Trump: Seven degree increase in global temperature, and nothing we can do about it.

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Last month, deep in a 500-page environmental impact statement, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous 7 degrees by the end of this century.

A rise of 7 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 4 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels would be catastrophic, according to scientists. Many coral reefs would dissolve in increasingly acidic oceans. Parts of Manhattan and Miami would be underwater without costly coastal defenses. Extreme heat waves would routinely smother large parts of the globe.

But the administration did not offer this dire forecast, premised on the idea that the world will fail to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed.

That was from this piece in the Washington Post. A must read.

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8 thoughts on “Trump: Seven degree increase in global temperature, and nothing we can do about it.

    1. Unfortunately there is nothing that we can do about it unless we were to engage in a global war-footing effort to slash fossil fuel use. A part of any such action would be a necessity to proper;y address the inordinate disparity between the super-wealthy and the poor.

      There’s a vanishingly small chance of either happening, let alone both. I still advocate that we need to act as much and as quickly as we can, but I also think that we need to be objective about how this is going to pan out – we’re heading to a world of pain.

  1. I don’t think any impact statement ( the title of the document would be normally stated at a fucking absolute minimum by any writer writing about a document, so maybe we could look it up ) that works with °F should be taken seriously, if the authors themselves don’t.

    Hey is that normal in yankland? To bring up and discuss something without naming it? It’s really weird.
    It’s not hard surely to fucking name what you are talking about.
    The phraseology could look something like…
    ” In the impact statement, entitled xyz, Trump said… ” or similar.

  2. I expected there to be more steps between “It’s all a Chinese hoax” and “It’s so big there’s no point trying to do anything about it”. Clearly I was wrong.

  3. If this were a novel, all the previous denial would have been a deliberate ploy to postpone any significant action long enough for the time left to be too short to do anything that might cut into profits about the problem. Makes perfect sense if you (A) believe that Jesus is just about ready to reappear, or (B) are rich enough to be more than comfortable, won’t live more than another couple of decades, and don’t care what happens to anyone else after you breathe your last.

    I wonder how long it will take for the right wing voters that are neither A nor B above to realize they’ve been sold a fantasy.

    1. Tyvor, I was thinking about this very thing yesterday when I read about the WaPo piece, and I came to the conclusion that option A is a strong influence – there are many conservatives who actively seek to wreck havoc on the world because they think that this will herald in Jesus and his sky fairies.

      Option B is not excluded, and I suspect that amongst the secular influencers who maintain the status quo a cavalier disregard for the future as long as they are wealthy is a fundamental factor in their decision-making.

      I suspect that conservative climate change deniers who follow these leaders will never concede their error…

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJh6EQ5gv7g

  4. Here’s a link to something I just came across.

    https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817

    I’m the first to admit I hate the WMD promoting nutcase.
    However, there’s aspects to this speech I will give her credit for. I’ve known for ages that she had a science background ( one of the team that invented soft icecream! ) and that sorta comes through in this speech.
    When Thatcher sounds like a middle class hippie, it’s a real eye opener on current paradigm in Australia.

    Heres a link to the brand new IPCC special report on 1.5°C just released from RoK.

    http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

    It’s not very comforting and I’m going to verbally fuck over any mentally ill conspiracist denier cunts who think they know better.

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