Stopping burning coal might be a strong top step towards fixing this.
Perhaps replace burning the coal with renewables/nuclear. And simultaneously keep methane leaks as low as humanly possible given how toxic methane is to our protective atmosphere.
> It can no longer be denied: Climate change is progressing unabated and accelerating. In 2023 and 2024, global average temperatures were 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time. It is even possible that the 1.5-degree limit for global warming agreed upon in Paris may already have been permanently exceeded.
The value they are talking about is the political definition, and not the scientific definition. The political definition requires a +1.5℃ increase to be unbroken across a number of years - 20 years, as set by the IPCC - before it is “accepted”.
Not the first year in which warming never again drops beneath +1.5℃, but 20 unbroken years of said minimum.
Many scientists consider +1.5℃ to have been reliably and consistently breached at some point in the very early 2010s.
And by that same metric we might have already blown past +2℃, which may have happened by 2023.
The reason why this is so alarming is because +4℃ is the point at which megafauna - all animals over 45kg, like humans - can no longer survive on this planet. They go extinct.
There are adults alive today which will see this come to pass.
Desertification, wet bulb temperatures, heat stress, loss of food in the environment, ecosystem collapse due to climate change happening too fast for ecosystems to migrate, and the massively increased range required to find food causing them to not find mates.
111 comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48915244
“Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning” (worldcrunch.com)
Stopping burning coal might be a strong top step towards fixing this.
Perhaps replace burning the coal with renewables/nuclear. And simultaneously keep methane leaks as low as humanly possible given how toxic methane is to our protective atmosphere.
Point of contention:
> It can no longer be denied: Climate change is progressing unabated and accelerating. In 2023 and 2024, global average temperatures were 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time. It is even possible that the 1.5-degree limit for global warming agreed upon in Paris may already have been permanently exceeded.
The value they are talking about is the political definition, and not the scientific definition. The political definition requires a +1.5℃ increase to be unbroken across a number of years - 20 years, as set by the IPCC - before it is “accepted”.
Not the first year in which warming never again drops beneath +1.5℃, but 20 unbroken years of said minimum.
Many scientists consider +1.5℃ to have been reliably and consistently breached at some point in the very early 2010s.
And by that same metric we might have already blown past +2℃, which may have happened by 2023.
The reason why this is so alarming is because +4℃ is the point at which megafauna - all animals over 45kg, like humans - can no longer survive on this planet. They go extinct.
There are adults alive today which will see this come to pass.
In what way does +4C kill all animals exactly?
Desertification, wet bulb temperatures, heat stress, loss of food in the environment, ecosystem collapse due to climate change happening too fast for ecosystems to migrate, and the massively increased range required to find food causing them to not find mates.
We are already living through a mass extinction event: https://www.worldwildlife.org/news/press-releases/catastroph...
+4C would be game over.
Jesus Christ
I was just recalling 1.5 being a “everything is fucked” Paris agreement number
Then it was “some people will survive” 2.5
It’s like 100% of climate scientists were ignored by industry and society
They were, mostly because they were actively undermined by Republican administrations and "special interest groups" going back decades.
It’s what happens as long as buying a larger SUV and burning more gas is somehow considered good for the ‘economy’ …