Turborama (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-09-11 02:13 PM
Original message
World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns
Edited on Wed Nov-09-11 02:45 PM by Turborama
Source: The Guardian
If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will 'lose for ever' the chance to avoid dangerous climate change
Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent | Wednesday November 9 2011 10.01 GMT
The world is likely to build so many new fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever", according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
blah-blah-blah
DaveJ (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-09-11 02:41 PM
Response to Original message
2. There is nothing in our natural instinct to prevent this from happening
Conservatives will push past 450ppm just to see what happens. Most people don't care. We'll just have to live with it.
Blue_Tires (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-09-11 02:44 PM
Response to Original message
3. good luck explaining that to all the anti-science types running for president
tex-wyo-dem (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-09-11 02:47 PM
Response to Original message
5. Considering the general trends of prediction vs. reality...
Five years is probably quite (too) generous.
truebrit71 (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-09-11 03:45 PM
Response to Reply #5
15. Yup...I think we are already seeing the manifestations of the coming ass-kicking...
...storms are more severe, last longer and start earlier, weather patterns are being severely disrupted...The big problem is that the deniers are waiting for a 'Day after tomorrow' type of secenario where it all collapses at once...that's not the way it will happen...it happens in stages, but as the CO2 ppm continues to spur the heating process we will eventually get to that point where the feedback loop takes over and then it WILL be too ****ing late...
We have to make preparations for how we can survive AFTER the worst case scenario happens, never mind trying to stop it...it's already too late for that...
I am not yet 50 years old and thought previously that this would be a problem for my daughter or my grandchildren...now it turns out that it may be staring us square in the face before I hit 60...
That is sad, depressing and maddening all at the same time...
Correct me if I'm wrong but...
...are these the same people mocking that looney-assed "preacher" for the Rapture having come and gone with no effect?
caseymoz (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-09-11 02:58 PM
Response to Original message
8. This is good news.
I thought we were beyond the threshold already.
The bad news is, I don't think it matters. There's no way this system is adapted to dealing with this problem, and no way a new one can be put in place in time and without a lot of bloodshed. Get used to a very disruptive future with a very high mortality rate.
ALTERNATE HEADLINE: Conservative 5 years away from total global dominance
Bosonic (606 posts) Wed Nov-09-11 02:58 PM
Response to Original message
9. Well then, GeoEngineering it is.
There's no way even the Western world can reign itself in sufficiently in five years let alone China, India and the rest of the developing (read using more energy) world to avoid this.
Therefore as it is now a given that Humanity *can* affect the global climate, research should be accelerated in to how we can tinker with it in beneficial ways in order to maintain it in more or less its' current state.
In other words, Humanity can become an intelligent homeostatic climate agent.
Celefin (239 posts) Wed Nov-09-11 03:21 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. Grasping at straws, it is.
All currently debated GeoEngineering measures that have any chance of actually succeeding require vast amounts of resources and energy on a continuous basis. If we go down that road without reducing CO2 emissions, the most likely scenario, we cannot stop the climate meddling, ever. In addition to the massive resource requirements, GeoEngineering also requires ridiculous amounts of money. Last time I checked, we were officially broke.
I really don't want to live in a GeoEngineered future. It will be absolutely hideous: inhabitable does -not- equal pleasant.
Bosonic (606 posts) Wed Nov-09-11 03:31 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. That's your opinion, Yoda
I think it's more probable than not that clever ways to create large carbon sinks and alter the Earth's albedo can be discovered and implemented in good time.
You might not want to live in a GeoEngineered future, but I bet you will.
Celefin (239 posts) Wed Nov-09-11 03:06 PM
Response to Original message
10. 2011 was the last, final year we could actually have done something about it
Most models come to the conclusion that if we started cutting back GHGs by 10% every year from now on, we could have just managed to stay under the magic 2 degrees. If we start next year, the required annual amount is 15%, if we start 2013, it is 20% annually. After that... well. Invest heavily in adaptation science. Mitigation has left the station.
Had the transition to a sustainable economy been started a decade ago, when we had the science, the economic climate and the resources all lined up to actually achieve it, neither the climate crisis nor the biodiversity crisis, nor the fricking economic crisis would have had to happen.
Regrettably, 'we' were busy securing Iraq's oil resources back then.
The umpteenth 'told you so' moment.
God how I hate being right all the time on these matters.
Two advocates of imaginery crisis argue over imaginery solutions.
It's like watching two schizophrenics bitching over who said what.
hughee99 (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-09-11 03:21 PM
Response to Original message
12. Nonsense!
It was too late already in September 2007.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change...
It was too late already in January 2006.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0116-06.htm
Not to be a downer, but it's been too late for a while.
Does this mean we can stop spending money on this stupid shit?
truebrit71 (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-09-11 03:37 PM
Response to Original message
14. IMHO we have already past the tipping point...
Edited on Wed Nov-09-11 03:38 PM by truebrit71
...all we can do now is try as best as possible to lessen the impact...unfortunately with the chicken little's in charge of the purse-strings we are not going to see much action from the USA until Florida is already under water...which come to think of it, might not be such a loss... 
SpiralHawk (1000+ posts) Wed Nov-09-11 03:51 PM
Response to Original message
16. Freaking Republicons are doing everything they can to BRING THIS ON...
Make no mistake: Republicons are the ones who are anti-life.
No, I'm just anti-your-life. Do you people even deserve to live? You produce nothing useful. You will not defend yourselves. You cannot survive except by the gunpoint charity of others. You pursue no useful endeavors. You revel in disability. You despise prosperity. You quail at all who hold a different opinion.
We could cut our carbon footprint by 30% overnight if you pussies would just off yourselves.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2269992
