Twenty people were killed when a stretch-SUV-limo driver ran through a stop sign at full speed in rural New York State. As man-bites-dog-tragic as that is, should it have been gotten more prominent placement in today's New York Times than the 73,000-alarm-fire report of the IPCC that shows global temperatures will be 1.5°C warmer by just 2030 (since it's already 1°C warmer than pre-industrial levels)? And that averting that reality will take an almost immediate change in how we do just about everything?
Which leads me to two threads from Twitter. First, there's meteorologist and climate writer Eric Holthaus summarizing the IPCC press conference in real-time last night:
The world's top climate scientists are about to announce that—without radical coordinated action—the world has locked in warming of at least 1.5°C. Heroic efforts are now necessary to save the world from catastrophic climate change.Second, from George Monbiot:
IPCC: Limiting climate change to below 1.5°C would require "unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society."The world has already warmed 1.0°C above pre-industrial levels. On our current path, the world will reach 1.5°C warming in as little as 12 years.
IPCC: Limiting warming to less than 1.5°C would save 10 million people from sea level rise displacement vs. warming of 2°C and *several hundred million* people from climate-related extreme poverty.
IPCC: The world would need to reduce emissions by about half from current levels by 2030 to be on track for limiting warming to 1.5°C. The current pledges in *every country in the world* are not enough.
1st Q, from BBC: What's different about this report? IPCC: "It's very clear that half a degree matters."
2nd Q, German press agency: Is 1.5C feasible? How optimistic are you on a scale from 1-10? IPCC: We identified 6 different conditions we'd need to meet to hit 1.5C. Is it possible within the laws of physics? Yes. But the political feasibility? Frankly, that's up to politicians.
3rd Q, Associated Press: What is the impact of the US withdrawal from Paris? IPCC: We don't look at individual countries. We have sent a clear signal to the collectivity of countries. Feasibility isn't something for the scientists to decide, that's up to the countries of the world.
IPCC: We can tell countries what would need to happen to limit global warming to safe levels. But the question of what will happen... that's up to the 195 sovereign countries of the world.
IPCC: "We are at the crossroads. What is going to happen between now and 2030 is critical.... If we don't act now" it will be essentially impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C.
"The only linking word you can use is 'and' in order to achieve the level of ambition necessary."
IPCC: "It's a tremendous collective endeavor."
"We did feel the weight of working on this report. ... We exist in this shrinking space of possibilities."
"This report comes with wishful thinking that the message is being taken up by public and policy makers."
Q: What message do you have for small island nations, who have staked their very existence on limiting warming to less than 1.5°C? IPCC: "It is within the scope of what humans can achieve."
Q: How soon do coal, oil, and natural gas need to be phased out entirely? IPCC: "The report is quite clear ... all pathways require quite significant changes in the pattern of fossil fuel use. ... Coal will have to be reduced very, very substantially by mid-century."
IPCC (paraphrased): Carbon pricing might be most useful in motivating the now-necessarily massively vast carbon removal that needs to happen by mid-century.
IPCC: This report could become an anchor for sustainable development globally.
Really important question from @blkahn: "What about geoengineering?" IPCC: We didn't consider the possible impact of geoengineering in this report. "We have to follow the literature," and there is essentially no reliable information to know what would happen.
Q: "What about aviation and shipping?" IPCC: Aviation and shipping aren't part of the UNFCCC. But, it's very difficult to keep planes in the air without petroleum or biofuels. This report shows drastic reductions in petroleum use by mid-century.
IPCC: Remember, hundreds of millions of people will benefit from meeting the 1.5°C goal. The cost of radically reshaping human society to achieve this goal is less than the cost of not meeting it.
IPCC press conference is over. It's me again. Folks, if the world takes this announcement seriously, it would become quite simply one of the most important moments in human history. If the world doesn't take it seriously -- our civilization itself is at stake. Stark, but true.
We know that climate breakdown presents an existential risk to human populations and much of the other life on Earth. Yet the gas guzzler still accelerates towards the cliff edge. Why?
Because the lobbying power of fossil fuel-based businesses outweighs that of any other faction. The fossil fuel industry uses its profits to lobby for continued extraction and use. Its tactics are highly sophisticated.
Among these tactics is the use of covertly funded front groups, denying or downplaying the risks, and granted a platform by a receptive media, much of which is owned by members of the same oligarchy. The media misrepresents both the problem and the necessary solutions. [See this earlier post about Alex Steffen and what he calls the "frame of denialism."]
This campaign of denial resonates with an innate resistance to change, reinforced by a tendency known as System Justification: a fundamental human weakness.
But deeper than any of this are the stories we tell ourselves: that progress means growth and growth means well-being. What climate breakdown and the rest of the environmental crisis reveal is that perpetual growth is the greatest threat to our well-being.
Perpetual growth was impossible until coal was widely used: before then, industrial expansion led to agricultural depression, breaking the cycle of accumulation (see EA Wrigley, Energy and the English Industrial Revolution). So we came to see progress = growth = fossil fuel
We know what we need to do. Leave fossil fuels in the ground. Replace them in their entirety with cleaner energy technologies. Recognise planetary boundaries as the limits economic activity should not transgress. Set well-being as our goal, rather than growth.
This shift will not occur through buying different products or reducing the use of plastic bags, or any other form of voluntary consumer action, valid as these may be. It will occur only through political action.
What does this mean? Mobilisation on a massive scale, through groups such as 350.org, to put environmental breakdown at the front and centre of political life. We need to break through vested interests, denial and System Justification to force government action
This is the fight of our lives. Yet most people have not yet acknowledged it, let alone joined it. So all those of us who have done so have a duty to recruit: to break the awkward silence and talk about the subject other people want to avoid.
We need to get embarrassing about it, to overcome our own reticence, even when we are labelled Jeremiahs or Cassandras, and risk upsetting people in alerting them to what is happening and what we need to do.
So aptly translated by cartoonist Andy Singer to this:
More details on the report and responses:
From one of the authors: 47% cut in CO2 by 2030, net zero by 2050. We can use small amounts fossil fuels but only with [carbon capture] or other negative emissions. [There are] 4 scenarios [for reductions to stay at] 1.5C, for no overshoot: coal down 97% by 2050 from 2010, oil down 87%, gas down 74%.And finally, also from Dave Roberts, What genuine, no-bullsit ambition on climate change would look like.
What media everywhere should be doing this week: hyper-local features about what it would look like in practice for their city or region to take 1.5C seriously. What would land use look like? What would transportation look like? What major local industries would change? @raludwick
Took me almost two years to get a bike corral at my kids' school because New York City is worried about taking one car parking space from drivers, but I'm sure we can completely decarbonize and avoid catastrophic climate change by [checks calendar] 2040. @BrooklynSpoke
If you're reading the news coverage from the IPCC report and thinking "that sounds terrible" remember that you're hearing about the summary - which has been edited and agreed by political leaders. The actual report, by the scientists is much much worse. Happy Monday everyone... @alex_randall
Every Democratic candidate in 2020 must commit to fighting for a Green New Deal to achieve a 100 percent renewable energy economy by 2030 and create millions of unionized, living wage green jobs. @nikhilgoya_l
As people who have dithered and wanked around this long, sorry, we don't get to be hopeless. We don't get to give up. We haven't earned it. We don't get to give up until we've really tried. So yeah, the news is bad, but pull your pants up and get to work. @drvox (David Roberts)
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