[✔️] September 10, 2022 - Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*September 10, 2022*/

/[ new studies on an old concept -- tipping points  ]/
*World on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points, study finds*
Giant ice sheets, ocean currents and permafrost regions may already have 
passed point of irreversible change
Damian Carrington Environment editor
8 Sep 2022
The climate crisis has driven the world to the brink of multiple 
“disastrous” tipping points, according to a major study.

It shows five dangerous tipping points may already have been passed due 
to the 1.1C of global heating caused by humanity to date.

These include the collapse of Greenland’s ice cap, eventually producing 
a huge sea level rise, the collapse of a key current in the north 
Atlantic, disrupting rain upon which billions of people depend for food, 
and an abrupt melting of carbon-rich permafrost.

At 1.5C of heating, the minimum rise now expected, four of the five 
tipping points move from being possible to likely, the analysis said. 
Also at 1.5C, an additional five tipping points become possible, 
including changes to vast northern forests and the loss of almost all 
mountain glaciers.

In total, the researchers found evidence for 16 tipping points, with the 
final six requiring global heating of at least 2C to be triggered, 
according to the scientists’ estimations. The tipping points would take 
effect on timescales varying from a few years to centuries...
“The Earth may have left a ‘safe’ climate state beyond 1C global 
warming,” the researchers concluded, with the whole of human 
civilisation having developed in temperatures below this level. Passing 
one tipping point is often likely to help trigger others, producing 
cascades. But this is still being studied and was not included, meaning 
the analysis may present the minimum danger.

Prof Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate 
Impact Research, who was part of the study team, said: “The world is 
heading towards 2-3C of global warming...
- -
The analysis, published in the journal Science, assessed more than 200 
previous studies on past tipping points, climate observations and 
modelling studies. A tipping point is when a temperature threshold is 
passed, leading to unstoppable change in a climate system, even if 
global heating ends...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/08/world-on-brink-five-climate-tipping-points-study-finds



/[ Bill McKibben speaks up - conclusions below  ] /
*How Bad Is It?*
And what does that question even mean?
Bill McKibben...
- -
(I)t is a fair question to ask: are we reaching the point where events 
are so far out of control that our efforts to stem the tide are pointless?

So let me just lay out my own sense, in case it’s helpful to anyone else

    ***--**We are not getting out of this crisis unscathed*, or anything
    like it. It’s been many years since “stopping global warming” was on
    the menu. We’ve raised the temperature a degree celsius already, and
    that’s way too much because—well, see above. A degree is a mess

    ***--**   It will get worse. *Even if we do everything right at this
    point, there’s enough momentum in the system to take us near two
    degrees; that’s going to be far far worse. Not just twice as
    bad—damage increases exponentially, not linearly, as we head past
    various tipping points.

    ***--**  If we don’t do everything right*, that “near to two
    degrees” will actually be nearer three degrees Celsius, which is
    five or six degrees Fahrenheit, which is a world where civilizations
    won’t be able to function in the ways we’re used to them
    functioning. That civilizational breakdown—a political and human
    phenomenon, not a scientific one—could come sooner; we don’t know
    where the civilizational red lines are, only that we’re close.

    ***--**  Which means: despair is not an option *yet, at least if
    it’s that kind of despair that leads to inaction. But desperation is
    an option—indeed, it’s required. We have to move hard and fast.

    ***--**  The most obvious place we have to move is the energy
    transition.* Physics means we have to go fast; economics means going
    fast will focus for now on sun, wind, and batteries because they are
    cheap and available. The fossil fuel industry, desperate to maintain
    its business model, is in the way; they must be fought.

    ***--**But we also have to shore up civilizations *in all the other
    ways we can imagine, especially by sharing resources and
    technologies. Our systems are too brittle now; places like Pakistan
    just lack the resilience to deal with a crisis they did not create.
    Global solidarity is not kindness; on a small world it’s a survival
    strategy.

I did not tell my friend: drop everything else you’re doing and work 
only on climate. But I did tell her: all our other dramas now play out 
on the stage of climate change. For the foreseeable future—for as long 
as our lives last—the rapid rise of the temperature on the planet of our 
origin is the overriding human story.
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/how-bad-is-it?utm_source=email

- -

/[ In 2014 I posted a simple interactive graphic of IPCC data visualized 
by National Geographic videos - just click 
//http://localsteps.org/howbad.html - back then climate scientists were 
pushed away from making ANY conjectures outside their specific fields -- 
receiving public criticism if they strayed.  The book, "Six Degrees" and 
simple links to video clips -- easily conveys the crisis  ] /
*How bad can it be? ...and when?*
A one page graph shows Global Warming projections by combining IPCC 
models with scenarios by Mark Lynass
This single Web page shows Global Warming history and projections out to 
the year 2100. The chart from the UN's IPCC report is combined with data 
projections for each degree of warming. You will want to see the 
projections for each degree of warming. There are seven different 
scenarios. All of them predict inevitable warming of at least one degree.
http://localsteps.org/howbad.html
/      [My question of "How bad can it be?" posted on my site in 2007  - 
is still valid ]/



/[ the big question asked by the Guardian  ]/
*Humanity’s moment: ‘How can we find meaning in a world that is at once 
both heaven and hell?’*
Facing the reality of climate change forces us to grapple with a range 
of complex emotions, and rigid logic will only get us so far
Joëlle Gergis
9 Sep 2022...

The longer I think about the monumental challenges we face, the more I 
realise that all any of us can do is choose how we balance our sense of 
despair and disillusionment with hope and joy in our own lives, every 
single day. It’s not naive optimism, but a series of pragmatic actions 
we take to protect our mental health and strengthen our sense of 
solidarity with other people who also care about our planet. In the 
environmental classic Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without 
Going Crazy, Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone call this “active hope”; 
something you do rather than something you have. Instead of being 
passive in the face of life’s challenges, active hope is about becoming 
a proactive agent for the change you want to see in the world. Whether 
you are a business leader, a student, a musician or a parent, we can all 
do something – however small it might seem – to influence the cultural 
evolution of the communities we are a part of. We need to be careful not 
to fall into the trap of viewing anything less than total victory as a 
failure; otherwise, it’s easy to give up and not celebrate the imperfect 
wins along the way.

There is so much power in realising that you can do something to inspire 
others during these dark times simply by showing up. You can be someone 
who helps others maintain a belief in the fact that most people are 
inherently good. While it’s true that there are psychopaths, sociopaths 
and narcissists out there who genuinely don’t care about other people 
because of their own psychological damage, they represent a very small 
minority of our communities. While we all behave badly sometimes, most 
people are honestly doing the best that they can from day to day.

Most ordinary people, deep down, really do care about the planetary 
crisis we are facing, but they often feel powerless and disillusioned 
about their ability to influence change. But the truth is that we are 
living through a time of history in the making. As Belgian writer Raoul 
Vaneigem puts it, “revolutionary moments are carnivals in which the 
individual life celebrates its unification with a regenerated society”. 
We can reclaim our power by being creators of our new world, in the 
present moment – right now – instead of being fixated on an uncertain 
future. As Rebecca Solnit writes, hope becomes “an electrifying force in 
the present” that allows us to participate in inventing and reshaping 
our vision for a new world.

As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “the greatness of humanity is not in being 
human, but in being humane”. Only when we return to a place of shared 
compassion can we truly begin the work of restoring hope and life on our 
planet.

In Caroline Hickman’s groundbreaking study on climate change anxiety and 
depression, researchers reported that close to half of the young people 
they interviewed said their feelings about climate change negatively 
affected their daily life and functioning. Three-quarters feel the 
future is frightening, with over half believing that “humanity is 
doomed”. Many fear that the things they value the most will be 
destroyed. Close to two-thirds of young people feel like their 
government is failing them and betraying future generations. They 
confessed that significant emotional distress sometimes affected their 
ability to function. The top three words used to describe their response 
were “sad”, “afraid” and “anxious”, with about 40% of people reporting 
feeling despair, grief or depressed. Less than a third felt optimistic 
about the future, with 41% admitting their reluctance to have children. 
Perhaps the most confronting finding was that 83% of young people around 
the world believe that people have failed to care for the planet. These 
sentiments reflect a heartbreaking loss of faith in humanity that 
threatens to rob us of joy and vitality, undermining our collective 
response to the crisis we now face.

The implications of Hickman’s results are clear: we need to acknowledge 
that climate change is having far­-reaching consequences on our mental 
health. It’s time to start having honest conversations that normalise 
the strong emotional responses many of us have to the distressing times 
we are living through...
- -
When we reawaken our senses that have become numbed and estranged from 
the world around us, we experience a profound sense of our belonging in 
this extraordinary web of life, a reverence for our miraculous planet, 
and an awareness of the power we all wield to harm or heal, to accept or 
abandon our unique role in creating a more inspiring future. When we 
remember that each of us has a part to play, when we believe that our 
contribution really does matter, our soul comes alive. We find meaning 
in a meaningless world.

This is an edited extract from *Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s 
Case for Hope, *published by Black Inc and out now
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/10/humanitys-moment-how-can-we-find-meaning-in-a-world-that-is-at-once-both-heaven-and-hell



/[The news archive - looking back at the wildfire lessons of 7 years ago ]/
/*September 10,  2015*/
September 10, 2015:

The New York Times reports on severe wildfires in California.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/us/fires-in-west-leave-residents-gasping-on-the-soot-left-behind.html 



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