New UN report warns of deadly climate change consequences (WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!)

[Valin]

Yahoo News

Feb. 28 2022

A new report from a United Nations climate panel is warning of deadly impacts of climate change both now and in the future - finding that those impacts are currently worse than scientists had believed they would be.

The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned of health risks from climate change, including from heat exposure, disease, and mental health issues.

It said that globally, extreme heat events have already resulted in deaths. And it said that since the last time the IPCC issued a report in 2014, there have been more extreme events including "heat-related human mortality" that have been attributed to human-caused climate change.

The panel's report described major additional risks in the decades to come, particularly between the years 2040 and 2100.

"Climate change and related extreme events will significantly increase ill health and premature deaths from the near- to long-term," said a summary of the findings.

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Feb 28 2022

 

[Valin]

An Evening with Michael Crichton

November 15, 2005

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The second thing I discovered was that attempts to provoke fear tended to employ a certain kind of stereotypic and very intense language. For example, here’s a quote on climate:

Familiar language, isn’t it? But this is not actually about global warming. It’s about global cooling, fear of a new ice age. Is anybody here worried about an ice age? Is anybody upset that we didn’t act now back then, to stockpile food and all the other things we were warned that we had to do?

Here’s a quote from a famous computer study in the 1970s that predicted a dire future for mankind unless we act now. And just notice the language here:

Very heavy stuff.

Here’s Paul Ehrlich talking about what he thinks we’re going to have to do. He’s talking about population. As you know, he favored voluntary controls, but if voluntary controls didn’t work, he favored coercive controls. He said,

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The Climate Pod is a wide-ranging conversation with leading experts on the politics, economics, activism, culture, science, and social justice issues at the heart of the climate crisis. Hear from guests like Bill Nye, Jeffrey Sachs, David Wallace-Wells, Governor Jay Inslee, Dr. Robert Bullard, Catherine Coleman Flowers, Ted Danson, Dr. Michael Mann, Rainn Wilson, Dr. Stephanie Kelton, Dr. Mark Hyman, Felix Salmon, Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, Scott Kelly, Tom Steyer, and many more. Hosted by brothers Ty and Brock Benefiel.

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How we have mischaracterized climate risk

Posted on February 19, 2022

Judith Curry

Quote

“The current thinking and approaches guiding this conceptualization and description have been shown to lack scientific rigour, the consequence being that climate change risk and uncertainties are poorly presented. The climate change field needs to strengthen its risk science basis, to improve the current situation.” – Norwegian risk scientist

Terje Aven

For decision-makers, climate change is a problem in risk assessment and management.  Climate change is a risk because it may affect prosperity and security in a negative way, and because its consequences are uncertain.

Global climate change policy has been dominated by a specific strategy of risk management – the Precautionary Principle as a justification for setting specific targets for the elimination of manmade emissions of carbon dioxide.  In the early 1980s, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) became bullish on the idea that fossil fuels would produce dangerous climate change. The prospect of eliminating fossil fuels was congruent with UNEP’s broader interests in environmental quality and world governance. At Villach in 1985 at the beginning of the climate treaty movement, the policy movement to eliminate fossil fuels became detached from any moorings in the science – the rhetoric of precaution argued that we should act anyway to eliminate fossil fuels, just in case. This perspective became codified by the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Treaty in 1992, the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

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Accepting the IPCC’s assessments as the “best available” knowledge base is not inconsistent with acknowledging significant weaknesses in the knowledge base in context of climate risk analysis.  An important element of characterizing risk is evaluating the strength of the knowledge base.  Concerns about strength of the knowledge base are raised by people questioning aspects of the IPCC’s assessment that are used to infer climate risk.  The IPCC approach is based on judgement of the available evidence and agreement among experts.  More sophisticated knowledge characterizations for risk management (Aven 2017b) include:

• the degree to which the assumptions made are reasonable/realistic – growing concern about the focus on implausible emissions scenarios RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5.
• the degree to which data/information exists and are reliable and relevant – the historical and paleo data base is inadequate for a full, global characterization of natural climate variability on multi-decadal to millennial time scales
• the degree to which there is disagreement among experts (including those from different environments) – attempts to suppress disagreement and alternative perspectives among experts
• the degree to which the phenomena involved are understood and accurate models exist – concerns about the fidelity and utility of climate models.
• the degree to which the knowledge has been thoroughly examined with respect to unknown knowns (i.e. others, but not the analysis group, have the knowledge) – neglect of the unknown knowns associated with natural climate variability.

The politics of international climate governance has produced systematic biases in the kinds of expertise and evidence that are deemed appropriate for consideration. (Lucas)  The UNFCCC and IPCC have characterized climate change as an environmental and economic problem, and geoscientists and economists have dominated the assessment and policy making process.

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[Valin]

Pielke Jr. on IPCC AR6 WG2 Release

Originally tweeted by Roger Pielke Jr.

Mar. 1 2022

An initial thread on the IPCC AR6 WG2 report released today

Whereas WG1 received a mixed review in my areas of expertise (specifically: poor on scenarios, solid on extremes), my initial reaction to the WG2 report is that it is an exceedingly poor assessment

The first observation is that the report is more heavily weighted to implausible scenarios than any previous IPCC assessment report

In particular, RCP8.5 represents ~57% of scenario mentions

This alone accounts for the apocalyptic tone and conclusions throughout the report

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Climate change is real
It poses significant risks for the future of people and ecosystems
Vigorous adaptation & mitigation should be prioritized

None of the above justifies science assessments built for headlines and political advocacy, which WG2 appears to be

Bottom line:
Disappointing.
/END

Originally tweeted by Roger Pielke Jr.(@RogerPielkeJr) on February 28, 2022.

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