That is the opening line in the following report that deals with Earth Overshoot Day, the day our species uses up the Earth's finite resources that should take a year to use. As my friend Mound often says, the climate-change disaster rapidly bearing down on us is but one part of a trifecta, the others being overpopulation and overuse of said resources. Our rapaciousness will be the death of us all, including many innocent non-human species.
Start the following at the 12:20 mark:
At this point I'm not sure there's any 'news' to these reports. They're more a corroboration of warnings we've been given by the scientific community for a couple of decades.
ReplyDeleteIn 2014, Michael Mann predicted, in Scientific American, that if we maintained fossil fuel consumption at then existing levels, we will cross the 2 degree Celsius threshold in 2036. Since that article OPEC, the International Energy Agency and other studies forecast a 30 to 40 per cent increase in fossil energy consumption in the two decades ahead. It's madness. It's suicidal. Sure, and your point is? Canada, already a Top Ten overall emitter and a Top Three per capita emitter, is looking to ramp up production and export of high-carbon, low-value bitumen. That's our answer to the 'climate emergency' the Liberals proclaimed. And that is our path to a supposed Green future. Right.
I keep an eye on a climate scientist from the University of Hawaii, Camilo Mora. Mora's team predicts nations will begin to be overtaken by 'climate departure' in just the next few years. It will begin among the already most climate vulnerable countries - the Caribbean, Central America, and other near equatorial parts of the world. There are already parts of those nations that have become effectively uninhabitable. Where do they go? The Darrian Gap blocks foot migration to South America. That leaves refuge only in El Norte. Will the US be able to persuade Mexico, Belize and others to slaughter them before they reach the Rio Grande or will it have to butcher these refugees as they try to cross into the States? Gwynne Dyer says that last option is very much under consideration at the Pentagon. I'm sure Washington would prefer those people simply die where they stand - "thoughts and prayers" stuff.
One area in which Mora has broken from scientific orthodoxy is on population. His climate change peers warned him not to do it lest raising the issue no one must mention brought retribution. He said that, after the paper was published, many sent congratulations but none would speak out publicly.
I'm not posting as much about these matters any longer because it's gone from trying to disseminate information to something more akin to play-by-play commentary of a disaster unfolding. We've got a reasonable idea of how this ends. There are bound to be surprises especially now that nature has joined the game. Natural feedback has caused a few surprises over the past two or three years. The worst projections hold that natural GHG emissions of methane and CO2 could exceed man-made emissions and by a hefty margin. What then?
What I found helpful in that Global news report was the focus on pollution and how we're greatly exceeding nature's capacity to cleanse our air, water and soil. It's an issue not well understood.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-will-cross-the-climate-danger-threshold-by-2036/
I suppose I post on these matters, Mound, only to pass along reports that I see, not with any hope that things will change. I have to say that I am becoming rather misanthropic in my dotage, seeing as nothing ever changes, people (including myself when it comes to air travel) persist in the old ways and seem adamant about continuing to do so. My God, people refuse to even stop idling, despite bylaws (which never seem to be enforced) against such malign practices. If they won't even do such a piddling thing, what hope is there?
DeleteThanks for the link. I'll check it out.