A model has as suggested that the future of our planet is a warming place regardless of what we do with our emissions.
For decades many scientists have been saying that if we just get on with it, we can stop the worst impacts of global warming. Unfortunately a recent study suggests something different.
I should note that these are not outliers, indeed I have been many scientists in recent time who has suggested that we are already well beyond the tipping point.
The tipping point is posited to be a situation where we have already emitted more than enough carbon for runaway climate change. The idea of runaway climate change suggests that as as the temperature rises there are a number of feedback loops which make further rises more likely. One simple example talks about the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps. Currently these areas are covered in white ice,which reflects much of the sun’s energy straight back into space. However when this white ice melts,it is replaced with dark water which absorbs the sun’s energy very effectively, thereby accelerating the warming.
Now it should of course be noted, that this is only a model. However we should take it seriously.
Another thing we have to be careful with on this front, is the suggestion that if it is too late then we might as well not worry about global warming and simply emit as much as we like.
This is patently absurd, if we are in a feedback loop we are definitely in for a bad time. However no one is arguing that we can’t make it worse. Inaction could certainly make it worse.
They seem to be a large number of people that espouse climate change denial. However more concerning are there seemingly increasing number of people who switched from denying climate change, instantly into saying well it’s too late so we can’t do anything about it, we shouldn’t bother to try.
I would argue that this changing position suggests they were never really attached to the idea that the climate wasn’t changing,they were merely against trying to spend any money to do something about it. For many of these people catastrophic climate change sometime in the future doesn’t interest them in the slightest.
