Study warns of looming potential for runaway global warming

[left-of-center2012]

Source: The Hill

A new study out Monday warns of the possibility of out-of-control global warming if humans fail to ban together to fight the worst effects of climate change.

The analysis, conducted by researchers at the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Center, among other institutions, outlines the potential for a "threshold" that, if crossed, would lead to runaway warming patterns and the advent of a "Hothouse Earth."

If such a threshold is crossed, the study warns, global average temperatures could climb as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit above current temperatures and sea levels could rise 30 to 200 feet.

"Crossing the threshold would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years and to sea levels significantly higher than at any time in the Holocene," the study says.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/400647-study-warns-of-looming-potential-for-runaway-global-warming

[Cold War Spook]

1. Why is the temperature in Fahrenheit?

Scientific studies are in Celsius outside the US.

[Lochloosa]

3. Almost all scientific studies are in C.

Even in the US.

[DemocracyMouse]

18. Stop fussng over non-issues! What is everyone doing to get out the vote?

[democratisphere]

26. My sentiments about the minutia.

[Cold War Spook]

38. My wife writes my posts but they are in my words.

I am 75 years old with Parkinson's Disease Parkinson's dementia and vascular dementia. I check what is happening sometimes everyday and sometimes once a week. It is not my life. Go outside and look at the trees. They will probably be dead before you are.

[DemocracyMouse]

39. I'm so sorry about your Parkinsons! I've had numerous friends contend with it.

When I wrote about fussing over non-issues, I meant the use of Calvin vs Fahrenheit. Global Warming is THE biggest issue, and voting for environmentally enlightened Democrats is one of the best things we can do to address the problem.

And I agree, the paradise around us is where our hearts belong.

[Cold War Spook]

41. Thank you

about the Parkinson's and you are right about what needs to be done.

[zipplewrath]

5. Two reasons

1. It's written for an American audience

2. Fahrenheit is half the size of Celsius, so 8 sounds more dramatic than 4.

[Trust Buster]

6. Because "Celsius" mean nothing to the average American including myself.

[Mike Rows His Boat]

13. Time to step up and cast off your average Americanness.

Let’s all join the developed world, as a nation and as a people.

[Trust Buster]

15. Or, as is the case with the above article, you can speak your target audience' language.

[Adrahil]

33. Publish both... get people used to the better measurement units. NT

[relayerbob]

17. 100% agreed

Welcome to the 21st Century!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

29. Three countries are non-metric: Liberia, Burma, and the USA. Metric born same period USA born. . .nt

[PoliticAverse]

10. Because The Hill knows that they should convert temperatures to Fahrenheit for their audience? n/t

[onit2day]

2. This is why it is essential to get democrats elected. To save our planet

[Trust Buster]

7. Sadly, money will win this one.

[ghostsinthemachine]

4. Why isn't the spelling corrected?

Band together, not ban. Too much reliance on spellchecker.

[ffr]

8. I couldn't get past that either. I've never heard of ban together.

Author must have flunked out of band camp.

[Biden My Time]

22. dozent bodder mee

da mezzage iz wats ymportint!

[beachbum bob]

9. I find it funny that any one thinks that what is happening isn't already

In a runaway mode as the models have been way too conservative and we are a couple decades ahead of the timelines for ice melt, permafrost thawing and ocean water temps rising

[Chemisse]

42. I agree. But I suppose it's better if people have hope that they can change things.

On edit - it's alluded to there if you read between the lines:

"Even if every country that signed on to the Paris climate agreement meets its obligations under the pact and limits the global temperature increase to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, runaway global warming could still be a threat, the newspaper reports."

[hatrack]

11. The Hill - bringing you up to date with the latest from the "No Shit?!?!!??" File

[lambchopp59]

12. Okay, Mrs Flashbeinstrombugger, in defense of the author, perhaps he/she meant

"ban (the gas pump) together to fight the worst effects of climate change."
Because lets face it, to really combat climate change the changes must begin at home.
I drive a SMART car to reduce my carbon footprint, against the tide of popular "american exceptionalist" vehicles blowing 10 times the CO2 necessary to transport one, two bodies and two bags of groceries home, most often 1 body to work.
It will take letting go of the last acceptable prejudice that I even see here sometimes:
Bashing the poor, the public-transit working class. (urbanites forgive me, I know how it is there, I'm attempting to awaken some sleeping masses so entrenched on paying their steep car payments, gasoline, upkeep, insurance, parking, licence plates, driver's licence, tickets, flats, wrecks, gridlock, road ragers, exorbitant fuel taxes, road taxes, tolls, funerals from DUI's, detailing and defogging the headlamps yearly...
just so they can say "living the dream&quot *cough*
Shame on you, America. This country could be in far better shape having massively diversified the transit industry 50 years ago. Double shame on Fox noise and the oil-soaked "patriots", yet please:
There is no excuse this country does not have fast rail service everywhere by now, except for "living the"...
freaky nightmare.
That curly-que emblem on your dash is looking uglier every year.
Yet even in the most progressive of sites, seldom a peep about personal commitment to this.

[Duppers]

27. And don't mention reducing the birth rate.

The sacred birth rate.

[bucolic_frolic]

14. It's not just the heat and sea levels

it's the storms, and wind, and seasons. Magnitude increases. Devastating. I could see it becoming very much more expensive to own property, or even possessions - like boats, cars, even household items - because they're being destroyed all the time. Even investments like companies and their physical presences will be in the mix.

[byronius]

16. Here you go --

?t=1m20s

Visual aid.

[0rganism]

24. well no one can say we didn't earn it

and something like that has just got to be earned to be appreciated

[Ghost Dog]

19. "new governance arrangements, and transformed social values"

means Revolution.

[NickB79]

20. Shit will get real once the crops start to die

Nothing causes social turmoil and civil war quite like watching your family slowly starve to death while those in power and with money sit back and eat steak.

Think Syrian Civil War's, all across the world.

[Delphinus]

47. Yes,

this is my fear too.

[Hulk]

21. This is debatable....to me.

Debatable in the sense of "maybe it's just too damned far gone already", or possibly "what we can realistically do is insignificant to the problem". We've been ignorant for too long. We need to study other ways to reverse the damages done. Trying to stick our finger in the dike is just not going to do it....in my humble opinion.

[bucolic_frolic]

28. Green consumption remains consumption

We need to pause. But we can't pause. Economies, jobs, financial systems would crash. Even as we build alternative energy, it still take resources and energy to build that infrastructure.

It would be like trying to remove mold from deep inside wood fibers. Or stop cancer in its tracks.

Solar energy was going to solve everything. Information superhighway was going to end commuting and enable cocooning. Sustainability was the goal. Developed countries are not sustainable. Developing countries want to consume like the developed world. Is 1% of the world's population sustainable? Minimalism can't be sold to humans. We grow.

So yeah I understand what you're saying.

[Snellius]

37. Would we rather risk not living than learn to live without. Death by gluttony.

The big problem is human greed, called "progress", too many living beyond nature's means

Since the industrial revolution, civilization for centuries has been intrepidly advancing upward, down to its own doom. The technologies that made WWII possible were a warning. Can it be reversed? To stop it, money would be lost. To fix it, it will cost. A massive de-industrial de-evolution. Do we want to invest in unprofitable technologies to take carbon dioxide out of the air? Can we live without automobiles? Refrigerators? etc.

[Initech]

23. It's 109 here and half my state is literally on fire.

Anyone who looks me in the eye and says that climate change isn't a thing, well...

[fleabiscuit]

25. The Weather Channel is starting to freak and jumping up and down...

Link to tweet

[pansypoo53219]

30. my cousin's PHd thesis was on this. yeah. we are fucked. unless we have a krakatoa or 2.

no fucking GOP in the white house for a century.

[Retrograde]

43. and no GOP majorities in either house

I think we'll need all three - and we're still stuck with packed Federal courts.

[Uncle Joe]

31. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread left of center.

[Auggie]

32. K&R

[Kaleva]

34. It's already too late in my opinion.

People, by nature, will not adopt drastic changes to their lifestyle unless the threat is directly easy to see and cannot be ignored.

[Maxheader]

35. The feeling of a gradual warming of the

earth has gone away now...

[greatlaurel]

36. We already know how to combat this very quickly. Cover crops and no till agriculture

Watch Ray Archuleta's Soil Health to learn about these techniques.

Roots, especially the long deep roots of prairie plants can fix tons of carbon in just 2 to 3 years. Cover crops would save our soils and our waters from ag run-off and save farmers billions of dollars.

Congress has just reduced the funding for CRP programs so less land will be placed in conservation plots which are carbon sinks.

[TrumpKnew]

40. Vertical forest, Vertical forest, Vertical forest

[Retrograde]

44. Fewer people on the planet

although I don't have a palatable way of doing that in the near future. I'll settle for Zero Population Growth for now.

[Snellius]

45. +1 ...

The Biggest Natural Solution to Climate Change: Plant More Trees

• Trees absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.
• One large tree can supply four people with oxygen for a day.
• One mature tree absorbs carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 pounds per year. In one year, an acre of forest can absorb twice the CO2 produced by the average car's annual mileage.

https://www.nature.org/newsfeatures/pressreleases/new-study-finds-nature-is-vital-to-beating-climate-change.xml

[AllaN01Bear]

46. i wonder how they would like it if the shoe on the other foot? we should see lots of waaahhh.