I'm a physicist with a background in nonlinear systems and climatology. Although I can endorse most of the content of this post - scientific consensus, light wavelengths, carbon sinks, etc. - the conclusion is simply not true.
Taken in the weakest sense, yes, the conclusion is correct that humans will be affected by climate change. Indeed, humans are already being affected, and have been affected in the past (for instance, by the Little Ice Age). But the implication that humanity is in trouble because of climate change is incorrect. Even presuming enormous heating, the oceanic, tundra, and particularly highland climates will remain protected. For example, even 5 degrees C warming would still leave Edinburgh comfortable for human habitation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh
Humanity will respond to climate change through migration, shifts in agricultural production, technology, and cultural adaptation. Yes, the global climate may soon lie outside of our experience, but humans never lived in the global climate; we lived in specific climates, particularly in the subtropical range, and these will not disappear. Moreover we have always been exposed to sudden stressors from droughts, floods, storms, warfare, and the loss of food sources such as game animals. We are descended from the survivors of climate change.
So yes, global warming is an issue. And yes, given our responsibility for climate change we should take it seriously. However, it does not present nearly the same threat to humanity as other problems such as bioterrorism or the rapid development of AI. If we are concerned about the future of the human species as a whole, it is areas such as those which deserve our focus.
You might notice that I don’t say specifically how bad CO2 will be for humans, but rather that if CO2 is bad, it’s for humans mostly. So I’m not sure what specifically you disagree with! Please lmk
Also, I think I mention I’ll explore this more in the premium article this week?
The kind of shifts such as migration that happened in our past are extremely difficult in a world that has more than 8 billion humans, expected to reach 10 billion. Terrorism on a massive scale will only be one consequence of this situation.
There is one obvious consideration here that almost everyone misses. It is not sufficient to consider only the impact that climate change has on humans. We must also consider the improvement in our ability to master our environment. Deaths from climate disasters have plummeted since we began using fossil fuels in earnest. Is it because dangerous climate events have almost disappeared? No, it’s because fossil fuels have caused unprecedented innovation by freeing up time for humans to focus on mental, rather than physical, work. Humans have never been more protected from the climate than they are today, and there is every reason to expect continued improvement.
Perhaps the premium article includes this consideration (I will consider subscribing!). Thank you for your work.
Good article but was very weak on how it harms humans since it kinda fell into the fear category which is unfortunate. Humans have one incredibly ability to adapt to everything ( one reason why we occupy all kinds of climate and terrain and always have) so why would we not adapt very well to a warming Earth? Moreover, why would Africa and India suffer so much more when they have already adapted to a hot climate? Are you suggesting that an additional 1 degree of temperature rise over 80 years will send them over the edge? Nonsense. This article didn’t bring it up but the warming occurs mostly in the polar regions not the equatorial regions so Africa and India would see the least impact. Also why ignore the fact that more warming means more food for the world and also less energy required to heat houses and buildings. These are good things.
There are many smart things humans can do to combat and eventually reverse CO2 concentrations but unfortunately the political leadership and the Greenies are not interested in pursuing the intelligent options since they are obsessed with chasing after 15th century “green” technology to solve problems in the 21st century. Very low energy density solutions (solar and wind) will not address the worlds 21st century energy demands instead we need advanced tech like nuclear not updated medieval technologies.
Thanks Walter! You're right. As I mention in the conclusion:
So how bad is global warming for humans? What’s the most current information? The most striking data and visualizations of the topic? Who will global warming affect the most? This is what we’re going to explore in this week’s premium article.
Yeah, well, this is why Russia is doing everything it can to ignore, if not derail, efforts to limit global warming. They're going to profit immensely.
Meanwhile, 20 times as many people already suffer from it (a billion+ people in Africa, same in India) and are going to suffer a whole lot more, but they're not Russians, so who cares …
NB: I have no idea which activists hate humans, but I submit that your sample is biased. The ones I know definitely don't.
"Doing everything it can to ignore" is a logic nonsense.
"If you don't buy this whole argument you must be pro Russia, and the Russians are BAAAD" is so childish.
"People in Africa and India are suffering (sic) from a 0.6C increase in temperature" and not from decades of mismanagement by their own governments is so patently stupid.
It appears that this comment was made not to further debate, but to attack. I don’t read any of these accusations in Matthias’s reply. Please, keep the debate cordial and focused on the content, not the people. Thank you!
You damn well know what I mean. They push other people to ignore the problem, by disinformation if nothing else. Also,. nobody said "if you don't buy …".
Dunno where your "sic" is coming from, my sentence is correct. On the other hand, "patently stupid" is not an argument. FYI the 0.6° number is (a) several years old and (b) not sufficient to describe the last years' 5°+ extremes above long-term maxima.
Agreed on the Russia comment, they probably think global warming brouhaha is a western plot to keep Siberia frozen.
Being from India, can confirm that 96% of the population has much greater problems than Bombay being underwater in 50 years. And quite a few find it hilarious that Westerners are getting their pants in a twist because Minnesota in 2070 may be as warm as Delhi last summer.
About the activists, a lot of them dislike babies. I've been told off by quite a few for "bringing children into a world with no hope". Most 30+ whiners are childless women.
I am a teacher. I work with the generation who inherited a problem not of their making. I coopted the phrase "you've received a bill for a party you weren't invited to"- I could find the book if I looked. The one I came up with myself-- probably along with many thousands of others is -- "Its not the earth, stupid. It's us." Your article confirms that us means humans. Only humans. This will make for a fascinating resource for teachers of all subjects! As one teacher in the bureaucracy of public education all I can do is work from the margins. Thank you.
True enough, but only half the story. Our generation also got a solution not of our making. The release of CO2 is a side effect, an externality, of energy use. This is the same energy used to supply our transportation, run our factories, fertilize our plants, power our computers and drive our health care. Energy is crucial to human prosperity, the same prosperity freeing our generation from being feudal slaves.
The question is not now and never has been how to eliminate increasing levels of CO2. It is how to do so while maintaining (or better yet dramatically increasing) the energy used to power current and hopefully future human flourishing. The obvious big solutions are nuclear energy (wonder who opposed that?), fusion energy, and possibly carbon extraction.
Humans die from extreme cold vs extreme heat at something like a 10:1 ratio. If anything, warming reduces this and goes in the opposite direction of your conclusion. Quite misleading.
Great article walking us through the logic and science behind anthropogenic climate change. I will be adding this to my "Worthwhile Reads" section on Risk+Progress.
Essentially, our civilization needed dense, affordable, and transportable energy to counter entropy. It found salvation in the form of fossil fuels...burning the remnants of long dead organic matter that had stored solar energy. In the process, burning them released dormant carbon into the atmosphere. We are now confronted with the challenge that the very energy that makes modernity possible is also quickly changing the climate of the planet we depend on.
These challenges are solvable with enhanced /accelerated innovation. Degrowth efforts, on the other hand, are likely to exacerbate the problem. This is why we should be hyper focused on progress.
A friend I worked with back in the day, Dr. Mike Biddle, of EVOK is an investor/supporter of the Ocean-Carbon sequestration technology. Mike is one of the smartest people I've known. And the most successful green entrepeneur - in the world, with his MBA polymers. The largest most successful plasctics recycling company in the world. I believe a one time Economist Green entrepeneur of the year. https://www.linkedin.com/company/evok-innovations/
"Over weeks to months, the alkaline solution reacts with dissolved CO2 in seawater to create bicarbonate (HCO3), a stable form of carbon storage for 10,000+ years."
> Methane, the second greenhouse gas in terms of CO2 equivalents, has a short average life of 12 years in the atmosphere
Those 12 years are going to become larger as we increase hydrogen production, because some of that hydrogen is going to escape. The thing is, H2 reacts with (i.e.. removes) OH- radicals, and OH- radicals reacts with methane.
1. That is not T, but temperature change - how much and how fast.
2. Sea level rise will not stop, so after West Antarctica is destabilised, then it melts.
3. You missed wet bulb temperature which is going to kill millions of people, who cannot hide somewhere. Human cannot live if wet bulb is 35C (in fact most cannot survive 32C wet bulb).
4. Your anaylis is extraolation - and climate change is not extrapolation. It does not mean, that it will be like today, but linearly extrapolated.
5. You temperature analysis (I wrote the comment) is completely wrong. Gaussian distribution is widening, and not only shifting. You missed that.
6. More energy in climate system means more extreme weather phenomena. This is physics, and you cannot predict this based on you simple extrapolation
When you fill gaps in your reasoning, then you will have the full picture, and the conclusions will be quite different.
Simply - do not stop by cherry pick. Continue to dig data to have full picture.
There's a direct impact of co2 level on human health, the strength of which I don't know well though. First of all, we have co2 receptors in the brain that give us the feeling of panic when co2 is very high (that's why choking is unpleasant). Luckily the levels of co2 of early Jurassic (around 2000ppm?) that may become real again would give us only headaches and grumpy moods, nothing life threatening but still unhealthy. We'll need some serious gene editing to combat this.
Tomas, not exactly. There was suome research about CO2 concentration, when higher level of brain function was inspected. And it seems that 1000ppm is the starting level when creativity is starting to fail.
"Higher sea levels mean that regions we’ve inhabited for thousands of years get submerged." Yet, "Global mean sea level (GMSL) has risen by about 7–8 inches (about 16–21 cm) since 1900, with about 3 of those inches (about 7 cm) occurring since 1993 (very high confidence)." (https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/12/) and nobody, except perhaps the Dutch noticed. People are in fact still moving to coastal areas e.g. Florida.
"Relative to the year 2000, GMSL is very likely to rise by 0.3–0.6 feet (9–18 cm) by 2030, 0.5–1.2 feet (15–38 cm) by 2050, and 1.0–4.3 feet (30–130 cm) by 2100 (very high confidence in lower bounds" (https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/12/). The higher bounds are very unlikely to eventuate, hence their low confidence in the IPCC. But conservatively, let's take the the median estimate, noting it is 50% higher than the "very high confidence" lower bound estimate. We have 26cm in 25 years and 80cm in 75 years. 25 years to deal with a sea level rise that is twice as large as one that nobody noticed. Seems possible to me.
Now, let's compare GDP per capita for one country that was and still is massively at risk from sea level flooding: Netherlands, and one of the largest and poorest countries now at risk from sea level rise: Bangladesh. (shortened link: https://shorturl.at/hEP17) From the World Bank data cited in the plot, in inflation adjusted USD, NL was $1000 GDP/person in 1960 (earliest I could find, I'm sure it wash much lower post-WW2), BD was $1250/person in 2015 (taking a recent bad year). After massive flooding in 1953 the Dutch saw the risk and spent the next 40 years building flood protection. Maybe, BD, equally aware of the IPCC estimates is quite capable of doing the same by 2050? If not, why not? BD now has access to more funding, modern technologies, and Dutch flooding mitigation knowledge than the Dutch did 70 years ago.
Although a roughly reasonable conclusion is drawn, much of this seems an over-simplification, to the point of being incorrect. Some examples:
The ice cores don't lead to global temperature in the past, they lead to the local temperature at the location of the ice cores. Much more proxy data is required for global temperature, though we do have that.
Greenhouse gases don't trap all of the heat in the atmosphere. That heat is radiated in all directions from the carbon atoms and some does get emitted to space, though, overall, some heat is trapped, raising global temperatures.
Oceans don't release CO2 as they warm, at least not yet. Yes, they absorb less CO2 but they are still absorbing CO2.
CO2 does benefit plants, to a degree. But research suggests that the benefit eventually levels off and the warming caused has detrimental effects.
Warming was generally slower in the past. It is the speed of warming and the speed of shifting climate zones which is a problem for the species left. Some can't migrate quickly enough, some can't migrate further up a hill than the hill is high, and evolution generally happens more slowly than necessary under rapid warming.
We've had the two globally warmest days on record this week. El Nino is just starting, so the annual temperature could reach the 1.5C lower goal next year, or within a few years, if not next year. Although the linked article refutes the idea of tipping points, we just don't know if they exist or when they will be reached but it seems crazy to just carry on the way we are just to see whether they exist or not. Certainly, though humans may, hypothetically, have some agency, CO2 levels are highly unlikely to go back to pre-industrial levels for many centuries. So the increasingly unstable climate will likely become incompatible with civilisation.
Thanks Mike! All your points are valid, thanks for adding them.
I don't think most of them change any conclusion though. Eg, the fact that greenhouse gases radiate in all directions doesn't change any conclusion and is a purposeful simplification. Eg, I do mention that speed is a problem, and that there are potential tipping points.
More importantly, I don't think it's true that CO2 levels are highly unlikely to go back to pre-industrial levels for many centuries. I will write about it.
I also don't think an increasing unstable climate will become incompatible with civilisation. The article tomorrow addresses this.
In any case, I'm looking into evidence to reach conclusions together, so I'm happy to process more of it! Your comments help in that regard.
Thanks for the reply Tomas. As I can't afford to subscribe to all the blogs I like, I, unfortunately, won't be able to read your next article.
As CO2 levels persist for many centuries, reducing only slowly, unless we can come up with some significant way to remove CO2, which doesn't have damaging side-effects, then the heat will remain, given the greenhouse effect.
Civilisations only became possible because of the relatively stable climate that the earth has had for ten millennia. More frequent droughts and floods, rising sea levels and searing heat makes for no normal life. It is really hard to see how civilsation can continue with such constant disruptions (the situation is only just starting to get really bad). If we combine all of that with depleting resources and many other environmental problems (we need a fairly stable, not continually worsening, environment) then how does civilisation continue indefinitely? Eventually, stresses will put an end to this one as they have all others, though no-one knows the time frame.
I'm a physicist with a background in nonlinear systems and climatology. Although I can endorse most of the content of this post - scientific consensus, light wavelengths, carbon sinks, etc. - the conclusion is simply not true.
Taken in the weakest sense, yes, the conclusion is correct that humans will be affected by climate change. Indeed, humans are already being affected, and have been affected in the past (for instance, by the Little Ice Age). But the implication that humanity is in trouble because of climate change is incorrect. Even presuming enormous heating, the oceanic, tundra, and particularly highland climates will remain protected. For example, even 5 degrees C warming would still leave Edinburgh comfortable for human habitation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh
Humanity will respond to climate change through migration, shifts in agricultural production, technology, and cultural adaptation. Yes, the global climate may soon lie outside of our experience, but humans never lived in the global climate; we lived in specific climates, particularly in the subtropical range, and these will not disappear. Moreover we have always been exposed to sudden stressors from droughts, floods, storms, warfare, and the loss of food sources such as game animals. We are descended from the survivors of climate change.
So yes, global warming is an issue. And yes, given our responsibility for climate change we should take it seriously. However, it does not present nearly the same threat to humanity as other problems such as bioterrorism or the rapid development of AI. If we are concerned about the future of the human species as a whole, it is areas such as those which deserve our focus.
Hi! Thanks for your comment! Very valuable.
You might notice that I don’t say specifically how bad CO2 will be for humans, but rather that if CO2 is bad, it’s for humans mostly. So I’m not sure what specifically you disagree with! Please lmk
Also, I think I mention I’ll explore this more in the premium article this week?
Really looking forward to this article. I will need to subscribe.
The kind of shifts such as migration that happened in our past are extremely difficult in a world that has more than 8 billion humans, expected to reach 10 billion. Terrorism on a massive scale will only be one consequence of this situation.
There is one obvious consideration here that almost everyone misses. It is not sufficient to consider only the impact that climate change has on humans. We must also consider the improvement in our ability to master our environment. Deaths from climate disasters have plummeted since we began using fossil fuels in earnest. Is it because dangerous climate events have almost disappeared? No, it’s because fossil fuels have caused unprecedented innovation by freeing up time for humans to focus on mental, rather than physical, work. Humans have never been more protected from the climate than they are today, and there is every reason to expect continued improvement.
Perhaps the premium article includes this consideration (I will consider subscribing!). Thank you for your work.
Good point indeed!
Yes, I do touch on it indeed!
Good article but was very weak on how it harms humans since it kinda fell into the fear category which is unfortunate. Humans have one incredibly ability to adapt to everything ( one reason why we occupy all kinds of climate and terrain and always have) so why would we not adapt very well to a warming Earth? Moreover, why would Africa and India suffer so much more when they have already adapted to a hot climate? Are you suggesting that an additional 1 degree of temperature rise over 80 years will send them over the edge? Nonsense. This article didn’t bring it up but the warming occurs mostly in the polar regions not the equatorial regions so Africa and India would see the least impact. Also why ignore the fact that more warming means more food for the world and also less energy required to heat houses and buildings. These are good things.
There are many smart things humans can do to combat and eventually reverse CO2 concentrations but unfortunately the political leadership and the Greenies are not interested in pursuing the intelligent options since they are obsessed with chasing after 15th century “green” technology to solve problems in the 21st century. Very low energy density solutions (solar and wind) will not address the worlds 21st century energy demands instead we need advanced tech like nuclear not updated medieval technologies.
Thanks Walter! You're right. As I mention in the conclusion:
So how bad is global warming for humans? What’s the most current information? The most striking data and visualizations of the topic? Who will global warming affect the most? This is what we’re going to explore in this week’s premium article.
So I do touch on these things!
Given the activists really hate humans, they should be pushing for more global warming. Especially the Greens, looks like the plants will thrive.
I had to put down my coffee to avoid spilling it. Actually, this is a great point!
Yeah, well, this is why Russia is doing everything it can to ignore, if not derail, efforts to limit global warming. They're going to profit immensely.
Meanwhile, 20 times as many people already suffer from it (a billion+ people in Africa, same in India) and are going to suffer a whole lot more, but they're not Russians, so who cares …
NB: I have no idea which activists hate humans, but I submit that your sample is biased. The ones I know definitely don't.
I have seen such activists. I will write a full post on this. In the meantime:
https://twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1669396105023324181?s=46&t=WPJ8oZ66knklCHaToeDvZQ
"Doing everything it can to ignore" is a logic nonsense.
"If you don't buy this whole argument you must be pro Russia, and the Russians are BAAAD" is so childish.
"People in Africa and India are suffering (sic) from a 0.6C increase in temperature" and not from decades of mismanagement by their own governments is so patently stupid.
Hi!
It appears that this comment was made not to further debate, but to attack. I don’t read any of these accusations in Matthias’s reply. Please, keep the debate cordial and focused on the content, not the people. Thank you!
You damn well know what I mean. They push other people to ignore the problem, by disinformation if nothing else. Also,. nobody said "if you don't buy …".
Dunno where your "sic" is coming from, my sentence is correct. On the other hand, "patently stupid" is not an argument. FYI the 0.6° number is (a) several years old and (b) not sufficient to describe the last years' 5°+ extremes above long-term maxima.
Matthias, don’t get incensed by trolls!
Agreed on the Russia comment, they probably think global warming brouhaha is a western plot to keep Siberia frozen.
Being from India, can confirm that 96% of the population has much greater problems than Bombay being underwater in 50 years. And quite a few find it hilarious that Westerners are getting their pants in a twist because Minnesota in 2070 may be as warm as Delhi last summer.
About the activists, a lot of them dislike babies. I've been told off by quite a few for "bringing children into a world with no hope". Most 30+ whiners are childless women.
I am a teacher. I work with the generation who inherited a problem not of their making. I coopted the phrase "you've received a bill for a party you weren't invited to"- I could find the book if I looked. The one I came up with myself-- probably along with many thousands of others is -- "Its not the earth, stupid. It's us." Your article confirms that us means humans. Only humans. This will make for a fascinating resource for teachers of all subjects! As one teacher in the bureaucracy of public education all I can do is work from the margins. Thank you.
True enough, but only half the story. Our generation also got a solution not of our making. The release of CO2 is a side effect, an externality, of energy use. This is the same energy used to supply our transportation, run our factories, fertilize our plants, power our computers and drive our health care. Energy is crucial to human prosperity, the same prosperity freeing our generation from being feudal slaves.
The question is not now and never has been how to eliminate increasing levels of CO2. It is how to do so while maintaining (or better yet dramatically increasing) the energy used to power current and hopefully future human flourishing. The obvious big solutions are nuclear energy (wonder who opposed that?), fusion energy, and possibly carbon extraction.
Agreed with everything! Next week's free article is exciting on this topic...
Thank you!
And I’ll use that metaphor!
Humans die from extreme cold vs extreme heat at something like a 10:1 ratio. If anything, warming reduces this and goes in the opposite direction of your conclusion. Quite misleading.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/fulltext
You're right! But this doesn't go against anything I've said in the article AFAIK, and I cover it in the premium one tomorrow.
Great article walking us through the logic and science behind anthropogenic climate change. I will be adding this to my "Worthwhile Reads" section on Risk+Progress.
Essentially, our civilization needed dense, affordable, and transportable energy to counter entropy. It found salvation in the form of fossil fuels...burning the remnants of long dead organic matter that had stored solar energy. In the process, burning them released dormant carbon into the atmosphere. We are now confronted with the challenge that the very energy that makes modernity possible is also quickly changing the climate of the planet we depend on.
These challenges are solvable with enhanced /accelerated innovation. Degrowth efforts, on the other hand, are likely to exacerbate the problem. This is why we should be hyper focused on progress.
Agreed!
for sure one of the best high-level summaries i've seen in years. thanks.
Quite an endorsement. Thanks!
A friend I worked with back in the day, Dr. Mike Biddle, of EVOK is an investor/supporter of the Ocean-Carbon sequestration technology. Mike is one of the smartest people I've known. And the most successful green entrepeneur - in the world, with his MBA polymers. The largest most successful plasctics recycling company in the world. I believe a one time Economist Green entrepeneur of the year. https://www.linkedin.com/company/evok-innovations/
https://www.ebbcarbon.com/solution
"Over weeks to months, the alkaline solution reacts with dissolved CO2 in seawater to create bicarbonate (HCO3), a stable form of carbon storage for 10,000+ years."
> Methane, the second greenhouse gas in terms of CO2 equivalents, has a short average life of 12 years in the atmosphere
Those 12 years are going to become larger as we increase hydrogen production, because some of that hydrogen is going to escape. The thing is, H2 reacts with (i.e.. removes) OH- radicals, and OH- radicals reacts with methane.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35419-7
Another argument against H2
You missed several points in your analysis:
1. That is not T, but temperature change - how much and how fast.
2. Sea level rise will not stop, so after West Antarctica is destabilised, then it melts.
3. You missed wet bulb temperature which is going to kill millions of people, who cannot hide somewhere. Human cannot live if wet bulb is 35C (in fact most cannot survive 32C wet bulb).
4. Your anaylis is extraolation - and climate change is not extrapolation. It does not mean, that it will be like today, but linearly extrapolated.
5. You temperature analysis (I wrote the comment) is completely wrong. Gaussian distribution is widening, and not only shifting. You missed that.
6. More energy in climate system means more extreme weather phenomena. This is physics, and you cannot predict this based on you simple extrapolation
When you fill gaps in your reasoning, then you will have the full picture, and the conclusions will be quite different.
Simply - do not stop by cherry pick. Continue to dig data to have full picture.
Thanks!
Did you read the premium article? The thinking is further elaborated there.
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/21-suprising-facts-about-climate
No. It is paywalled. I only refer to this article.
This distribution of temperatures is wrong and not consistent with reality and predictions.
There are 2 things - shift of the mean, and higer sigma.
That is how observations look like
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5065
Will correct, thanks!
There's a direct impact of co2 level on human health, the strength of which I don't know well though. First of all, we have co2 receptors in the brain that give us the feeling of panic when co2 is very high (that's why choking is unpleasant). Luckily the levels of co2 of early Jurassic (around 2000ppm?) that may become real again would give us only headaches and grumpy moods, nothing life threatening but still unhealthy. We'll need some serious gene editing to combat this.
True!
We're very far from that level though...
Tomas, not exactly. There was suome research about CO2 concentration, when higher level of brain function was inspected. And it seems that 1000ppm is the starting level when creativity is starting to fail.
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6gm6t5zc
Remember, that we are talking about levels in buildings, which is higher than atmosperic.
Thank you for this insight that probably took many hours of research!
I would suggest to look more critically though at the role of methane and animal farming in global warming. I have found in that respect that the publication of Sailesh Rao, "Animal Agriculture is the Leading Cause of Climate Change - A Position Paper" raises interesting questions and perspectives (see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351526969_Animal_Agriculture_is_the_Leading_Cause_of_Climate_Change_-_A_Position_Paper).
No disagreement that man made CO2 is causing global warming. What the correct response to that fact should be up to reasoned debate:
"Warmer temperatures mean more critical heatwaves." Except cold kills 10X as many people as heat, so a warming planet is likely to reduce excess deaths due to cold.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519623000232)
"Higher sea levels mean that regions we’ve inhabited for thousands of years get submerged." Yet, "Global mean sea level (GMSL) has risen by about 7–8 inches (about 16–21 cm) since 1900, with about 3 of those inches (about 7 cm) occurring since 1993 (very high confidence)." (https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/12/) and nobody, except perhaps the Dutch noticed. People are in fact still moving to coastal areas e.g. Florida.
"Relative to the year 2000, GMSL is very likely to rise by 0.3–0.6 feet (9–18 cm) by 2030, 0.5–1.2 feet (15–38 cm) by 2050, and 1.0–4.3 feet (30–130 cm) by 2100 (very high confidence in lower bounds" (https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/12/). The higher bounds are very unlikely to eventuate, hence their low confidence in the IPCC. But conservatively, let's take the the median estimate, noting it is 50% higher than the "very high confidence" lower bound estimate. We have 26cm in 25 years and 80cm in 75 years. 25 years to deal with a sea level rise that is twice as large as one that nobody noticed. Seems possible to me.
Now, let's compare GDP per capita for one country that was and still is massively at risk from sea level flooding: Netherlands, and one of the largest and poorest countries now at risk from sea level rise: Bangladesh. (shortened link: https://shorturl.at/hEP17) From the World Bank data cited in the plot, in inflation adjusted USD, NL was $1000 GDP/person in 1960 (earliest I could find, I'm sure it wash much lower post-WW2), BD was $1250/person in 2015 (taking a recent bad year). After massive flooding in 1953 the Dutch saw the risk and spent the next 40 years building flood protection. Maybe, BD, equally aware of the IPCC estimates is quite capable of doing the same by 2050? If not, why not? BD now has access to more funding, modern technologies, and Dutch flooding mitigation knowledge than the Dutch did 70 years ago.
I agree! I covered these in my premium article:
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/21-suprising-facts-about-climate
Although a roughly reasonable conclusion is drawn, much of this seems an over-simplification, to the point of being incorrect. Some examples:
The ice cores don't lead to global temperature in the past, they lead to the local temperature at the location of the ice cores. Much more proxy data is required for global temperature, though we do have that.
Greenhouse gases don't trap all of the heat in the atmosphere. That heat is radiated in all directions from the carbon atoms and some does get emitted to space, though, overall, some heat is trapped, raising global temperatures.
Oceans don't release CO2 as they warm, at least not yet. Yes, they absorb less CO2 but they are still absorbing CO2.
CO2 does benefit plants, to a degree. But research suggests that the benefit eventually levels off and the warming caused has detrimental effects.
Warming was generally slower in the past. It is the speed of warming and the speed of shifting climate zones which is a problem for the species left. Some can't migrate quickly enough, some can't migrate further up a hill than the hill is high, and evolution generally happens more slowly than necessary under rapid warming.
We've had the two globally warmest days on record this week. El Nino is just starting, so the annual temperature could reach the 1.5C lower goal next year, or within a few years, if not next year. Although the linked article refutes the idea of tipping points, we just don't know if they exist or when they will be reached but it seems crazy to just carry on the way we are just to see whether they exist or not. Certainly, though humans may, hypothetically, have some agency, CO2 levels are highly unlikely to go back to pre-industrial levels for many centuries. So the increasingly unstable climate will likely become incompatible with civilisation.
Thanks Mike! All your points are valid, thanks for adding them.
I don't think most of them change any conclusion though. Eg, the fact that greenhouse gases radiate in all directions doesn't change any conclusion and is a purposeful simplification. Eg, I do mention that speed is a problem, and that there are potential tipping points.
More importantly, I don't think it's true that CO2 levels are highly unlikely to go back to pre-industrial levels for many centuries. I will write about it.
I also don't think an increasing unstable climate will become incompatible with civilisation. The article tomorrow addresses this.
In any case, I'm looking into evidence to reach conclusions together, so I'm happy to process more of it! Your comments help in that regard.
Thanks for the reply Tomas. As I can't afford to subscribe to all the blogs I like, I, unfortunately, won't be able to read your next article.
As CO2 levels persist for many centuries, reducing only slowly, unless we can come up with some significant way to remove CO2, which doesn't have damaging side-effects, then the heat will remain, given the greenhouse effect.
Civilisations only became possible because of the relatively stable climate that the earth has had for ten millennia. More frequent droughts and floods, rising sea levels and searing heat makes for no normal life. It is really hard to see how civilsation can continue with such constant disruptions (the situation is only just starting to get really bad). If we combine all of that with depleting resources and many other environmental problems (we need a fairly stable, not continually worsening, environment) then how does civilisation continue indefinitely? Eventually, stresses will put an end to this one as they have all others, though no-one knows the time frame.