The Guardian runs a report on all the appalling things that will happen if temperatures rise by 3 oC or more. Keep an eye out for the usual suspects using this to demand action now.
The actual researcher says:
He added that a rise of 3C was not inevitable. "We can’t just do what
we do at the moment, what we call business as usual. We have a few
decades – we have to do something before 2040."
Still time to develop all those fuel cells, solar panels, fission and fusion plants that will save us.
There aren’t “a few decades” to develop entirely new technologies between now and 2040, unless these technologies are so radical that they can be installed all over the world replacing massive amounts of our carbon emissions in less than ten years. Particularly if nuclear power stations of entirely new design are a big part of your solution, I doubt there is even 20 years to invent them.
Remember that a) the carbon dioxide does not disappear the minute we invent something and b) it is large absolute reductions in emissions that are needed. There are quite credible (albeit toward the pessimistic end of “credible”) models under which there is basically nothing that can save us at all because we have passed a tipping point.
Furthermore, taking action now buys us more time to invent these things.
Actually, looking at the article, he might mean that we have “a few decades” to the tipping point and the 2040 target allows some time for installation and dismantling the emissions producers. But it isn’t clear, and I still think that 2040 is a very rushed timescale indeed to be staking large amounts of money and human life on our ability to crack the problem of fusion reactors (a problem that has seen more great hopes and false dawns than British tennis).
What a load of bollocks. In 40 years we’ll still be burning up Russian LNG, and the world will have warmed up enough for me to see out my retirement with a pool in the garden.
Anyone know how much warmer the UK would need to be before I can start growing my own Pinot Noir grapes?
Already do – I went to Three Choirs vineyard in Glocs. last week and bought some.
We don’t have to invent nuclear fission plants.
It takes 4 years to build a nuclear plant, plus 5 years for the paperwork. All we have to do is invent the unemployed government regulator.
We don’t have to invent nuclear fission plants.
It takes 4 years to build a nuclear plant, plus 5 years for the paperwork. All we have to do is invent the unemployed government regulator.
Leave a Reply