Staring Down the Barrel

I have spent the past few months reviewing as many peer-reviewed analyses of our changing climate as I could get my hands on, from a broad variety of perspectives. I have also watched in the region of 60 videos. I am not a scientist, and much of the scientific literature is far too technical for me to fully grasp. And, for the purpose of this short briefing I have ignored what are still regarded as uncertainties - like the rate at which methane hydrates might be released, the impact of slow feedbacks, and the Albedo effect, for example. I thought it safer to draw my conclusions from evidence based on simple maths and physics.

I also reviewed opposing evidence by a relatively small number of climate deniers. Most of the arguments in their presentations are unscholarly, and some demonstrably misleading, in that they either ignore the available data, distort it, or just use it selectively to make a point that ultimately is academic.

So, setting aside existential fear-based denial, lack of knowledge, wilful deception and vested interests - taking into account that which we still do not know or fully understand, around 4%  of the scientific community still have concerns regarding the veracity of explicit claims made by their climate scientist colleagues, as well as unease voiced about the funding underpinning such climate research, and dismissing the ramblings of a few unhinged psychopaths - several critical themes have become abundantly obvious to me. None of this is fiction:

• Nothing New: The Earth’s climate is constantly changing. Although life on our planet has survived large climate changes in the past, major destruction and the elimination of species, has been associated with at least five events where rapid heating was a major cause of a mass extinction. This is the story the scientific community has been trying to convey to governments for at least three decades. At times their communication has been perplexing and intentionally nonalarmist. But overall their message is crystal clear - laid out in thousands of peer-reviewed papers by reputable climate professionals. Continue to emit carbon dioxide at current levels, and the world will eventually become toxic to human life.
• Extinction Threshold: The generally-held scientific view is that 2°Celsius is the point at which mass extinctions have occurred in the past. Once that threshold is reached, the ensuing instability causes wind and ocean currents to slow, which causes seas to become stagnant. Instead of producing oxygen the oceans generate hydrogen sulphide gas. Food systems fail, and temperatures increase twice as fast as the global average. In our modern world this fact alone means millions will starve, creating many more millions of climate refugees, and the world economic system, already demonstrably fragile, will collapse.
• Carbon Dioxide: Scientists have consistently warned that we should not exceed 350 ppm [parts per million] of carbon dixoide in the atmosphere. In May 2018, across the entire month, we reached 410 ppm for the first time in over 800,000 years. Furthermore, this rate is now increasing exponentially. The level of 450 ppm equates to a rise of 2° On our present trajectory we are set to reach that level in around 10-15 years from now. By the year 2050 we could reach 550 ppm. This would probably bring about the breakdown of human society, unless immediate action is taken to prevent such a catastrophe. If you do not believe me just do the maths....
• Doing the Maths: Current temperatures are now acknowledged to be 1.2°Celsius higher than in pre-industrial times. An estimated further 0.6°Celsius is locked-in from already emitted carbon that has yet to impact temperatures. This increase will result in the arctic being ice-free in summer by 2028 and ice-free all the year round by 2040. That in itself will create an additional 0.5°degree of warming. That makes a total of 2.3° By 2040! Just 21 years from now. Remember this takes into account only fast feedback loops we currently model, not the slow feedback loops we are still trying to understand, which could precipitate much faster rates of warming.
• Mindful Uprising: In order to avert planetary devastation on a scale both unprecedented and overwhelming, we need immediate action on three fronts:

1. We need to rise up against political systems that remain in thrall to short-term commercial interests and economic growth at all costs.
2. We must demand that every politician places climate action at the forefront of their duties to secure the future of our species for generations to come.
3. We must now put our collective faith and resources into geoengineering and climate mitigation research.

In terms of the latter point I do not mean the widely-promoted delusion of “clean coal” – an idea irresponsibly promoted by old smokestack industries and their lobbyists, and an example of why we need a new socio-economic paradigm - so much as widespread deployment of extensive air capture technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, ocean fertilisation, carbon sequestration, afforestation, and solar management techniques, like the injection of aerosols into the stratosphere. This conclusion runs counter to everything I previously espoused. All of them carry some degree of risk. At this juncture the risk of inaction is greater still. In fact, we have nothing and everything to lose.