Mainstream Climate Science: The New Denialism? - Jonathon Porritt
www.jonathonporritt.com
This is a bit of a long one! So here’s my “Executive Summary” so you can decide whether to commit the time to the rest of it: mainstream climate scientists run the risk of becoming the new climate deniers.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/7967232

PMeanwhile, Johan Rockström, the driving force behind the whole Planetary Boundaries framework, is now spelling it out as starkly as it needs to be:

“A 2.5°C global mean surface temperature rise is a disaster. It’s something that humanity has absolutely no evidence that we can cope with. There would be a 10-metre sea level rise. There would be a collapse of all the big biomes of planet Earth – the rainforest, many of the temperate forests, abrupt thawing of permafrost, and the complete collapse of marine biology. Over 1/3rd of the planet around the equatorial regions will be unhabitable because you will pass the threshold of health, which is around 30°C. It’s only some parts of the Sahara Desert today that has that kind of average temperature.”

  • walter_wiggles@lemmy.nz
    2·
    3 months ago

    The last sentence does the article a disservice by qualifying the warnings with “before it’s too late”. That implies we still have time, that we can fix it if we just all work together. Pro-tip: it’s too late.

    I think I’d feel better if the discussion turned more towards “how do we cope” vs prevention.

    • Syl ⏚@jlai.lu
      2·
      3 months ago

      That sea level rise is most likely for next century, so you can still enjoy it while you cope…

      Joke aside, maybe the 1 billion people will be the realistic scenario, and we’ll just live north.