Projecting CO2 emissions 60 to 80 years from now
Posted by rdwpin@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 25 comments
I made mistake of posting this in another /reddit that doesn't take kindly to thinking that we can't talk about a question of relatively light CO2 emissions from developing countries in 60 to 80 years as if we're talking about today.
I realize it's next to impossible for people to say there will only be the after effects of mass extinction in 80 years and instead project life goes on in 60 to 80 years. I just don't see how people can think we won't have a collapse by 60 to 80 years. As of today fossil fuels continue to be burned, CO2 continues to be emitted, heat continues to build, oceans continue to acidfy, and glaciers continue to melt. The Atlantic currents will collapse, ocean life based on shells will collapse, and heat domes will become large and persistent. We will approach fatal heat indexes over large areas.
All this will occur in less than 60 years, serious harbingers of collapse in 20 to 25 years. It's part of the mindset of no urgency in forcing stopping use of fossil fuels to make projections decades out as if life will just continue as is. It's normal human behavior, and the reason humans will become nearly extinct in 60 to 80 years.
jibberwockie@reddit
The nomadic tribes following their goat-herds around the uplands of Antarctica will have myths of gods who could fly.
Cultural-Answer-321@reddit
...and of weapons hotter than the sun.
AnotherFuckingSheep@reddit
It's hard to predict that far into the future.
However, just extrapolating technologically from today I'd say probably zero usage of fossil fuels is very likely in 60 years.
Batteries + renewables will be so much cheaper than fossils that it would make the extraction and transporatation of fossils uneconomical in almost any scenario.
That's assuming there won't be a catastrophic decline in human activity in 60 years.
jbond23@reddit
It's a highly complex, highly chaotic, highly interdependent multivariate system, driven by a hive mind of 8.2b people supported by 20b processors, powered by turning 13GtC/year into 40GtCO2/year. If you want to do projections >75 years out (or even 25 years out), you have to ask yourself, "Is my model epic enough?". Does it cover enough of the interconnected variables?
If the resource constraints don't get us, the pollution constraints will. And vice versa.
Alarming_Award5575@reddit
20 to 25?
Wrong sub.
rdwpin@reddit (OP)
Perhaps we don't agree on the meaning of serious harbingers of collapse. It means to me hundreds of thousands of deaths under heat domes or widespread crop failures, ocean life collapse due to acidity, Atlantic current collapse due to glaciers melting.
What serious harbingers of collapse do you see in less than 20 years? Granted, heat is becoming a serious problem already and will steadily rise, but collapse causing widespread death leading to extinction in less than 20 years.
Alarming_Award5575@reddit
Heat and crop yields. AMOC a ways off yet. I dont think we'll ever see extinction, but do think we'll see deaths in the 10's of thousands, economic instability and serious unrest w/n five years.
extinction6@reddit
Global temperature increases are accelerating. We have passed the 1.5 C safe limit of increased temperatures and a three degree increase may be baked in. Climate feed back loops are just getting started in a big way.
If you are interested read Jame's Hansen's last two papers. The last severe spike in temperature was a .4 C increase in two years. Earth's albedo is dimming, sulphur was removed from shipping fuels and Earth's biomass lost most of it's ability to absorb CO2. We have emitted 2400 megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere. If the warming climb continues in the next year we are cooked pretty quickly.
Read about the loss of life between a 2 C and 3 C increase in global temperatures.
The following come up with a simple Google Search and the links at Columbia University provide the pdf's.
Global Warming Acceleration: Causes and Consequences
The Acid Test: Global Temperature in 2025
Good luck!!
InstructionFew1654@reddit
It will just take more people realizing we are in collapse. Then it speeds up. We have had years, some even decades to come to terms with it. What happens when 10’s of millions of parents realize the actual scenario we are in all of a sudden because 10k people die from a heat bulb event in Huston? See toilet paper.
Alarming_Award5575@reddit
Heat and crop yields. AMOC a ways off yet. I dont think we'll ever see extinction, but do think we'll see deaths in the 10's of thousands, economic instability and serious unrest w/n five years.
Traditional-Adagio-2@reddit
Disease is right up there
NyriasNeo@reddit
Who cares about 60 or 80 years from now when wild fires, hurricanes, floods and heat waves are killing people today?
Talking about 60 or 80 years from now is one way of making people care LESS, not more about climate change. Don't tell me you do not know that people are myopic.
rdwpin@reddit (OP)
That was the point of my thread. Others in a doom not allowed reddit are talking about positive thoughts on CO2 emissions from developing countries in 60 to 80 years might not be bad. Your post is exactly what I replied there. I got banned for a year for beinig a doomer. My question was how could anyone not be a doomer? They say Nothing can be done not allowed. I say there is a difference between Nothing can be done and Doing nothing. 60 to 80 years from now is laughable to discuss.
gmuslera@reddit
At this rate the natural world will powerup its positive feedback loops to match and even surpass the missing human emissions with its own. Thawing permafrost, burning forests, increased emissions from shallow waters and wetlands. We did a good work bringing everything to the peak of their tipping points, the rest of the road may be done even without our explicit help.
Bandits101@reddit
Yes and as we go down the road to extinction anything flammable will be fair game. Plastic, rubber, textiles, wooden construction and forests. The plague of humans on Earth will not go quietly.
Jcolebrand@reddit
One of the issues to contend with is this:
Suppose an event occurs to cause 40% of the world population were eradicated in the next 3-60 years. How would that scenario impact climate change?
If you think that's a grim future, I agree, it is. But it's not mappable because we don't have the numbers to account for it. It's still a likely possibility. 3°C changes farming, which changes food supply, which changes population.
These are vastly dynamic things to try to predict.
rdwpin@reddit (OP)
Certainly 40% of world population will be eradicated in 30 to 60 years. There is a difference between Nothing can be done and Doing nothing, We are Doing nothing. Building alternative power sources is good. But replacement of fossil fuel use is the Doing something that is required. And that is not on the most distant horizon.
Now, will there be less fossil fuel burned when billions die? Yes. But how many billions must die for remaining population to stop burning fossil fuels? When billions die, it's not enough to stop burning fossil fuels. The heat that killed billions is still there. The ocean life that collapsed is still collapsed. The methane escaping from melted permafrost is still escaping. Billions more will die unless fossil fuel use is stopped and CO2 extracted from air and water and sequestered.
If the world was serious about saving ourselves, we would engage in emergency action to stop fossil fuel use and extract CO2 from air and water now to have a chance. By the time billions die, it will be a monumental task and race against extinction.
Red_Stripe1229@reddit
Hopefully some of the remaining 60% remaining know how to decommission nuclear power plants or successfully store / secure chemical waste. If there is a massive die off it will be exacerbated by all the chemicals flooding the already stressed environment. Something every apocalyptic film ignores.
FlyingDiscsandJams@reddit
We have a coming housing collapse from the failure of the insurance industry, even Fed Chair Powell told congress it's coming in 10 - 15 years (I think sooner). Once insurance starts dictating where we can & can't live due to climate driven disasters, it's gonna get real for people. Not saying we'll fix it, but it's impossible for us to live as we are for 60 years, the reality checks are coming.
Here is the insurance crisis spreading to Utah already: https://www.yahoo.com/news/homeowners-devastated-insurance-giants-drop-114506055.html
DidntWatchTheNews@reddit
We are all dead in 3-5.
rdwpin@reddit (OP)
3-5 decades, yes.
Less_Subtle_Approach@reddit
Long pork is going to be on the menu come Tuesday.
ga-co@reddit
We? Maybe. Billionaires have other plans.
Unlucky-Reporter-679@reddit
Somewhere in the region 725 ppm - 800 ppm. 80 years from now we breach 1000 ppm CO2 and who knows where methane will sit.
CerddwrRhyddid@reddit
It's about what can be proved, that's why the long trajectories in any peer reviewed publication. We intuitively know that the time-frame is much shorter than we think (sooner than expected), but it's conjecture.
We rely on the scientists to be as accurate as possible about the combined effects of multiple complex systems interwoven in a series of feedback loops. Not an easy job, but a worthwhile one.
The 3C warnings are the newest ones. They rarely say that that's basically the verge of a runaway greenhouse effect, where global temperatures will continue to rise to catastrophic levels that cannot be abated.
Developing countries will develop. They have been and are Industrialising and some have booming populations.