By Ailie Gallant & Kimberley Reid*
July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded. And now we know something even more alarming. This week, the European Space Agency announced the July heat pushed the global average temperatures 1.5℃ above the pre-industrial average.
The ominous headlines seemed to suggest we’d blown past the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of holding warming to 1.5℃ – and around a decade earlier than expected.
Is that it? Game over, we lost?
Well, like all things to do with climate change, it’s not quite that simple. The threshold was breached for a month before average temperatures dropped back. And July 2023 isn’t actually the first time this has happened either – the dubious honour goes to February 2016, where we broke the threshold for a few days.
Remind me – why is 1.5℃ so important?
In 2015, the world looked like it was finally getting somewhere with action to combat climate change. After decades of arduous debate, 195 nations adopted the Paris Agreement, a formal but non-binding agreement with a clear goal: limit global warming to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
But there’s nothing magic about this number. Every increase worsens the impacts. So why is 1.5℃ so important?
Essentially, it was thrashed out by experts as a threshold representing heightened danger. The Paris Agreement states avoiding dangerous climate change means keeping global temperatures “well below 2℃” of warming, and so the 1.5℃ threshold was born.
What’s a dangerous level of climate change? Basically, levels of warming where the damage becomes so widespread or severe as to threaten economies, ecosystems, agriculture, and risk irreversible tipping points such as the collapse of ice sheets or ocean circulations. More importantly, this level of warming risks pushing us beyond the limits of being able to adapt.
Put simply, the 1.5℃ threshold is the best estimate of the point where we are likely to find ourselves well up the proverbial creek, without a paddle.
Is it too late to act on climate change?
So, should we all just give up?
Not yet.
The global authority on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, defines 1.5℃ as a departure from global average temperatures above the 1850 to 1900 (pre-industrial) average.
It’s true that this threshold was exceeded for the month of July 2023. But the climate is more than a single month.
Global average temperatures go up and down every year on top of the global warming trend, because climates naturally vary year-to-year.
The most recent few years have been much warmer than average, but cooler than they could have been because of consecutive La Niña events.
This year, there’s been a significant acceleration in warming, largely due to the brewing El Niño event in the Pacific. El Niño years tend to be hotter.
To iron out year-to-year differences, we typically average data over several decades. As a result, a 2021 IPCC report defines the 1.5℃ threshold as the first 20-year period when we reach 1.5℃ of global warming (based on surface air temperatures).
Recent research shows the best estimate to pass this threshold is in the early 2030s. That means, by IPCC definitions, the average global temperature between the early 2020s and early 2040s is estimated to be 1.5C.
Dangerously close to the red line
All of this means we haven’t yet failed to meet our Paris targets. But the July record shows us we are dangerously close to the line.
As the world keeps heating up, we’ll see more and more months like this July, and move closer and closer to the threshold of 1.5℃, beyond which global warming will become more and more dangerous.
Is it still possible to stay below 1.5℃? Maybe. We would need extremely aggressive cuts to emissions to have a chance. Failing that, we will likely exceed the Paris target within the next decade or so.
Let’s say that happens. Would that mean we just give up on climate action?
Hardly. 1.5℃ is bad. 1.6℃ would be worse. 2℃ would be worse still. 3℃ would be unthinkable. Every extra increment matters.
The closer we stay to the line – even if we cross it – the better.
And there’s now good evidence that even if we overshoot 1.5℃, we could still reverse it by ending emissions and soaking up excess greenhouse gas emissions. It’s like turning around an enormous container ship – it takes time to overcome the inertia. But the sooner we turn around, the better.
*Ailie Gallant, Senior Lecturer, School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University and Kimberley Reid, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Atmospheric Sciences, Monash University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
116 Comments
Here's a wacky idea - why don't we re-direct the $7 TRILLLION of annual fossil fuel subsidies in that direction?
https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies
It was an extremely arbitrary target (meaning not scientifically determined as achievable) when set in Paris. CO2 is a long-lived gas - once in the atmosphere, it hangs around for 300 to 1,000 years. The mood in Paris was to somehow link potential future emission reductions to a temperature 'figure' - and as I say, it was an arbitrary determination - no science behind it whatsoever. No one, to my knowledge, has written a paper explaining that if we reduce CO2 output by 'x', temperatures will decrease by 'y' within 'z' number of years.
PS. IMHO - man-made aquifer depletion will set off greater numbers of refugees the world over, than will surface temperature change. i.e., they will more likely be freshwater, not climate refugees. And then there's the unsustainable extraction of fish from the sea. Bigger, sooner, mega-crises IMO.
It's a tough one Kate.
I read studies years ago suggesting our oceans have absorbed much of our CO2 emissions as we no longer have the capacity in our forests and soils to balance it out. Apparently this plus increased freshwater flows from ice melt is affecting not only sea temps but it's distorting the natural currents further affecting climate conditions.
I personally think the climate change label is a little misleading and there's too much fear mongering and blame games. I think many would like to make personal change but economics holds many back.
It's actually bigger than simply climate change. Nature and the natural ecosystem is much more interrelated and connected than simply CO2. It literally highlights human's relationship or lack of, with Nature.
The global marine heatwave rolls on:
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
Surface air temperatures:
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=world
I'd imagine Australia is going to burn bigly this summer.
Whatever you say Zwifter. You do realise that the world was supposed to end 40 years ago? And 30 years ago? And 20 years ago? First we were going to be frozen. Then we burn. And today, we still burn. And yet, more people are dying of cold today than heat. A bit of warm never hurt anyone.
Other than a few tens of thousands of people in Europe each year, no doubt worldwide figures would be in the hundreds of thousands dying from 'a bit of warm'.
See my post below mfd. Way, way more people die of cold than warm today, its not even close. So don't worry about warm too much. Oh, by the way, I've spent a bit of time in the middle east, it gets to a balmy 40+ regularly, and people don't die. Even at a toasty 50C, there are men working on construction sites. A once ever mistake was in middle of day, stupidly walking across concrete in bare feet, to get my jandals! I've sat outside having restaurant dinners at 11 p.m. in temps of 40C+ and been for a good few runs in 30 - 35C. Lets have a think about that before we talk about mass fatalities from the temperature rising from 20 to 21.5 or whatever miserable number average temps are currently at.
It's the humidity that kills you though, like literally. It's hot in the middle east but it's also dry. Where the problems might come is in tropical regions if they start going above the wet bulb temperature. One heatwave coinciding with a power outage could have awful consequences in some densely populated parts of the world if the heat keeps trending upwards.
I'd also be curious if you had any evidence of the cold killing more people? I'm not saying your wrong but intuitively a lot of countries that actually face cold temps are pretty well set up for them and you don't really see deaths in Europe from cold snaps like you do during heatwaves.
Thanks for the link that's quite interesting. As stated below a better description would be more people in cold countries die of cold, people in hot countries die from heat. And cold-related deaths often result from issues like hypothermia, respiratory problems, and cardiovascular issues during cold weather, especially in regions with harsh winters. And heat deaths tend to be more direct and broadly felt amongst the population compared to cold deaths which are generally concentrated amongst the elderly.
The countries most at risk from climate change are not cold countries, where the real issues might pop up are in extremely hot places which are currently habitable but become inhabitable with more extreme weather events, such as heat waves coinciding with heatwaves. Like I said above, countries without reliable power can get rarely screwed by this as there's really not that many ways to cool down when temps go above significantly above the wet bulb temperature apart from air con which obviously doesn't work without a robust power grid.
I'd also say its likely far easier to adapt to cold climates than it is to one that is far too hot. I don't really see this as an issue for New Zealand as we have a very temperate environment that's pretty ideal, but for the "global south", rising temps will present some massive problems which will indirectly effect us.
In a 2014 interview in the Washington Post of University of Miami climatologist Larry Kalkstein, who has published numerous research papers on weather-related mortality, weighed in on the matter: “Comparing apples to apples, which would be to evaluate acute or short-term responses to weather, I would always give the nod to heat-related deaths. However, if you are considering the seasonal differences in daily mortality, rather than just the “spikes” that we find with acute deaths, I can see why one can argue that winter (or cold-related) mortality is greater.” That was certainly the conclusion of a 2015 epidemiological study of deaths in 13 countries in The Lancet, which found that cold-related deaths in the U.S. were about a factor of fifteen higher than heat-related deaths. Cold deaths outnumbered heat deaths by a factor of twenty when averaged over all 13 countries studied. However, this study did not control for the seasonal cycle in death rates; deaths are always higher in winter, due to influenza and other non-weather-related factors.
The 2005 study, Heat Mortality Versus Cold Mortality: A Study of Conflicting Databases in the United States, advocated using gross mortality (or excess mortality, as shown in Figure 2 for the 1995 Chicago heat wave) as a way to arrive at a better estimate of heat-and cold-related deaths. They stressed that one must correct for the seasonal cycle in deaths before using this technique, to remove the influence of the winter influenza season and other non-weather-related factors. Interestingly, they found that major heat waves cause big spikes in the death rate, whereas major cold waves do not: “Severe heat waves often produce large "spikes" in mortality, especially during the 1995 heat wave across the Midwest. However, abnormally cold conditions have little effect on the standardized daily mortality. For example, February 1996, a cold period across much of the United States, produced no spikes in winter mortality levels.” Similarly, from the 2016 U.S. National Climate Assessment: “The relationship between mortality and an additional day of extreme heat is generally much larger than the relationship between mortality and an additional day of extreme cold.”
Expanding on the above I had a bit more of a look into it and it seems the Lancet study did not control for the seasonal deaths over winter which to me would be worth considering. This article had some more discussing it and how it's hard to draw a conclusion either way and really depends more upon you geographical location and how you actually define what causes a death in the first place.
It’s not about people being 1.5 deg hotter, it’s about the climate consequences of everywhere being on average hotter. Fires, floods, inundation from sea etc. I know Middle East well and it’s not the solution….making a place habitable by keeping everyone inside being blasted by air conditioning which itself is powered by burning fossil fuels (Barakah nuclear and MBR solar park excepted) is a model for failure if applied globally.
Not according to ACT. We're not in a climate emergency
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2023-acts-simon-court-c…
Is it too late to act on climate change?
It wouldn't be too late to try damage limitation, but no one wants to. So Armageddon it is.
Our esteemed political class promise us action, while deliberately growing emissions. "We need to start drilling again to become sufficient" because we, the same politicians, have deliberately grown demand? How stupid is that? Come election time NZers will dutifully march out and vote for parties that are bereft of a workable survival plan. Are voters naive, uniformed, don't care/selfish, or stupid? Our ruling political growth cult cram the growth imperative into every policy promise. So how likely is it we can cut emissions by growing emissions? Magical thinking is in vogue. I wonder if the political class stopped the sales pitch bs and told the truth for once what the reaction would be. Disbelief and howling of course. We have been so effectively trained to avoid reality over the past few decades, even the prospect of miniscule discomfort is intolerable. Kindy kids run the show.
Price is actually the only tool in the box that will save us from ourselves. The good news is prices are creeping up again. Saud has promised to extend production cuts, the SPR is full of fumes where there used to be liquids and resource rich Vlad the Invader has made his production share akin to avoiding a leper. The next government is going to face a very difficult term. They will of course choose trash the environment over telling NZ to tighten its belt, that much is a given, but even that feeble attempt to rewrite physics will likely hit the wall sooner rather than later.
Not quite NKTOKYO because:
Cutting the other stuff means less stuff being moved around.
Trips to work only make up a proportion of all personal travel.
Other stuff being cut like holidays = less flights/car trips.
So Beanie is technically right.
It's a shame that we have to orchestrate a recession and literally starve people of money in order to get to this point.
We could have a wonderful, fulfilling and abundant lifestyle while at the same time reducing FFs but some dickheads don't want to admit they are f*****ng the planet for next generations and are completely unwilling to contemplate even reasonably small changes to their current lifestyle.
One way or another we will be changing. One path embraces it and proactively starts adapting. The other path it is basically forced upon us and then we scramble in the dark. The latter is the New Zealand way, she'll be right.
Basically its too late so I'm not even going to worry about it now. My new ICE car finally arrived the other day, its awesome. Took a 20 year jump in technology, the interior lights up like a fighter jet cockpit. Labour screwed me with the tax, never mind they lost my vote years ago anyway.
Even if you're completely convinced, that this time their climate predictions are real and if we don't meet (these completely quantitative and not remotely arbitrary) targets it's all over and the planet will collapse: you have to realise that any sacrifice and reductions you make are just carbon emissions that someone else gets to make. If it's not the billionaire in their private jet its pretty much all of Asia which does not care either.
If you are making any real sacrifices to actually reduce your emissions you are either an idiot being taken advantage of, a smug virtue signaller or just selfless to a fault. All the bad things are locked in just enjoy it while it lasts.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/06/global-warming-climate-chan…
Tell the truth and you don’t get published. I mean, tell me it’s not true, please.
Not quite, but close.
Here's a good explanation of the "Narrative Rules" (as this academic refers to it);
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-narrative-rules
It's quite disturbing.
So what happened in Libya - a place destabilised so WE could get at their oil - wasn't out of the ordinary, Kate?
Goodo.
Globally, we're breaking records breaking records. That TK commentator seems to have self-justification (multifaceted; any lever gladly used) as the basis of their narrative; you are better than that. Sure, Universities have dropped the ball, sure they're competing for ever-lesser 'funding', but the physics of what is happening to the planet is unchallengeable.
There can't be many of these dinosaurs left - and they'll not do well in the new paradigm; not many relevant skills.
Sorry, I was talking about academic integrity as it relates to journal publication. I don't think the author challenged the laws of physics, did he?
This is the Jr. version of the elder academic with the same name. The Jr was born in 1968, so not a dinosaur by any means - very current where the latest coming out of the IPCC is concerned - here's a report on a recent sub-working group on climate modeling that you'd be interested in;
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-coming-revolution-in-climate
Climate change/global warming is real and the ranks of deniers is thinning out, but I am increasingly irritated by the lack of realism of climate scientists.
What is actually happening is that total emissions continue to rise and will do so for some years. The big oil companies expect to spend close to $1 trillion over just this decade on exploration and development of new oil and gas fields. Guyana until very recently had no known oil reserves, but now has over 11bn barrels and is exploiting this resource as quickly as possible. Energy security has become of paramount importance for many countries following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and any transition to a low carbon economy requires more mining of the critical metals and minerals. That mining will be done almost entirely with fossil fuels. Just look at what is required to build a wind turbine.
Yes, it's the political (and economic) choice of countries like China, India and Indonesia. Not of small to the point of irrelevant (from the standpoint of energy consumption) countries like New Zealand. Those large up and coming countries of the developing world laughing at the western world committing civilisational suicide by pursuing unreliable technologies like wind and solar generation and unsustainable technologies like EVs.
Given the tiny size of NZ, compared to those larger countries not doing a lot, wisdom would direct our efforts to mitigation, rather than prevention.
We could meet all our targets and there won't be any chnage in the global position. But we can and should save our own nation first.
Climate change is happening, and has always happened - we need to deal with it.
NZ is simply too small to fight it.
Both are moving to renewable energy .
Both are providing other countries with energy intensive products for them to consume.
I find it a rather childish attitude , We won't do anything because another country won't , we does change start.
Its better to be among the leaders than the followers.
We already are leaders. Our country is already carbon negative. Sit back and watch the markets fight over our exports.
Results from Beata Bukosa's research from
confirm New Zealand as a carbon sink. Interesting and encouraging preliminary results of inverse modeling and new measurements in New Zealand #CarbonWatchNZ #ICOS2020SC
• Recent flux NZ picture: 2017-2019 CO2 sink still present
• New measurements suggest even larger sink
agreed.
What is not mentioned in this article or from any other commentators in here so far is China.
China already emits more carbon emissions than the entire Western World combined (North America, all of Europe, Australia and NZ combined) and their emissions are still increasing in a verticle manner (even as many Western companies are pulling out of China due to geopolitical tensions).
And thats even before we talk about India.
Nothing any of us do is going to make a difference. Adapting is the best solution. The current solutions imposed on so called western democracies are nothing but a power grab by a very few at the expensive of the many. All the private jets at Davos is one of the biggest clues to that. (new EU regulations for air travel emissions exempt private jets is another one).
But how much of those emissions from China are created to manufacture the endless amounts of useless crap Western consumers demand? I don't think you can fairly ascribe all of the blame of emissions at the point of creation. An American company making an American designed product for an American consumer, that they outsource manufacturing for to China... Is that really entirely China's responsibility? Why does China hold that blame, but Saudi Arabia doesn't hold the blame for the petrol they export and make money from, just because it's burnt in another country?
It's a complex global issue and ultimately to make meaningful progress every country needs to pitch in - otherwise everyone has an excuse and nothing ever gets done. "Why should we in Beijing reduce our emissions! Shanghai emits more CO2 than us!"
Although, industrialisation is a choice, as was unrelenting population growth. Having this mass of humanity is apparently accompanied with an entitlement to pollute until they are ready to stop. Life support systems will have crashed by then though, which is a tad inconvenient.
The past is irrelevant.
And no, it's not fair, but it is what it is.
The data and facts are, the entire western world could go completely zero emissions and the world is still going to burn because of the emissions of China and India.....
It's not about blaming, it just is what it is.
So what's the solution, well first the western world needs to onshore alot of industry back home where possible.
Why did we shut down alot of our food processing in the last 10-15 years to send food to China in the to be processed and packaged and be sent back to us to be sold at our supermarkets? How was that allowed? Greed, plan and simple greed. That needs to stopped and reversed.
Second and most importantly we need to adapt and build our infrastructure with redundancy.
probably between 1990-2010 was the vast majority, since then domestic consumption would have overtaken.
Is it China's responibility, yes and no. They didn't have to do it. But they chose to allow it.
But going but to the actual point is the whole thing is rigged to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
Look at what happens here, we grow/produce food which gets shipped to China for processing and package and then it is shipped back to us to be sold in the supermarket. Absolute madness! Why? Because the money people have decided they don't want to loose margin by having to pay a New Zealander 23 dollars an hour when they can pay someone in China a couple of dollars instead. Just so they can grow profit.
My whole point is China and India and the rest of the developing world aren't going to lower their emissions. They just aren't. So we in western nations are just punishing ourselves, while the rich totally exempt themselves. ie you don't to drive a car, but they do. You don't get eat meat but they will. You don't get to travel overseas but they will continue to fly their private jets where ever they want, you will need to live in a small eco-apartment, but Mr Billionaire will just be fine in his multiple castles etc etc....
Yes it's complex......but the solution is to adapt to the change, but it's going to happen, nothing we in the western world is going to make a difference. SO prepare for it.
But also things do need to change, but that change needs to be at the expensive of the real emittors which are big business, not small businesses and house holds. Globalisation needs to end. Governements need to work for the people not big business and billionaires.
Adaptation strategies in many cases are the same strategies as prevention.
In the case of transport it is less reliance on car travel which requires better infrastructure for bikes, walking and public transport.
Flooding mitigation in cities requires us to reduce the amount of parking and swap it for trees and rain-gardens. This also helps us mitigate the heat island effect which is increasingly going to be more relevant.
Stop building new motorways as this will chew up our adaptation and maintenance budget.
Most of these things are opposed because they are woke.
Among the many definitions of "woke" it also appears to mean "opposed to the destruction of our biosphere"
Supposedly, China's CO2 emissions per capita have exceeded ours. Are you ready to "tell" them to start cutting yet? I guess you can drag it out to the end of the decade if you want to include methane, or maybe the one after that if you want them to cumulatively catch up.
PS: I don't think you telling China and other "Global South" countries what to do. Who do think you are? The would don't work like that any more.
It seems as though it's an every man for himself situation. "The closer we stay to the line – even if we cross it – the better". This is just bargaining, we are blowing right past 1.5C whilst emissions continue to rise. "Every extra increment matters". I do think that by measuring how things are going in terms of degrees celsius helps to obscure the real roots of the problems we are facing, be it inequality, poverty, biodiversity collapse and the list goes on. Additionally, it helps to make it easy for politicians to talk about climate change as though we just need to pick a degree and try to hit it. Therefore we can just wait for some future technology to come along. Further, a global economic system ruled predominately under state capitalism that is predicated on growth will end in total collapse and we are clearly in the first stages already.
Further, this is why I would happily give back my tax break under the nats and even pay more tax to keep out wealthy foreigners. I'd vote for living more simpler lives and cutting down on luxury spending, and incentivised cycling to work through etc. Instead, we will be letting in a bunch of psychopaths who will start to have huge influence in our political systems for a couple of dollars. Much to the detriment of the middle and lower classes. The cost of living crisis is because we have used all the cheap oil. Total silence on this from the political classes.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tim-gurner-property-d…
These types of people.
Water vapour is a major green house gas. The Tongan eruption is likely responsible for the current extreme rainfall events (it increased levels by 10%) and this effect may pass in the next couple of years as we return to a more gradual warming.
NASA - Water Vapor Confirmed as Major Player in Climate Change
Tonga Eruption Blasted Unprecedented Amount of Water Into Stratosphere | NASA
Just as the plagues of Egypt in Exodus were likely due to the eruption of Santorini, the current problems in the Mediterranean are down to global volcanism.
Mate, you're making a fool of yourself. I know it's uncomfortable when you've been vocal about something and it turns out you were wrong but being a grown up means putting your hand up and saying sorry guys I was wrong.
Take a long hard look at yourself and your climate denial and seriously think about why there is overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and yet this sort of nonsense is still around. Have you ever considered that you're being duped by a multi-million dollar industry that wants people to believe that climate change is not real so that they can continue to make a killing from the rest of us?
And to preempt the inevitable question "have I considered whether I am being duped?" Yes I have. The reason why I don't think I am is because, unlike politics which is subjective, scientists work to a scientific method which is rigorous and findings are open to challenge, it is almost impossible for there to be this sort of scientific consensus and climate change to be a hoax. Scientists wouldn't stand for it, their whole nature is to question and challenge.
Calling it political reality is a bit of a stretch. More like political fantasy. Can it be fought? Well yes, but the all dominating message of the growth cult needs to be drowned out. Biosphere collapse, resource depletion and consequences will eventually become obvious to even the most dedicated evangelical growthist.
"Scientists wouldn't stand for it, their whole nature is to question and challenge". Seriously? Unless they are making a better living out of it, and receiving less opprobrium than if they were on the other side. Just have a look at what happened to those seven that published the letter "In Defence of Science". They were shouted down by ideological zealots and science nutters. And we are supposed to trust everything that paid shills are coming out with? And by the way, nearly all the models they have produced have been wrong by degrees of magnitude, right from the "hockey stick".
I have a degree in Environmental science and spend my spare time planting native trees. I think humans have caused climate change however I think the recent uptick in extreme events is due to the eruption. As I said we will return to a more gradual (human caused) rise in temperature. NASA are a fairly reputable scientific organisation. I do also think that the carbon credit thing is a rort and we should be putting our money into solving local pollution issues and restoring biodiversity, while also looking at alternatives to fossil fuel use.
OK, I apologise. From your comment I thought you were implying that human caused climate change was not real. I inferred wrongly.
I work in an area where we are pushing for change that would mitigate and help us adapt to climate change and I come across A LOT of climate denial and it obviously has coloured my perceptions. Again I apologise.
It's great that we can all agree that human caused climate change is real and move on to the next battle which is generally along the lines of:
- We can't afford the solutions
- NZ is too small to matter so let's just carry on as is
- Let's focus on adaptation instead of emission reduction
Etc...
No problem. We need to avoid getting into two distinct opposing camps on this and many other issues. It is complex and requires nuanced discussions. Climate change is due to a combination of natural cycles, catastrophic natural events and human activities. Some have short term effects and others show over the long term. I would still prefer to see spending on clean rivers, oceans and natural vegetation in NZ, rather than exotic plantings and trading schemes that may help meet political objectives - but do nothing for our local environment.
Biodiverse Forests Better at Storing Carbon for Long Periods, Says Study (columbia.edu)
I was referring to the argument between hitting CO2 targets by planting exotic forest vs prioritising biodiversity. Some of the solution that NZ is implementing seem to be adding to environmental damage. Carbon credits are an excuse to keep polluting while also vandalising our landscape. NZ cannot shift the dial on global CO2 emissions. We should look after our own backyard first.
Nature and Science etc. only describe one side of the argument. As recently documented:
"In theory, scientific research should prize curiosity, dispassionate objectivity, and a commitment to uncovering the truth. Surely those are the qualities that editors of scientific journals should value.
In reality, though, the biases of the editors (and the reviewers they call upon to evaluate submissions) exert a major influence on the collective output of entire fields. They select what gets published from a large pool of entries, and in doing so, they also shape how research is conducted more broadly. Savvy researchers tailor their studies to maximize the likelihood that their work is accepted. I know this because I am one of them.
Here’s how it works.
The first thing the astute climate researcher knows is that his or her work should support the mainstream narrative—namely, that the effects of climate change are both pervasive and catastrophic and that the primary way to deal with them is not by employing practical adaptation measures like stronger, more resilient infrastructure, better zoning and building codes, more air conditioning—or in the case of wildfires, better forest management or undergrounding power lines—but through policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
So in my recent Nature paper, which I authored with seven others, I focused narrowly on the influence of climate change on extreme wildfire behavior. Make no mistake: that influence is very real. But there are also other factors that can be just as or more important, such as poor forest management and the increasing number of people who start wildfires either accidentally or purposely. (A startling fact: over 80 percent of wildfires in the US are ignited by humans.)"
https://www.thefp.com/p/i-overhyped-climate-change-to-get-published
Who's the one in denial?
Tonga Eruption May Temporarily Push Earth Closer to 1.5°C of Warming - Eos
Plenty of sources out there to show plausible effects caused by this mammoth eruption. On a par with Pinatubo and Santa Maria. Luckily it was in a sparsely populated area.
And by the way, human population growth is causative to global effects, through habitat destruction- why just rail on about oil derivatives? Are you so vain to think that cutting back on fossil fuels will make an iota of difference?
Climate change IS the multi-billion dollar industry today. Unless your research holds to the climate change faith no journal will publish it. You won't get grants, you won't get promotions, you won't get tenure. Your academic and scientific career will be over before its even begun. The irony is, this climate change dogma is going to cripple the performance of the west just as every other major developing country leaps ahead based on the reliability and flexibility of cheap fossil fuel energy.
I have said that I think it is caused by humans but also affected by natural events. I also think there is a link between extreme weather and biodiversity loss, we could fix the problem faster by re-wilding the planet, restoring soil health and ecosystems rather than trading carbon credits and driving Tesla's. It is scientists that say the Tonga eruption is causing increased temporary warming, I follow science.
Strawman again. Denigrate, thus establishing self-superiority. No direct rebuttal of hypothesis(es).
No that basis, no need to investigate the unwelcome.
Sorry, but if you were on the Titanic as it sank, would you castigate the folk saying you must get into the lifeboats? Would you rubbish them and use that ask an excuse for thinking (?) the sinking wasn't happening?
Seems to me that perspective/relativity has to be kept in mind.
Strawman again. Denigrate, thus establishing self-superiority. No direct rebuttal of hypothesis(es).
No that basis, no need to investigate the unwelcome.
Errr...
You mean just like this...
by powerdownkiwi | 14th Sep 23, 6:34pm
WH - bollocks.
I'm 100% sure your income, peer-respect or self-worth are dependent on human climate forcing not being true.
And I'm therefore pretty sure you lack the ability to think logically.
Which part of the quoted NASA article do you specifically disagree with?
Lol. "July was estimated to have been around 1.5°C warmer than the pre-industrial average for 1850-1900". Scary. Forget that the Little Ice Age finished about 1850 when temperatures started warming. And even today, more people die from cold than heat.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(23)0002….
Looking at that paper, a better description would be more people in cold countries die of cold. The hotter the country, the larger the proportion of deaths from heat. Heat deaths in southern Europe exceed cold deaths. And Europe is quite cool compared to other parts of the world like Africa, India, SE Asia
No need to resort to history or science, just look across the Tasman RIGHT NOW cobber! Sydney is in an unprecedented pollution crisis due to surrounding unprecedentedly early burn-offs of suburban vegitation to try and head off massive summer bush fires which are expected to sweep through this summer. Melbourne in a similar situation.
I would advise New Zealanders heading to Australia in order to avoid being swamped by the Labour Party's unprecedented unskilled immigration tidal wave, to weigh up that against the possibility of being prematurely cremated in your Aussie paradise.
Aus would surely be a no-no for asthma sufferers.
Could someone in the know please clarify what counts as a luxury these days or is it just the 200k cars that are a problem?
Surely all the unnecessary driving to sports, schools and shops needs to go, doesn't it?
I suspect we're never going to be told the truth about what we'd actually have to give up to 'save the planet' because it would be unpalatable to the majority.
"The filthy life of the ultra-rich"
And capitalism is merely a collection of very narrow minded values and beliefs arising from cultural 'norms', and economic theory is written around this. So we really need a change of cultural beliefs and values. Something greater than "economic" value. Unfortunately it's also embedded in the human psyche making it more challenging. Taxes, monetary and fiscal policy may force some into different behaviour but it's going to take something bigger for humans to choose to alter their nature.
You can make cuts to your consumption of FFs and increase the richness of your lifestyle, plenty do already.
Work less, spend less on shit, more free time to spend with family and friends and on other things that enrich your life.
The issue is that the super rich don't want this because they want people slaving away at fulfilling their needs.
Do people seriously think that all of the rather extreme and odd weather in the last has been primarily caused by global warming?
Global warming that has been building for over a century, has suddenly had extreme effects this year?
If that is true, then no amount of emission reduction is going to make the slightest difference. Next year will be significantly worse, and so on.
If that is false, then the narrative is also false and it is either random variation and/or some combination of causes. Global warming being just one of them.
I think the second scenario is far more likely and the false prophets lime James Shaw etc are full of crap.
Of course in five years their lies and assumptions will all be forgotten so they have nothing to lose right now.
Here you go, you can vote ACT, they don't believe we're in a climate emergency. Oh hang on, you're an old rich man, you already are.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2023-acts-simon-court-c…
"The whole scientific community" is utterly corrupt: journals are bought and paid for by monied interests. If your research doesn't fit the politically correct narrative of the day you won't receive grants and you won't be published. Plus, when was the last time this "scientific community" managed to successfully solve any of the major problems facing society as opposed to making things worse?
Really extreme events this year. "FAO’s forecast for global cereal production in 2023 has been revised down by 4 million tonnes compared to the previous figure released in July. Nevertheless, despite this month’s downgrade, world cereal production is seen increasing by 0.9 percent year on year, reaching 2 815 million tonnes, on par with the 2021 record outturn.
...Partly compensating for these declines, world maize production has been raised by 3.6 million tonnes and is now forecast to reach a record high of 1 215 million tonnes."
Climate alarmists in full swing. Check out these links.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVi01vJ4nxM
an article on an unreliable. https://www.masterresource.org/texas-blackout-2021/wind-output-plagues-…
this scientist maybe onto something https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l90FpjPGLBE
lucky we don't have a grid interconnect to Australia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E5U1GWVvzI
this bloke is a nobel laureate in physics. What does he know about climate change.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.