “Scorched earth: Record 2 million acres burned in California,” it contains 1,100 words about the weather’s unprecedented nature. It lists several different record-breaking data points, and quotes state officials saying how “unnerving” it is to have broken these records so early in the wildfire season. And yet this article—which will be re-published this morning in newspapers across the country—also does not mention the reason why these records might be happening.
The Washington Post also has an article about unprecedented climate change-fueled extreme weather on its front page this morning, but it doesn’t mention climate change’s role. It’s about how 50 hikers are trapped inside a shelter within a rapidly-growing 130,000 acre wildfire, unable to be rescued. “This is one of the largest and most dangerous fires in the history of Fresno County,” the local fire chief said. “I don’t think everyone understands that.”