Prophetic visions can rouse politicians from complacency to save the planet
Obstacles to climate action are starting to crumble. Our leaders now have an opportunity to marry the moral and economic case
"The past year has seen the obstacles blocking action on climate change beginning to crumble. Opposition on scientific grounds looks pretty unpersuasive in the light of what has come from the experts on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Their seven-year study states that they are now 95% certain that human activity is a significant and avoidable element in driving climate change around the world. Predicted changes in the climate are now being observed in the most vulnerable countries, confirming the predictive models that have been used."
http://www.theguardi...elp-save-planet
I prefer the nomenclature "real projections" rather than "prophetic visions". People don't listen to 'chicken little'. IMHO -
Here is one;
We Have Five Years to Stop Building Coal Plants and Gas-Powered Cars
http://motherboard.v...-to-end-in-2018
The problem is even 2*C is too much;
Sorry policy-makers, the two-degrees warming policy is likely a road to disaster
As we approach the New York climate summit, there are serious questions about whether the two degrees of warming limit is acceptable.
"The 2°C target, as pointed out recently by climate activist and author David Spratt, is a "very unsafe target" and is "more appropriately considered as the boundary between dangerous and very dangerous climate change".
Scientists and climate policy experts have been saying for this for years. For example, back in 2006, the Independent reported that dangerous climate change would be "likely to be unstoppable" if atmospheric carbon concentration exceeded 400 parts per million. In July 2014, the concentration was 399 and exceeded 400 in April this year.
Stabilisation at two degrees warming is not a policy for a safe climate. A Royal Society paper by Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows in 2008 points out that "The framing of climate change policy is typically informed by the 2 degrees C threshold; however, even stabilizing at 450 ppmv CO2e [parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent] offers only a 46 per cent chance of not exceeding 2 degrees C."
They further point out that the 2°C limit is the result of very optimistic scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and that to achieve "stabilisation" would require an unprecedented step change in the global economic model and the rapid deployment of successful CO2 scrubbing technologies". IPCC scenarios have been criticised as systematically underestimating the pace and severity of global warming.
As Glenn Scherer wrote in 2012, we are facing unstoppable, "non-linear "light switch" moments when the climate system abruptly shifts from one paradigm to another", where global warming becomes locked in and self-reinforcing."
http://www.theguardi...policy-disaster
Then we have the UNKNOWN;
"The news is consistent with trends in fossil fuel consumption. But what comes as more of a surprise is the WMO’s revelation that the current rate of ocean acidification, which greenhouse gases (GHGs) help to cause, appears unprecedented in at least the last 300 million years."
http://ecowatch.com/...75cd6a-85901709
