flassbeck-economics | How climate change is rapidly taking the planet apart
‘There are no jokes. The truth is the funniest joke of all.’ Muhammad Ali
- Introduction
Writing up articles on climate change is difficult these days. Last
week alone, 46 new papers and reports were published. I am certain that
there are many more. The figure only refers to the sources I usually
consult. I try to read all abstracts and all articles I find
interesting, but sometimes I shy away from it: it is just too
depressing. According to Naomi Oreskes,
a great number of climate change scientists (she interviewed most of
the top 200 climate change scientists in the US) suffer from some sort
of mood imbalance or mild or serious depression. It is easy to
understand why: we see the climate change taking the planet apart right
in front of our eyes. We also clearly see, right in front of us, what
urgently needs to done to stave off global disaster on an unprecedented
scale. We need carbon taxes and the reconversion of industry and energy
towards zero CO2 emissions systems. This route is without any doubt
technically and economically feasible, but politically it seems to be
permanently locked. If we do not unlock it, the future looks bleak, not
to say hopeless, for humankind.
- Data on warming, rain bombs, storms and water vapour feedbacks
NASA recently released data showing that the planet has just seen seven straight months of not just record-breaking, but record-shattering heat (see here). We are well on track to see what will likely be the largest increase in global temperature a single year has ever seen (see here and here).
The NASA data show that May was the hottest May ever recorded, as well
as the fact that it crushed the previous May record by the largest
margin of increase ever recorded. The same is now true for June (see here). That makes it five months in a row that the monthly record has been broken and by the largest margin ever. When record-smashing months started in February, scientists began talking about a “climate emergency.” Since then the situation has only escalated.
The answer to the oft-asked
question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that this is
the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change
because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than
it used to be. Changes in extremes, such as higher temperatures and
increases in heavy rains and droughts are not related to climate change,
they are climate change (see here).
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