The answer seems clear: These are the impacts of climate change we will never be able to fix
The IPCC's latest report states: "Warming caused by CO2 emissions is effectively irreversible over multi-century timescales unless measures are taken to remove CO2 from the atmosphere," meaning unless we find a way to suck huge quantities of carbon out of the atmosphere — still a pipe dream at this point — the planet will be running hot for a very long time.
This is an understatement at best. There still are a lot of people with the misguided belief in technology that hope for it to save us. Unfortunately that's a little bit like opening the refrigerator door to cool the house. Read on below to find out why.
First of all it is not just the warming that is the problem nor is it just the carbon dioxide. The planet is a very complex, interconnected system with a hierarchy of subsystems. Every change affects all of them and some can not be restored to their starting point after these changes occur. That is the core problem with what we are doing to ourselves.
Herer are some of the factors that are among the more obvious:
A hot planet has some dire effects that would also be "irreversible" until temperatures return to normal. These include:
Sea-level rise
Changing geography
Ocean acidification (and its many effects)
Extinction (and the disruption of a hierarchy of ecosystems)
(Italics are my words)
Since we know temperatures aren't going down any time soon, the goal now, unfortunately, is not to cool off the planet — it's just to keep it from warming too much. The goal, according to many scientists, is to stop emissions in time to keep the planet from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius above its pre-industrial temperature. This was the goal attending nations set at the UN's 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen. Past that point, many scientists believe the Earth could face a cataclysmic series of climate-related consequences, like droughts, famines, and extreme weather events.
Unfortunately, scientists are increasingly pessimistic that we'll actually be able to stay within the 2-degree limit. While the goal is not impossible, many experts have recently argued that the talks in Lima last November, which were fraught with disagreements and complicated negotiations, suggest that future carbon emissions reduction goals are unlikely to keep us on target.
While humans may not be able to stop some of the subsequent climate-related events or reverse them once they're happening, knowing what to expect means we can at least begin to prepare for the future.
Our preparations can include bolstering our coastal communities, putting more resources toward protecting wildlife, researching agriculture and food security under the expected future conditions, and — most importantly — cutting carbon emissions to prevent any worse consequences than we're already getting.
I don't know about you but I see much of what is being said as another stage of denial. Among those who have accepted the reality of anthropogenic global warming are still many who are hoping for a fix of some kind. There are those who still do not see that their own lifestyle and footprint is part of the problem.
Even the warning that we must prepare for what is coming is not enough. Talk about drought, famine, wars, etc. is not something that is any less threatening than the temperature going up.
It is hard to try to drive these points home when the "good guys" in the audience are still in a form of stunned denial.
Maybe we also need to focus on the inability of the human mind to cope with this situation and its stark reality? Maybe we need to do some psychological preparation before we do anything else? I am too old to get any more concerned about the future than I already am. I will soon cease to exist and that is simple biology. Yet as a human being I feel this urgency. I want to shake people and wake them up. I want to get them to see that pointing fingers at the fossil fuel industry and their minions is not an answer. How can this be done? When the most knowledgeable among us still seem way behind the reality of our situation it generates despair.
We can quibble about words for at this point the language we have evolved fails us. That is also a digression and a form of denial. My belief is that our major task at the moment is to face reality. We really do not need a weatherman to tell us which way the wind is blowing.