Escalating rhetoric comes as new study shows there’s just six years left to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius at current CO2 emissions rate

Graph showing increasing use of 'climate emergency' in academic literature from 7 examples in 2008 to 96 in 2018 to 862 uses in 2002.

  • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    42
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    There is no avoiding 1.5c — achieving it is predicated on lies; carbon offsets (accounting trick to continue emissions) and carbon capture (won’t be viable for at least 50+ years, after we’re already at 2-4c).

    The oligarchy, and their corporations, are LYING to you so they can continue profiteering all the way up until the shit hits the fan. If they were honest about the reality of the situation, they’d have to genuinely worry about guillotines. Right now we need to focus on avoiding 3c, because 2c is also likely unavoidable, even if we were spending triple on decarbonisation than we are right now.

    All renewables to date have only dampened emissions from humanities increasing energy consumption. We’ve still emitted 25% of all CO2 since the year 2000, and are still emitting the most in history per annum. If we continue at the current peak, we’ll add another 25% in 15 years. There are still 700+ million ICE cars on the road, still thousands of diesel container ships emitting more than all those cars combined; still tens of thousands of coal, gas, and oil power plants. All of that can’t simply be “replaced”. It will take dozens of trillions in capital across decades, and we’ll have to consume significantly more energy to mine and manufacture all the renewable tech to replace them — energy that will still mostly come from fossil fuels.

    • Ordoabchao@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      8 months ago

      We are boned and Earth is going to ice-age us, eventually. After raising the sea level and flooding many inhabitated areas, turning arable land into desert while our weather system takes a dive.

      Winter hasn’t even properly set in where I live, and it’s basically November. It’s still 13c outside…