The process by which the Earth has been warmed from the accumulation of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (e.g. methane) appears to be unknown to most Americans, especially politicians, lawmakers. (The ones who have control of our future in their hands via their decisions, actions, policies and legislation.)
The process of increased warming is not that difficult to grasp if one thinks of it like an arithmetic series with each added term increasing the effect. Thus, to describe the total CO2 content currently in the atmosphere, we must initiate the series with n= 1 (for 1920), viz.
CO2( 2025) = x 1 + x 2 + x 3 + x 4 +.............+ x 105
I have allowed it to terminate at the end of 2025 because the new year has only begun. But the idea is that the total CO2 in our atmosphere now has resulted from the last term 105 years of accumulation, Hence, each ‘x’ shown in the series above denotes the CO2 burden added for each year in succession.
Thus, the CO2 effect for a given year is not just for that year, but rather inclusive of all the previous accumulations- additions for all the years up to that point!
This means that if no limits are applied to slow the accumulations things can only get worse. Also, the limits have to be real, not cosmetic tomfoolery like "carbon credits". In that respect, no amount of carbon credits pricing or trading will save the day. Limiting consumption of fossil fuel will, whether coal, or from oil.
Even more sobering, we've yet to experience the full effects of the CO2 we've already emitted - mostly because it takes the oceans a long time to warm in response to a given level of CO2 - and the oceans are the primary buffer mitigating the worst greenhouse warming effects right now. Once the oceans reach their CO2 absorption capacity, the spillover effects into the atmosphere will be severe. Look for a sudden 4-6C increase in mean global temperature and that means crossing the runaway greenhouse threshold.
I bring this up because, apart from destroying our nation's political stability with his fascist fracturing of the constitution, Trump is now on a tear to convert the planet into an uninhabitable, burned out wasteland. This has been evident since the announcement last week Wednesday of his intention to pull the U.S. out of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC). This body is critical, being the main way nations now negotiate, monitor and enforce agreements to curb worsening climate change. Remove that speed bump and anything goes, and the CO2 (and other gases) pile up even more rapidly. (And please note we are talking here of an even bigger step than Trump's earlier withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement).
To add planetary insult to injury, on Wednesday the derelict Trump administration also withdrew from a U.N. climate science panel as well as the Green Climate Fund to assist poor nations as well as support of international collaborations. In effect, this orange mutant mock leader is telling the entire planet to spin its way to climate hell, and likely end up like the planet Venus. A first marker for that will be the year 2040, by which time climate author David Suzuki has predicted there will be the first "year of no seasons".
That literally means no changing seasonal climate anywhere on the planet. Beginning with unseasonable warm days stretching into weeks - beginning in January - and lasting through the year. No snow, no fall or fall colors with leaves turning, but broiling summers with heat waves lasting weeks and little night time relief. This is what Dotard Trump, who now thinks he can just grab Greenland, has put us in for.
In the words of Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany:
"The U.S. turns its back on science, on global collaboration and against any kind of action on climate change. So yes, it is much more fundamentally damaging than earlier efforts."
It is also obtuse and short-sighted, depriving the youngest generation of any possibility of surviving - far less enjoying - a livable world. By the year 2100, affordable food, transport and housing will be little more than dim memories. Insurance to cover disasters, whether impacts from storms, floods or fires will be relics of the 21st century - not mainstays of the 22nd. To put it into perspective, even the wealthiest will find it difficult to survive.
Climate scientists aren't sure of the exact threshold at which the nonstop runaway greenhouse effect kicks in, but most put it at someplace between 450 ppm and 550 ppm. Since we're now increasing CO2 concentration at roughly 2.7 ppm, that gives us about 25 years before the lowest threshold is met.
In addition to his climate framework withdrawals Trump has also frozen funds appropriated by Congress for clean energy projects, taking particular aim at wind energy, the country’s largest source of renewable power. He has stopped approvals for wind farms on public land and in federal waters and has threatened to block projects on private land. The bottom line is that given the climate havoc he's wrought, the world and particularly the younger generations inhabiting it, will be left to live fraught and destitute lives as the worst of climate change transpires between now and 2100. Much of this will be because Trump's actions will have accelerated Earth's crossing of severe climate tipping points, e.g.
As noted in the above graphic, a tipping point arises when a previous stable equilibrium is suddenly upended for a more violent, hostile one. Say, for example, we are now at Equilibrium 1 where we expect (in the U.S., Canada) heat waves that can last 1 -2 weeks on average. By all accounts and measures (e.g. rate of increase in CO2 concentration), Trump's insane actions could have us at Equilibrium 2 by 2035. In this new scenario we could be looking at heat waves (110F- 120F /day) lasting up to 2 months. But even these will be tame by comparison of the actual conditions when the runaway greenhouse sets in, and forget a/c since most power grids will have been stressed beyond their capabilities long before.
See Also:
by Tom Engelhardt | September 12, 2023 - 5:09am | permalink
And:
Five Major Climate Tipping Point Manifestations & What They Mean
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