Climate
Chapter 2 - Society
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Welcome to the Climate page
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| The Washington Post recently featured new research by Emily Judd and her team, reaffirming what scientists have long understood: CO2 and temperature are closely linked. What’s new is that this study extends that relationship nearly 500 million years into Earth’s history, showing that both CO2 and temperatures were much higher in the distant past.
While this isn’t news to scientists, it’s unfamiliar territory for many non-scientists. Climate deniers have seized on this, twisting the findings to push the false narrative that climate change is a hoax. They claim life on Earth will be just fine, maybe even better, with a changing climate. It’s a convenient story for those who don’t want to deal with the realities of science, but it’s flat-out wrong. One might even argue that life on Earth has flourished at higher temperatures and carbon levels before, so why all the concern? But this is a superficial take. The conditions necessary for human survival are nothing like those needed by reptiles or fish. It’s highly unlikely that humans could have thrived when average global temperatures were around 24°C, as they were before 8 million years ago, compared to today’s more hospitable 14°C. CO2 concentrations tell a similar story. Levels remained above 400 ppm until around 8 million years ago but fell to an average of 270 ppm starting about 10,000 years ago—a period coinciding with human civilization’s rise. Now, after millennia of relative stability, CO2 levels have surged to about 420 ppm following the industrial revolution. This isn’t just a return to some previous “natural state”—it’s a shift at a rate and scale that ecosystems and societies may not be prepared for. The reality is that it was the natural decline in temperature and CO2 levels that enabled the conditions for human life to emerge. (1) |
| Content source | |
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| (1) | Art Berman - The Numbers Don’t Lie: Why Climate Denial Is No Longer Possible - October 1, 2024 |
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The Great Reversal
Humanity has a strong tendency to develop a teleological mindset: the earth exists for the sake of humanity and its growth towards the 'ultimate'.
However, the above shows a different pattern.
- Earth is best described in terms of quantummechanics, thermodynamics and the rules of entropy
- Life has got a change to emerge because of the context thoughout the earths history
- Biological life as we know it now, is the result of a darwinian process
- Culture is the emergence of the relational complexity of the biological systems we call agents
- Consciousness is the emergence of the relational complexity of the biological system we call brain
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Core ideas
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Climate change
Almost every year, a temperature record is broken. You've witnessed massive wildfires, intense droughts and severe storms. This is what climate change looks like, and it's here to stay. The planet is going to change a lot more in your lifetime. Things could get terrible. Or, if we take action now, we could avoid the worst effects. You can help decide. So, let's take a look.
How did we get here?
Historically, we've produced 'energy' by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. These substances also provide most of the energy used for heat and nearly everything humans do.
Today, fossil fuels are big business. People use almost seven billion tons of coal annually and roughly 100 million barrels of oil and other liquid fuels daily. Fossil fuels form deep underground from the remains of ancient plants and animals. When we extract and use them for energy, we release prehistoric carbon into the air as carbon dioxide and methane. These greenhouse gases work like a blanket:
Your Real Better Future
The greenhouse gases we've already released will bring warmer temperatures, higher sea levels, and ecological changes. But if governments, companies, and all humans work together, we can cut emissions over the next few decades and avoid the worst effects of climate change. Let's look at life in "Your Real Better Future."
In Your Real Better Future, the effects of climate change can be slower and less extreme, so nature and society can adapt more quickly. This future can still bring large wildfires and poor harvests, but less often. We can protect forests and environments, which suck some carbon back out of the air. We can eat differently in Your Real Better Future. Many people can eat less meat than they do today. Our farms could grow crops well suited to the new climate and use sustainable farming practices.
The transformation would touch every part of society, including industry. We could invent ways of making concrete and steel plants that emit much less carbon dioxide. We would live and work in energy-efficient buildings made of sustainable materials like wood and local stone. In Your Real Better Future, we can drive in cars that run on electricity. This would also improve air quality in many communities. Cities can encourage people to travel on public transport and bikes. We can fly less.
Sunlight, wind and other renewable energy sources provide electricity without producing more greenhouse gases. We can store extra energy to use later so that the lights stay on even when it's cloudy or there's no breeze.
Here's the good news
We already know how to make many of these changes. They're already happening in many places, but they must be faster. That's because the biggest challenges we face are not about science; they are about people. World leaders and business people have to get serious about addressing climate change, and the rest of us must help if we want Your Real Better Future to be the real future.
Will we do it? The choice is up to humanity.
| Content inspiration |
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| NYT |
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Deep dive
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Key take aways from the deep dive
- Climate change is really happing
- We humans are the cause of global warming
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How do we know climate change is really happening?
There’s overwhelming evidence that the world has been warming since the late 19th century, when the burning of fossil fuels became widespread and resulted in large-scale emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This evidence is largely in the form of data from weather stations, buoys, ships, satellites and other sources.
The most basic measurements of temperature show that the world has been steadily getting warmer. On average, surface temperatures are in 2023, 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than a century and a half ago. And the rate of warming has accelerated in recent decades. Temperatures in the top layer of the world’s oceans have increased as well. The oceans have absorbed much of the heat trapped in the atmosphere.
There is also plenty of evidence showing the consequences of this warming. Tide gauges and other instruments show that sea levels have risen by about 1.5 cm per decade since 1900 (mostly because water expands as it warms). Satellites that measure gravitational changes show that trillions of tons of ice have melted from the world’s ice sheets and glaciers. Rainfall data shows that heavy downpours have increased because warmer air holds more moisture.
And not all of the evidence comes from instruments. Scientists doing field research around the world have documented other effects of climate change. Ornithologists, for instance, have shown that warming is affecting many bird species — changing when they nest, breed and migrate, and even where they are able to live and thrive. Botanists see similar signs of the effects of climate change on crops, forests and other vegetation.
| Content source |
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| Henry Fountain - NYT |
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How do we know that we humans are causing the changes?
Over many decades, thousands of scientists have studied the warming planet. They’ve reached an overwhelming consensus: The burning of fossil fuels by humans is the primary cause of global warming today. Even scientists employed by oil companies have come to this conclusion. One scientific study put it this way: The odds of current global warming occurring without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are less than 1 in 100,000.
Here’s how the science arrived at this place.
First, it’s important to understand the main forces affecting climate. The big ones are the sun (whose energy can fluctuate over time), ocean circulation patterns (which can change how heat is distributed around the planet), volcanic activity (which pumps material into the sky that can have either warming or cooling effects) and the overall amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Each of these forces has played a role at different times in history.
- For example, 56 million years ago, a giant burst of greenhouse gases from volcanoes or vast deposits of methane (or both) abruptly warmed the planet by at least 5 degrees Celsius, triggering mass extinctions.
- About 12,000 years ago, major changes in Atlantic Ocean circulation plunged the Northern Hemisphere into a frigid state.
- And 300 years ago, a combination of reduced solar output and increased volcanic activity cooled parts of the planet enough that Londoners regularly ice-skated on the Thames River. Volcanoes can have a cooling effect when they shoot out stuff that blocks solar radiation.
In studying the cause of today’s climate changes, scientists have looked at all of these factors. The first three (solar energy, ocean patterns and volcanic activity) haven’t varied enough in the last 150 years to account for today’s rapidly rising temperatures. That’s especially true in the second half of the 20th century, when solar output actually declined and volcanoes had a cooling effect.
Rather, scientists have found that the warming is best explained by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, put there by humans burning vast amounts of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas since the start of the Industrial Revolution. From having studied bubbles of ancient air trapped in ice, scientists know that before 1750, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was roughly 280 parts per million. That number is now above 420 parts per million. Carbon dioxide acts like a blanket in the atmosphere, trapping the sun’s heat and warming the planet.
| Content source |
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| Julia Rosen - NYT |
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Do you want to know more?
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| What Is Climate Change? |
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| Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. |
| https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change |
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| Causes and Effects of Climate Change |
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| Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions. As greenhouse gas emissions blanket the Earth, they trap the sun’s heat. This leads to global warming and climate change. The world is now warming faster than at any point in recorded history. Warmer temperatures over time are changing weather patterns and disrupting the usual balance of nature. This poses many risks to human beings and all other forms of life on Earth. |
| https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change |
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| Climate Action Fast Facts |
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| Check here for regularly updated facts and findings on climate and its links to the economy, social issues, nature and more. |
| https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/key-findings |
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| The Climate Dictionary: An everyday guide to climate change |
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| If you’re struggling to keep up with the climate conversation, the Climate Dictionary is for you. We invite you to read it, bookmark it, make use of it in your climate action work. And we promise to update it regularly with new terms, so that we can push for collective climate action together. |
| https://climatepromise.undp.org/news-and-stories/climate-dictionary-everyday-guide-climate-change |
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| The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change |
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| The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. |
| https://www.ipcc.ch/ |
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| Copernicus - Climat Change Service |
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| The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) supports society by providing authoritative information about the past, present and future climate in Europe and the rest of the World. |
| https://climate.copernicus.eu/ |
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| The Climate Action Tracker |
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| The Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific project that tracks government climate action and measures it against the globally agreed Paris Agreement aim of "holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C." A collaboration of two organisations, Climate Analytics and NewClimate Institute, the CAT has been providing this independent analysis to policymakers since 2009. |
| https://climateactiontracker.org/ |
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| The Science of Climate Change Explained: Facts, Evidence and Proof |
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| https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-global-warming-faq.html#link-77e98c1e |
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Do you want to act now?
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| Simulation |
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| The urgency to act on climate is real, but leaders face an astounding number of potential options. In order to avoid irreversible harm to our prosperity, society, and health, the world must meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and limit global warming to no more than 1.5-2.0°C from pre-industrial times. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says this requires greenhouse gas emissions be nearly cut in half by 2030 from 2010 levels and reach "net zero" by midcentury. |
| https://mitsloan.mit.edu/centers-initiatives/sustainability-initiative/mit-climate-pathways-project#tour-welcome |
| En-ROADS is the newest and most popular global simulator that allows users to explore the impact of dozens of policies—such as electrifying transport, pricing carbon, and improving agricultural practices—on hundreds of factors, like energy prices, temperature, air quality, and sea level rise |
| https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=24.7.0 |
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What science tells us
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| Oxford Academic | Links to articles | |
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| 2021 | World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021 | BioScience | Oxford Academic (oup.com) | https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/71/9/894/6325731?searchresult=1 |
| 2022 | World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2022 | BioScience | Oxford Academic (oup.com) | https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/72/12/1149/6764747?searchresult=1 |
| 2023 | 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory | BioScience | Oxford Academic (oup.com) | https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/73/12/841/7319571?searchresult=1 |
| 2024 | 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth | BioScience | Oxford Academic (oup.com) | https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae087/7808595 |
| 2025 |
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Humans causes climate change
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| From a dataset of 88125 climate-related papers published since 2012, when this question was last addressed comprehensively, we examine a randomized subset of 3000 such publications. We also use a second sample-weighted approach that was specifically biased with keywords to help identify any sceptical peer-reviewed papers in the whole dataset. We identify four sceptical papers out of the sub-set of 3000, as evidenced by abstracts that were rated as implicitly or explicitly sceptical of human-caused global warming. In our sample utilizing pre-identified sceptical keywords we found 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly sceptical. We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature. (1) |
| Content source | |
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| (1) | Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature - Mark Lynas - Environmental Research Letters, Volume 16, Number 11 - 2021 |
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What to do?
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| A rapid and effective transition to low-carbon energy production is essential to limit climate change impacts. While the scientific community has mostly focused on research and development and techno-economic aspects, quantifying the role of public acceptability and policy in shaping emission trajectories has been much more elusive. This study investigates the coupled dynamics of nonlinear socio-political acceptance and anthropogenic CO2 emissions, with implications for climate policies and clean energy investments. Our findings show that a top-down policy approach alone may not be sufficient for effective emission cuts, highlighting the need for a multi-level strategy that combines top-down and bottom-up approaches. Additionally, opinion polarization can trigger detrimental CO2 emission oscillations when governments decide to take heavy-handed policy interventions in highly polarized socio-political systems. Delayed perception of climate change damage or abrupt reactions to extreme weather events may also significantly affect emission reduction efforts, although in the opposite direction. Integrating these socio-political dynamics into climate models can enhance our understanding of the complex interplay between human and natural systems, enabling the development of more effective and resilient mitigation strategies.(2) |
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| (2) | Socio-political dynamics in clean energy transition - Saverio Perri - Environ. Res. Lett. 19 - 2024 |
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