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Two degrees of climate change may be too much

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Two degrees of climate change may be too much
> http://thebulletin.org/two-degrees-climate-change-may-be-too-much8731


> Touring Alaska this week to shine a spotlight on global warming,
> President Obama warned that “climate change is no longer some far-off
> problem. It is happening here; it is happening now. Climate change is
> already disrupting our agriculture and ecosystems, our water and food
> supplies, our energy, our infrastructure, human health, human safety.
> Now. Today.”
>
> This wasn’t supposed to happen. In 2009, 114 countries signed the
> Copenhagen Accord, agreeing “to stabilize greenhouse gas
> concentration in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent
> dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system;”
> “recognizing the scientific view” that the increase in global
> temperature should be held to no more than 2 degrees Celsius” (3.6
> degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial level; and promising
> greater “long-term cooperative action to combat climate change.”
>
> Paradoxically, an accord that should have spurred the world to
> immediate action instead seemed to offer some breathing room. Two
> degrees was meant to be a ceiling, but repeated references to an
> internationally agreed-upon “threshold” led many people to believe
> that nothing really bad could happen below 2 degrees—or worse yet,
> that the number itself was negotiable. Perhaps the biggest failure of
> the Copenhagen Accord was its pact for “long-term” action. Forty
> years ago, climate change was a “long-term” problem. Today it’s an
> emergency.
>
> Today we’re only about halfway to the 2-degree mark, yet the climate
> is already haywire. Numbers such as 2 degrees and 350 parts per
> million (or ppm, which many climate activists have identified as a
> “safe” level for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) have become
> enshrined in the climate debate. Meanwhile, though, civilization’s
> industrial machinery marches on. We’re already at 400 ppm of carbon
> dioxide, and it looks like we will blow by 2 degrees, too.
>
> Such numbers may mean little to the general public, but they matter a
> lot to negotiators who will be at Paris climate change talks in
> December. Unfortunately, the numbers that these negotiators plan to
> propose will only be part of non-legally-binding pledges—and they
> represent only what is achievable without too much difficulty, rather
> than the drastic austerity measures needed to stabilize emissions. In
> fact, 2 degrees is not an upper limit that the nations of the world
> recognize and respect, only a target that negotiators know they will
> overshoot with their expected pledges. The very idea that the Paris
> conference is a negotiation is ridiculous. You can’t negotiate with
> the atmosphere.



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Two degrees of climate change may be too much Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> - 2015-09-11 11:01 -0500
  Re: Two degrees of climate change may be too much gilber34 <invalid@invalid.com> - 2015-09-11 11:13 -0500
  Re: Two degrees of climate change may be too much jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com - 2015-09-11 17:01 +0000
    urban heat-islanding noTthaTguY <abu.kuanysh05@gmail.com> - 2015-09-11 11:19 -0700
      Re: urban heat-islanding noTthaTguY <abu.kuanysh05@gmail.com> - 2015-09-12 12:04 -0700
  Re: Two degrees of climate change may be too much "reber g=emc^2" <herbertglazier0@gmail.com> - 2015-09-11 10:18 -0700

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