A complete loss of the Arctic Sea Ice, according to Paul Beckwith, “would correspond to 1 Trillion tons of CO2 emissions (25 years of present day emissions) or 56.7 ppm.”
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What makes it difficult to say we are going to stop at a given temperature increase (e.g., our goal is to stay within a 2 degree increase) are the positive feedback loops that can kick in. (Positive in the sense that they increase what ever change is happening, not that they are positive for us.)
The melting of Arctic ice triggers two feedback loops (mentioned in comments above): (1) Lowering the Albedo (reflectivity), as dark water absorbs far more solar energy than ice. Ice reflects a larger percentage of the incoming solar energy back into space. (2) Melting ice releases the carbon dioxide and methane trapped in the ice back into the atmosphere. So there is a risk that a given point of melting these feedback loops might take over and cause a significant temperature increase even if we go to zero carbon emissions.
These positive feedback loops (there are others) make the idea that we can stop warming at a specific temperature increase by stopping emissions at a particular time tricky, as it is not a linear equation. Note: I’m not saying experts don’t know it is tricky. They know. A lot of modelling is trying to get a handle on how positive feedback loops will impact warming. It’s about ten years since I took a class in global warming, but I know at the time there was concern that at somewhere around 2 - 3 degrees warming the positive feedback loops might kick in and take us all the way to 5 or 6 degrees global warming.
So, while the experts are aware of all this, the public messaging and government campaigns don’t seem to communicate that our best plan takes us right to the edge of potentially out-of-control feedback loops.
Note: Please correct me if I’ve made mistakes with the numbers or said anything out of date. As I said, it’s been ten years since I took a course on this (an undergrad course at that) and got a chance to play with some climate models. And I have not read the latest round of IPCC reports - sadly the emotional discomfort of reading them outweighed being informed.
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Yes, it is all about the energy imbalance that we are causing. The blue ocean event (BOE) Beckwith is frequently talking about would be a major tipping point. The continuous decline of the arctic sea ice (volume and extent) during the summer indicates that the system is approaching this event within the next few years. This will slow down the jet stream and lead to stable troughs and ridges in the jet stream who controls the larger weather patterns in the atmosphere. For example, if a ridge stays over Europe for a long time, it can lead to severe and persisting weather events such as droughts or monsoon-like conditions that will negatively impact our agriculture. We have seen such events already happening in recent years.
The methane release will be a consequence of the rapid warming of the Arctic. The methane is trapped at them moment in the continental shelves of arctic ocean seabed, and also in the permafrost on land, which is collapsing already.
What is the consequence for our practice? Better hurry up to get enlightened? A bit more chanting every day? Hoping to be reborn in the deva realms?
I think our patience and endurance will be severely tested.
Much metta.
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I know, it takes a toll. Even though it can feel like too much, it’s informed and compassionate people like you who are so essential. 
Even more compassion for the scientists still working, every day, enduring hard conditions and doing difficult work, all in the knowledge that their governments will ignore their findings, again.
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The image sequence which shows how rainforest turned to farmland in Brazil’s Rondônia state between 1984 and 2016 simply breaks my heart.
And it is just a very small snapshot of a much bigger and terrible picture…
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So sad! The article talks about the regrowth in Europe and the plantations in China, but nothing will ever replace the ancient forests of Africa and the Amazon.
This article does a good job of capturing the frustration I feel.
We cannot live in this magical realm with its motorised transport, computers, internet, Netflix, electric cars, smartphones, chocolate milkshakes, space ships, hospitals, or large-scale farming, giant cities, and Bitcoin and expect the world not to turn into a resource-depleted hellhole within a century or two. AND all have kids and our own houses and all the food that we can eat. We’re just too efficient, too competitive and too short-sighted, and there’s only that much nature to go around.
And therein lies the rub. In order to not let this Climate Change apocalypse continue to happen, we’d need to completely dismantle and destroy the very foundations of our entire global society. Voluntarily.
Here are the current global CO2 levels.
| Week beginning on November 8, 2020: | 412.75 ppm |
|---|---|
| Weekly value from 1 year ago: | 410.20 ppm |
| Weekly value from 10 years ago: | 388.10 ppm |
And the following graph illustrates the impact of international action to prevent climate change. If international agreements have made any impact at all, it is hidden in the noise.
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I often get patients with multiple airborne allergy issues. The issue of air pollution inevitably comes up. At which point I pull up this.
Most people are blissfully unaware of just how polluted their environment is… even as they suffer from the ill effects. Almost nobody cares about the causes … and when one mentions that perhaps they themselves might do their bit for the environment by something as simple as adopting public transport… Crickets!
“Don’t be unrealistic Doctor… I have to get to work!”
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That’s fantastic, clearly we need more than aspirational targets to make major change.
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Sigh… And we do so love to feel superior to the US here in Canada…
Fossil fuel production far exceeds climate targets, UN says
Canada, Australia, China and U.S. are all pursuing major expansions in fossil fuel supply
It’s not even that we aren’t cutting enough. We’re expanding production!
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Why?
$$$$= votes, votes, votes!
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See the thing is, votes are many, but those who have the money are few.
Neoliberal economics is not really about jobs or growth or even profits in the broader macroeconomic sense. It’s about channeling even more money into the hands of the people who already have it. They called it " Supply-side economics", i.e. take from the poor and give to the rich. We could build a profitable and thriving economy based on renewables and innovative technology, but the people who would get rich from that are not the same people who have money now. And it’s the money now that greases the wheels. Potential profits lack that certain tactile, how to say, spendiness.
So the problem becomes: how do you get people to vote for you even when you are making them objectively worse off?
The great discovery is the motivating power of hate, not greed. The statistics don’t lie: under conservative governments, economic growth declines while murder and suicide rise. The point is not even to get a better life for oneself, but to hurt the “libs” or the “other” in any way you can. (Obligatory note: in Australia the “Liberal Party” is conservative and aggressively pro-fossil fuel.) Even if it actively harms you, so long as it harms “them” more, it’s totally worth it.
Our problem is a failure of imagination: we like to see the best in people, and, even with all evidence to the contrary, cannot accept that the will to do harm is what drives so many people.
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Your claim in this post that people on the right, namely ME, want to weaponize hate to hurt the poor and help the rich. This is insulting and profoundly untrue.
Progressive and Conservatives BOTH want to help people, especially the poor and marginalized. They simply believe (deeply truly believe) that their way is the better way to get it done. Conservative ACTUALLY believe that socialism, even creeping socialism, leads to unemployment, economic stagnation, and misery, falling most heavily on the poor. Conservatives actually, truly believe that lower taxes and less government intervention leads to a dynamic, just economy that benefits rich and poor alike. We really believe that. It is not a facade to stick it to the poor.
This demonization of the political right by western Buddhists is hurtful, and it is a big reason why half of the people in the US feel unwelcome in the Dhamma.
That is my main point, but here are a few responses to your claims.
You misunderstand supply-side economics. Since the 1920s, progressives have claimed that lowering taxes is simply a boon for the rich at the expense of the poor, but nearly every time it has been tried on a large scale, this has not been the case. For example, in the Melon tax cuts of the early 1920s, marginal tax rates were dramatically cut. The result? The rich ended up paying a higher total amount in income taxes and a higher percentage of all taxes. Why? Because the incentives to merely hide income were removed, and the incentives to invest in new businesses (creating new jobs) were strengthened. The economy boomed, creating jobs and prosperity on a scale unseen in human history. Much the same happened with the Kennedy tax cuts in the 1960s, and the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s. To say that lowering taxes “takes from the poor and gives to the rich” is quite simply not speaking the truth. Rich and poor alike benefit from lower taxes.
Here is a chart showing suicide rates in the US over the last 70s years showing a clear lack of relationship to administration: • Suicide death rate U.S. by gender 1950-2017 | Statista
Here is a chart of the murder rate in the US over 50 years showing a remarkable lack of relationship to administration: http://www.personal.psu.edu/afr3/blogs/siowfa13/Murders%20Per%20Capita%20in%20the%20United%20States%20over%20Time.jpg
Here is a chart of long-term real growth in US GDP over 140 years absolutely not showing what you claim: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/50060e33c4aa3dba773634ec/1471374787951-UYS50OI6EGJ162KB1BI4/RealGDPperCapita-650x450.png?content-type=image%2Fpng
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I think this is a deeply important point. There are good progressives and good conservatives (there are also of course bad people, I’m not talking about them), who are intelligent, ethical people, who simply disagree on the best course of action to help.
Now, it seems to me there are many operating under the conservative banner who are basically oligarchs and have no roots in any of the thinking of Edmund Burke or classical liberals that animates what thoughtful conservatives have long stood for. It’s good for everyone to call them out. Conservative Max Boot’s book The Corrosion of Conservatism is a brilliant and withering analysis of how Trump and the Republican Part have betrayed conservative ideals.
But that aside, I think a true conservative voice, a Burkean voice cautioning about the potential unintended side effects of fast top-down change based on reason alone, and urging us to understand the organic, inter-connected nature of culture, is a healthy voice.
I’m very much a progressive in my views and actions, but I do think society works best when a healthy conservative voice exists. Maybe that healthy conservative voice has been overshadowed in the US by a radically reactionary voice. But if thoughtful conservative voices are present here, we want to create an environment that is welcoming to them.
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Jim, I couldn’t agree more. There are people of bad faith on both the left and right, and neither view should be judged by its worst advocates. I’m a libertarian conservative, but I think George W. Bush should be jailed for war crimes. As should Obama, Clinton, and Trump. There are potential totalitarians on the right that use immigration (for example) as a weapon to push for power. Similarly, there are potential totalitarians on the right that use global warming and the environment for exactly the same reason. That doesn’t mean that immigration and the environment aren’t important issues that need to be addressed.
Max Boot is a neo-con that jumped the fence in the face of Trump. The flip side would be Dave Rubin, a passionate Bernie supporter who is now center right. I’m always interested in people that are willing to change their minds. Probably the most impressive person in this regard is Thomas Sowell, a former socialist who is now one of the smartest and most talented communicators on the political right. If anyone on the left is interested in hearing the best arguments from a brilliant thinker on the other side, I encourage you to read some Sowell. I’m also delighted to see https://freemarketbuddhist.substack.com/ making the case for some of these ideas.
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Yeah, I’ve always respected Sowell’s writings.
I also found Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance a great book for understanding the impact of poverty and not having a voice on rural America. (I read it is now also a movie, but have no idea if the movie is any good.)
And Andrew Bacevich’s America’s War for the Greater Middle East is a brilliant critique, IMHO, of US foreign policy over the last 50 years.
Just to toss in a couple books written by conservatives I learned a lot from. 
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Yes, obviously this isn’t helpful, and you and @JimInBC make some good points.
Since this is a thread about survival of civilisation, I’d just make the point that what makes groups of people successful is cooperation. Unfortunately, arguments about the details of organisation (captialism/socialism/whatever), often seems to obscure that, with wild claims that such details are more important.
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I like your thinking here. Personally I’m of the view that the left and right, Conservatives and Progressives, both need each other. That is to say, society is best when both those points of view can be heard. No political ideology is flawless. Sometimes the right will be right, sometimes the left. Sometimes the right needs to listen to the left and sometimes the left to the right, because sometimes the other side might be right because we ourselves and so our worldview/ideologies, and political ideologies are human creations, are not infallible. The worst thing we can do is to think our views and the political ideology we most associate with is THE truth IMO. That it, that we, have all the answers.
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Thanks for this! Looks very interesting.