World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Years

Re:World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Y... by tejohnso on Thursday May 27, 2021 @01:47PM (#27305908)

We're on track for a roughly 3C increase in global average temperature according to this chart from the IPCC[1] and this [2] from world data.

And that IPCC projection doesn't take into account the dozens of reinforcing feedback loops contributing to further warming. For example, the Amazon rain forest is now a net green house gas producer due to human activity [3].

[1]: https://e360.yale.edu/assets/site/_1500x1500_fit_center-cent...

[2]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re...

[3]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/amazon-rainforest-...

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Re:World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Y... by helmholtz on Thursday May 27, 2021 @02:07PM (#27306168)

And my parents keep asking when I'm giving them grandkids. Why would I make a child go through this? That these things don't keep people up at night is bewildering to me.

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Re:World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Y... by ALittleLight on Thursday May 27, 2021 @03:56PM (#27307460)

Go through what? Raising global temperatures may require moving away from current coastal areas or life changes like that. I've not read anything that would make it seem like a global warming future would be a hellscape not worth living in.

I have young children and have worried for them quite a bit. If they're healthy, if they're getting everything they need, if they're safe etc. I have never once considered global warming as a concern for them. While they're children I'll be able to handle any such changes. When they're adults, they will.

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Re:World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Y... by Bishizel on Thursday May 27, 2021 @04:12PM (#27307722)

The 1.4 to 2.0C range is where we are going to start seeing large scale crop failures. Also massive fish die offs in the ocean. Unless we drastically change trajectories, this will occur during the lifetime of your children.

You hope you and they will be able to handle these changes, but there are going to be a lot of downstream effects from warming and sea level change.

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Re:World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Y... by chasd00 on Thursday May 27, 2021 @03:00PM (#27306771)

maybe you're too young, I've heard the doom and gloom sine the 80s and those older than me have heard it since the 70's. If you look out across a sea of people there will always be a group of people holding a sign reading "Repent sinners, for the end is near".

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Re:World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Y... by tejohnso on Tuesday June 01, 2021 @01:35PM (#27358272)

Hearing doom and gloom since the 80s is consistent with the scientific evidence. It was in 1988 that James Hansen spoke before a U.S. Senate committee about human caused global warming. And it's not as though things have been getting better. They're getting worse, and at a faster than expected rate.

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Re:World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Y... by throwawayboise on Thursday May 27, 2021 @03:20PM (#27306997)

Yep, back in the 1970s it was the coming ice age, and it was also the "population bomb." If neither of those happened, we were going to have a global thermonuclear war. Doom-and-gloomers will always find reasons to preach doom and gloom.

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Re:World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Y... by webmaven on Thursday May 27, 2021 @04:47PM (#27308301)

> Yep, back in the 1970s it was the coming ice age,

No. That was an artifact of hype in the mainstream press. If you look at the research being published at the time, the consensus was fairly consistently for warming scenarios (by a factor of 2:1 during the most cooling-friendly years):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

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Re:World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Y... by DoingIsLearning on Friday May 28, 2021 @02:01AM (#27312191)

Contrarian argument, if I was given a chance at existing in a world full of death, turmoil, and instability _or_ the certainty of not existing at all, I sure know what I would want.

The post-scarcity period we experience in developed economies is very much the exception not the rule, if you look at the whole of Human History.

I understand and share you're concerns but you are removing all agency from whatever children you might have. A child born now will in all certainty reach their 20's. If they share their parents values they will most likely be an agent for change in the right direction.

Excess population and excess pollution (per capita) are not necessarily overlapping problems.

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