But is two degrees too high? Some leading climate scientists seem to think so. In 2011, Professor Kevin Anderson, then director of the UKs Tyndall Centre, co-authored a paper arguing that two degrees represented a threshold not between dangerous and safe, but between dangerous and extremely dangerous. NASAs James Hansen has described the two-degree target as a prescription for long-term disaster. And yet lower targets are mostly off the table. The IPCCs latest report says only a limited number of studies have explored scenarios to keep the temperature rise under 1.5 degrees by 2100. Its easy to understand why: this lower target requires an immediate plunge in emissions and energy demand. Its considered politically unfeasible. And so we set our sights on what is pragmatic and convenient, not what is truly necessary. Writing in Nature in 2012, Professor Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows argued catastrophic and ongoing failure of market economics and the laissez-faire rhetoric accompanying it (unfettered choice, deregulation and so on) could provide an opportunity to think differently about climate change. But where is the discussion about the unorthodox, radical solutions that may be required? On June 22 and 23, about 300 environmentalists and academics attended the Breakthrough National Climate Restoration Forum in Melbourne to address these very questions and take a sobering look at what mitigating catastrophic warming really entails. abc.net.au/environment/articles/2014/07/01/4034883.htm
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 08:22:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015