30/09/2021

(The Conversation) Our Climate Projections For 2500 Show An Earth That Is Alien To Humans

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Current climate future predictions do not go far enough. (Shutterstock)

Authors

  •  is Postdoctoral researcher, Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University
  •  is Research Fellow in Palaeobiology, University of Leeds
  •  is Professor in Evolutionary Ecology, University of Sheffield
  •  is Professor, Anthropology, Université de Montréal
  •  is PhD Student, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
  •  is NERC-IIASA Collaborative Research Fellow, University of Leeds
  •  is Lecturer, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
  •  is Associate Professor, Palaeobiology, University of Oxford
  •  is Manager, Centre for Doctoral Training, University of Leeds
  •  is Professor, Anthropology, Université de Montréal
  •  is Professor, Environment and Geography, University of York
  •  is Professor of Tropical Ecology, University of York
  •  is Associate Professor, Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
There are many reports based on scientific research that talk about the long-term impacts of climate change — such as rising levels of greenhouse gases, temperatures and sea levels — by the year 2100.

The Paris Agreement, for example, requires us to limit warming to under 2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

Every few years since 1990, we have evaluated our progress through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) scientific assessment reports and related special reports.

IPCC reports assess existing research to show us where we are and what we need to do before 2100 to meet our goals, and what could happen if we don’t.

The recently published United Nations assessment of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) warns that current promises from governments set us up for a very dangerous 2.7 degrees Celsius warming by 2100: this means unprecedented fires, storms, droughts, floods and heat, and profound land and aquatic ecosystem change.

While some climate projections do look past 2100, these longer-term projections aren’t being factored into mainstream climate adaptation and environmental decision-making today.

This is surprising because people born now will only be in their 70s by 2100. What will the world look like for their children and grandchildren?

To grasp, plan for and communicate the full spatial and temporal scope of climate impacts under any scenario, even those meeting the Paris Agreement, researchers and policymakers must look well beyond the 2100 horizon.

After 2100

In 2100, will the climate stop warming? If not, what does this mean for humans now and in the future?

In our recent open-access article in Global Change Biology, we begin to answer these questions.

We ran global climate model projections based on Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP), which are “time-dependent projections of atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.”

Our projections modelled low (RCP6.0), medium (RCP4.5) and high mitigation scenarios (RCP2.6, which corresponds to the “well-below 2 degrees Celsius” Paris Agreement goal) up to the year 2500.

We also modelled vegetation distribution, heat stress and growing conditions for our current major crop plants, to get a sense of the kind of environmental challenges today’s children and their descendants might have to adapt to from the 22nd century onward.

Global mean near-surface air temperature (solid lines) and thermosteric sea level rise (dotted lines) anomalies relative to the 2000-19 mean for the RCP6.0, RCP4.5 and RCP2.6 scenarios. Shaded regions highlight the time horizons of interest and their nominal reference years. The bottom panel shows spatial anomalies relative to 2000-19 mean for the 2100, 2200 and 2500 climates under the three RCPs. (Lyon et al., 2021)

In our model, we found that global average temperatures keep increasing beyond 2100 under RCP4.5 and 6.0.

Under those scenarios, vegetation and the best crop-growing areas move towards the poles, and the area suitable for some crops is reduced. Places with long histories of cultural and ecosystem richness, like the Amazon Basin, may become barren.

Further, we found heat stress may reach fatal levels for humans in tropical regions which are currently highly populated. Such areas might become uninhabitable. Even under high-mitigation scenarios, we found that sea level keeps rising due to expanding and mixing water in warming oceans.

Although our findings are based on one climate model, they fall within the range of projections from others, and help to reveal the potential magnitude of climate upheaval on longer time scales.

To really portray what a low-mitigation/high-heat world could look like compared to what we’ve experienced until now, we used our projections and diverse research expertise to inform a series of nine paintings covering a thousand years (1500, 2020, and 2500 CE) in three major regional landscapes (the Amazon, the Midwest United States and the Indian subcontinent).

The images for the year 2500 centre on the RCP6.0 projections, and include slightly advanced but recognizable versions of today’s technologies.

The Amazon
The top image shows a traditional pre-contact Indigenous village (1500 CE) with access to the river and crops planted in the rainforest. The middle image is a present-day landscape. The bottom image, considers the year 2500 and shows a barren landscape and low water level resulting from vegetation decline, with sparse or degraded infrastructure and minimal human activity. (Lyon et al., 2021), CC BY-ND


Midwest U.S.
The top painting is based on pre-colonisation Indigenous cities and communities with buildings and a diverse maize-based agriculture. The second is the same area today, with a grain monoculture and large harvesters. The last image, however, shows agricultural adaptation to a hot and humid subtropical climate, with imagined subtropical agroforestry based on oil palms and arid zone succulents. The crops are tended by AI drones, with a reduced human presence. (Lyon et al., 2021), CC BY-ND


The Indian subcontinent
The top image is a busy agrarian village scene of rice planting, livestock use and social life. The second is a present-day scene showing the mix of traditional rice farming and modern infrastructure present in many areas of the Global South. The bottom image shows a future of heat-adaptive technologies including robotic agriculture and green buildings with minimal human presence due to the need for personal protective equipment. (Lyon et al., 2021), CC BY-ND


An alien future?

Between 1500 and today, we have witnessed colonization and the Industrial Revolution, the birth of modern states, identities and institutions, the mass combustion of fossil fuels and the associated rise in global temperatures.

If we fail to halt climate warming, the next 500 years and beyond will change the Earth in ways that challenge our ability to maintain many essentials for survival — particularly in the historically and geographically rooted cultures that give us meaning and identity.

The Earth of our high-end projections is alien to humans.

The choice we face is to urgently reduce emissions, while continuing to adapt to the warming we cannot escape as a result of emissions up to now, or begin to consider life on an Earth very different to this one.

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(Independent Australia) Government's Climate Change Web Of Lies

Independent Australia -Sue Arnold

Our political leaders will do anything to stay in positions of power, including deceiving the voting public on urgent matters of climate change, writes Sue Arnold.

Nationals leader, Deputy PM and wearer of ridiculous hats, Barnaby Joyce (Screenshot via YouTube)

PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT issue facing this nation is not the pandemic, economic scenarios or nuclear submarines but a perilous lack of critical thinking and analysis by political parties, the mainstream media and a large majority of Australians.

The latest media drama over whether Prime Minister Scott Morrison will succeed in bringing the National Party to the climate change table is entirely focused on political gains and losses.

We've seen divisions, articles on Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, Senator Matt Canavan and MP George Christensen, with absolutely zero focus on the extreme urgency of the situation facing our planet.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed Morrison as “leading the way” on climate with his spoken importance of countries “meeting and beating” their climate targets. One can only speculate on the calibre of her advisors and whether Australia’s right-wing Government has any bandwidth in U.S. politics.

It was an extraordinary statement given the overwhelming evidence that Australia is a climate change outlier under the Morrison Government, an embarrassment to nations taking steps to address a “code red” issue.

National Party’s emission plan:
No coal executive left behind
The National Party appear to be the only people who think the Morrison Government takes climate seriously and they are not happy.
Listening to Joyce, now elevated to Deputy Prime Minister, cements the fact that Australia is now in the hands of politicians whose only goal is staying in power at any cost.

Their focus is entirely dismissive of the catastrophic environmental impacts outlined by the U.N. report.

IA has compiled a shortlist of Joyce media statements and threatened actions on climate change.

Mid-June, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Joyce warned against a target of net zero by 2050 and joined Senator Canavan in signalling he was willing to cross the floor on the issue.

Wikipedia indicates Canavan’s brother John is a mining executive.

In early September, The Guardian reported that Joyce ‘declares he won’t be “bullied” on climate science’, likening questioning on his stance ‘to a baptism where parents were required to “denounce Satan and all his works and deeds”’.

Joyce further declared that he won’t be “berated” or participate in a “kangaroo court”.

He also indicated that the Nationals would work to ensure urban Australia, not regional Australia, paid the price “if there’s a price to be paid”.

More recently, the SMH reported that ‘Joyce is said to be driving a hard bargain with his cabinet colleagues with one saying he was demanding “bucket loads of cash for the bush” to justify any agreement’ to zero emissions by 2050.

SMH reported earlier this month that Joyce has suggested a $5 billion extension of the Inland Rail into Queensland coal country in return for the Nationals backing a commitment on net zero emissions by 2050.

The National Party has abandoned farmers in favour of caving into the demands of fossil fuel donors, writes David Paull.
On reclaiming the National Party leadership, Joyce demanded security for regional jobs and industries. Exactly what these regional jobs and industries are is difficult to pin down.

Who owns Australia’s agricultural lands? Who is Joyce representing when insisting he’s protecting the bush?

Climate change policy a la Joyce cannot be a series of smart remarks on mainstream media combined with wearing a gigantic, ridiculous hat on television. Does he ever look in the mirror?

Livestock makes up about 10% of Australia’s emissions, mainly due to methane from manure which has 28 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

A fascinating gallery of Australia’s biggest private landowners reveals a dog’s breakfast of international actors, major multinational companies, Australian billionaires and millionaires owning a significant wack of agricultural lands. Plus, mega political influence.

A Guardian team also attempted to establish who owns Australia, experiencing the same roadblocks and conflicting information as IA. However, facts dug up by the Guardian team are interesting.

Pastoral leases cover 44% of Australia; the data obtained showed more than 400 owners together owned about a quarter of the country.

The biggest pastoral leaseholder is Western Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart who controls 1.2% of Australia’s landmass.

The Age said of Rinehart:
Over the years, her ardent support for Joyce has included $40,000 on National Agriculture Day in 2017which the magnate billed as an award to the New England MP for being a “champion of our industry”. Amid fierce political criticism, Joyce returned the cash.
In 2013, Rinehart donated $50,000 to his election campaign and in 2011, Joyce was one of three Coalition MPs flown on Rinehart’s private jet to Hyderabad in India for a mining associate’s wedding.
Morrison Government re-election would
be an environmental catastrophe
If the Morrison Government wins the next federal election, Australia can kiss goodbye to our unique, irreplaceable wildlife.
The biggest corporate landholder is Australian Agricultural Company, its biggest shareholder the Bahamas based AA Trust controlled by British billionaire Joe Lewis.

According to Federal Government data, China is the biggest offshore holder of Australian farmland in 2019-2020 with 9.2 million hectares, followed by the UK, the Netherlands, the U.S. and Canada.

Morrison’s latest line, which no doubt he will use as “Australia’s climate plan” at Glasgow and in the forthcoming election, is “technology will change everything”.

What technology?

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has produced a technology investment roadmap titled ‘First Low Emissions Technology Statement— 2020’.

Priority goals are identified as clean hydrogen, energy storage, low carbon materials, CO2 compression, hub transport and storage and soil carbon sequestration.

A national hydrogen strategy estimates a domestic industry could generate over 8,000 jobs and $11billion a year in GDP by 2050. Clearly, no quick fix.

Currently, most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, specificallynatural gas.

The roadmap is devoid of environmental recommendations or considerations. There are no recommendations to end the industrial logging of forests, no discussion or recommendations on the importance of retaining biodiversity or intact ecosystems.

As any environmentally aware person will acknowledge, there’s no technology solution for replacing the ecological role of forests in converting CO2 into oxygen. Or one for overcoming drought, or creating rain.

The value of a degrowth economy:
Our planet would be richer for it
Decades of economic expansion have come at the expense of developing nations and a tremendous cost to the planet. Degrowth is a healthier future option.
The Climate Council says:
‘Avoiding clearing of old growth, carbon-rich vegetation and protecting regrowth vegetation are the most effective approaches to mitigating climate change using land systems.’
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Issues Brief on climate change indicates:
Forests help stabilise the climate. They regulate ecosystems, protect biodiversity, play an integral part in the carbon cycle...To maximise the climate benefits of forests, we must keep more forest landscapes intact...Halting the loss and degradation of natural systems and promoting their restoration have the potential to contribute over one-third of the total climate change mitigation scientists say is required by 2030.
On a practical level, there are plenty of available solutions which do not require extensive government statements with graphs and endless mind-numbing weasel words.

Professor Annette Cowie, NSW Department of Primary Industries, says there are many ways cattle farmers can reduce their carbon footprint:
“[By] planting trees, practises that build soil organic matter, feeding biochar to enhance animal health and feeding the algae that reduces methane emissions...”
Both Morrison and Joyce have children. Sussan Ley, Morrison’s Environment Minister, recently challenged a Federal Court ruling that she had an obligation to consider climate change impacts on future generations.

Perhaps it's time to create a portfolio of lies and media statements by our political leaders to present to Glasgow Climate Conference attendees so there is no confusion about the real Morrison Government stand on climate change.



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(The Guardian) ‘Blah, Blah, Blah’: Greta Thunberg Lambasts Leaders Over Climate Crisis

The Guardian -

Exclusive: Activist says there are many fine words but the science does not lie – CO2 emissions are still rising

'All we hear is blah blah blah': Greta Thunberg takes aim at climate platitudes – video 01min 33sec

Greta Thunberg has excoriated global leaders over their promises to address the climate emergency, dismissing them as “blah, blah, blah”.

She quoted statements by Boris Johnson: “This is not some expensive, politically correct, green act of bunny hugging”, and Narendra Modi: “Fighting climate change calls for innovation, cooperation and willpower” but said the science did not lie.

Carbon emissions are on track to rise by 16% by 2030, according to the UN, rather than fall by half, which is the cut needed to keep global heating under the internationally agreed limit of 1.5C.

“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah,” she said in a speech to the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. “This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.”

The Cop26 climate summit starts in Glasgow, UK, on 31 October and all the big-polluting countries must deliver tougher pledges to cut emissions to keep the goal of 1.5C within reach.

“Of course we need constructive dialogue,” said Thunberg, whose solo climate strike in 2018 sparked a movement of millions of young climate protesters.

“But they’ve now had 30 years of blah, blah, blah and where has that led us? We can still turn this around – it is entirely possible.

"It will take immediate, drastic annual emission reductions. But not if things go on like today.

"Our leaders’ intentional lack of action is a betrayal toward all present and future generations.”

Research published on Monday showed that children born today would experience many times more extreme heatwaves and other climate disasters over their lifetimes than their grandparents, even if countries fulfil their current emissions pledges.

Officials from the UN, UK and US said Cop26 would not produce the breakthrough needed to fulfil the aspirations of the Paris agreement but the broader goal of the conference – that of “keeping 1.5C alive” – was still possible.

Thunberg, Vanessa Nakate from Uganda, and hundreds of other young people from across the world are attending the Youth4Climate Summit. It is hosted by the Italian government, the UK’s partner in running Cop26.

The youth summit will consist of working groups of young people debating how to increase their participation in decision-making, their role in helping to transform energy use, nature conservation and climate adaptation, and how education can create a climate-conscious society.

It builds on a youth climate summit held at the UN headquarters in New York in 2019.

Greta Thunberg: ‘I really see the value of friendship. Apart from the climate, almost nothing else matters’ Read more
Thunberg said: “They invite cherry-picked young people to meetings like this to pretend that they listen to us. But they clearly don’t listen to us. Our emissions are still rising. The science doesn’t lie.

“We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people.”

Large numbers of youth climate protesters took to the streets on Friday in almost 100 countries across the world, including 100,000 in Berlin, where Thunberg spoke.

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