Studies show climate action can't wait. That means sweeping aside deniers, delayers, and despairers
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Disturbing climate studies, like wildfires and extreme weather, have appeared one after another this past year. Disturbing not because they are telling us anything really new, but rather that they confirm what’s been apparent for some time now. First: ClimaStudies show climate action can't wait. That means sweeping aside deniers, delayers, and despairers
Disturbing climate studies, like wildfires and extreme weather, have appeared one after another this past year. Disturbing not because they are telling us anything really new, but rather that they confirm what’s been apparent for some time now. First: Climate change is happening. It’s doing what many scientists predicted it would do. But it’s happening faster than they thought. Worse than they thought. Second: We—as in humans and human institutions—aren’t doing anywhere nearly enough to address it, to adapt and ameliorate, to do all we can to keep things from getting worse than what’s already baked into our future. No pun intended. On Wednesday more such news came from two new studies, as reported by Kendra Pierre-Louis at The New York Times. One says global carbon emissions are rising like a “speeding freight train.” Part of the reason for this: more cars, more driving, and a pitifully small percentage of zero-emissions vehicles on the road. “We’ve seen oil use go up five years in a row,” said Rob Jackson, a professor of earth system science at Stanford and an author of one of two studies published Wednesday. “That’s really surprising.” Worldwide, carbon emissions are expected to increase by 2.7 percent in 2018, according to the new research, which was published by the Global Carbon Project, a group of 100 scientists from more than 50 academic and research institutions and one of the few organizations to comprehensively examine global emissions numbers. Emissions rose 1.6 percent last year, the researchers said, ending a three-year plateau. Very bad news. Two months ago, the message of the 700-page International Panel on Climate Change’s Global Warming of 1.5 ºC (2.7 degrees F) could be stated simply: The situation is worse than previously thought, some changes are happening sooner than previously expected, and we have to change things drastically over the next 12 years or we are screwed. “We,” as in the humans whose collective behavior brought us to this circumstance. The scientists who produced the report are not saying we have a dozen years to fiddle around planning what we will do and how we will do it. If we wait to start in 2030, the impacts will be much worse and harder to handle. However, the problem with following the IPCC’s guidance to act now has many obstacles in the way. Call them the three Ds: Deniers, Delayers, Despairers. Read more