From what I have observed, the jury is still out on whether we are overestimating or underestimating impacts of feedback loops, I’m sure this author knows about them but they shouldn’t be ignored when talking about it for the sole purpose of painting a rosy but unrealistic picture towards a solution.
As my specialty is electrical and not climatology, I’m just hoping to avoid the equivalent of “thermal runaway”. If the planet loses its magic smoke we have no replacement on order. Our window of opportunity to get things under control is still open and there are more technical solutions and a broader range of support for implementing emissions reductions than ever before. There are also countless barriers and obstacles.
It depends intensely on what you mean by “thermal runaway” — we can absolutely create a world which will support a much smaller population; we can’t really create a world where we boil off the oceans like Venus.
The author literally wrote one of the commonly-used intro texts about climate.
They’re well aware of feedbacks, and that’s part of the standard understanding that scientists have.
From what I have observed, the jury is still out on whether we are overestimating or underestimating impacts of feedback loops, I’m sure this author knows about them but they shouldn’t be ignored when talking about it for the sole purpose of painting a rosy but unrealistic picture towards a solution.
As my specialty is electrical and not climatology, I’m just hoping to avoid the equivalent of “thermal runaway”. If the planet loses its magic smoke we have no replacement on order. Our window of opportunity to get things under control is still open and there are more technical solutions and a broader range of support for implementing emissions reductions than ever before. There are also countless barriers and obstacles.
It depends intensely on what you mean by “thermal runaway” — we can absolutely create a world which will support a much smaller population; we can’t really create a world where we boil off the oceans like Venus.