What
do they mean?- if they take every last piece of fossil fuel out of
the ground or just follow present practises (as they will)? In either
case this report is overoptimistic and deluded not taking into
account either current reality or the exponential nature of the
change.
World could warm by massive 10C if all fossil fuels are burned
Arctic
would warm by as much as 20C by 2300 with disastrous impacts if
action is not taken on climate change, warns new study
23
May, 2016
The
planet would warm by searing 10C if all fossil fuels are burned,
according to a new study, leaving some regions uninhabitable and
wreaking profound damage on human health, food supplies and the
global economy.
The
Arctic, already
warming fast today,
would heat up even more – 20C by 2300 – the new research into the
extreme scenario found.
“I
think it is really important to know what would happen if we don’t
take any action to mitigate climate change,” said Katarzyna
Tokarska, at the University of Victoria in Canada and who led the new
research. “Even though we have the Paris
climate change agreement,
so far there hasn’t been any action. [This research] is a warning
message.”
The
carbon already emitted by burning fossil fuels has driven significant
global warming, with 2016
near certain to succeed 2015 as the hottest year ever
recorded, which itself beat a record year in 2014. Other recent
studies have shown that extreme
heatwaves could push the climate beyond human endurancein
parts of the world such
as the Gulf,
making them uninhabitable.
In
Paris in December, the world’s nations agreed a climate change deal
intended to limit the temperature rise from global warming to under
2C, equivalent to the emission of a trillion tonnes of carbon. If
recent trends in global emissions continue, about 2tn tonnes will be
emitted by the end of the century.
The
new work, published
in Nature Climate Change,
considers the impact of emitting 5tn tonnes of carbon emissions. This
is the lower-end estimate of burning all fossil fuels currently known
about, though not including future finds or those made available by
new extraction technologies.
The
researchers used a series of sophisticated climate models and found
this rise in CO2 would lead to surface temperatures rising by an
average of 8C across the world by 2300. When the effect of other
greenhouse gases is added, the rise climbs to 10C.
The
heating predicted by the models was not uniform across the globe. In
the Arctic, the higher CO2 levels led to 17C of warming, with another
3C from other greenhouse gases, across the year. These rises are
higher than indicated by previous, less comprehensive models, which
are less accurate at modelling how the oceans takes up heat. In
February, parts of the Arctic had already recorded temperatures 16C
above normal.
The
warming caused by burning all fossil fuels would also have enormous
impact on rainfall. The new research shows rainfall falling by
two-thirds over parts of central America and north Africa and by half
over parts of Australia, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and the
Amazon.
Thomas
Frölicher, at ETH Zürich in Switzerland and not involved in the new
work, said: “Given that current trends in fossil fuel emissions
would result in temperatures above [the 2C Paris] target,
policymakers need to have a clear view of what is at stake both on
decadal and centennial timescales if no meaningful climate policies
are put in place. The unregulated exploitation of fossil fuel
resources could result in significant, more profound climate change.”
In
the meantime we KNOW that nothing is going to change and the energy
companies are going to double down on what they’re already doing to
destroy the planet.
For
instance, we know that the predecessors of Exxon Mobil had a patent
to reduce carbon emissions from cars from the 1960’s but
suppressed it.
Exxon
Unlikely to Change Course on Climate Change at Annual Shareholder
Meeting
The oil giant opposes six
shareholder resolutions involving climate change and its risks,
including assessing the impact of the Paris climate accord.
David Hasemyer
23
May, 2016
ExxonMobil
Corp. wants to extend its quarter-century
streak of
largely resisting the demands of some of its most vocal shareholders
to alter course on climate change.
At
the annual stockholders meeting on Wednesday, management will again
urge rejection of six resolutions on global warming. These include
taking moral responsibility for climate change, electing a board
member with environmental expertise, paying special dividends rather
than investing more in fossil fuel reserves, and assessing how global
action to slow climate change would affect Exxon's business.
What's
different this year is that Exxon is doing so in the face of mounting
pressure from dozens of activist stockholder groups, including some
with significant holdings. State attorneys general are investigating
whether Exxon violated racketeering, consumer protection or investor
protection statutes through what it said about climate change. Other
oil companies are already shifting gears. Shell, BP and Statoil last
year backed resolutions to assess the implications of restrictions on
fossil fuel use, and ConocoPhillips is conducting such an analysis.
"The
go-slow approach is no longer a responsible position as seen by many
investors," said Andrew Logan, director of the oil and gas
program at Ceres, a Boston nonprofit that coordinates action by many
of the nation's largest institutional investors.
"Climate
change is not the fringe issue that it was 25 years ago," Logan
said. "It has become an urgent existential issue, one that needs
immediate attention, not one that can be put off as Exxon wants."....[ ]
To read article GO HERE
In
the meantime Dahr Jamail continues to report the truth of the matter.
C02
levels in the atmosphere have reached 407 ppm which is a sure
indicator that greenhouse gasses are coming from natural sources such
as wildfires and other positive feedbacks.
As
we know there at least a 10 year lagtime before we see the effects of
all these emissions
Atmospheric
Carbon Dioxide Concentration Has Passed the Point of No Return
Dahr
Jamil
12
May, 2016
A
recent trip up Washington State's Mount Rainier brought home to me
how rapidly things are changing, even in the high country.
I
first climbed the mountain in 1994, when the main route was a
picturesque climb up smooth glaciers. Most of the time crevasses
weren't even visible, and snow cover was abundant.
But
anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) has been speeding up with each
passing year, and in the same area 22 years later, I found large
portions of it nearly unrecognizable. We took a somewhat different
route than the one I'd climbed in 1994, primarily because the lower
portion of that route is now unusable, as the glacier it traversed is
so broken up and crevassed as to make it impassable.
"Changes
that normally occur over a matter of centuries are transpiring over
decades."
It
being early season (most of the guide services had yet to begin
taking clients up the mountain), I expected much heavier snow cover
and the snow bridges over crevasses to be in decent shape. That
wasn't the case. After gingerly stepping our way over several sketchy
snow bridges, I was grateful we weren't on the 14,411-foot-high
northwestern volcano any later in the season than we were.
Thankfully, we were able to summit and get back down without
incident.
Less
than a year and a half earlier, in December 2014, Nature World News
reported that ACD was melting Rainier's glaciers at "unprecedented"
rates (six times the historic speed).
To
read the article GO
HERE
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