We are at emergency levels, page-242

@RedCedar,

My apologies for the brusque tone of my response, if that was the way it was perceived by you.

My only excuse is that I get impatient with those that fail to properly appraise themselves of the facts, yet still become sanctimoniously sermonising notwithstanding.

My observation is that those, like me, that happen to adopt a factually-based, less strident position on this vexed subject - which doesn't align them with the evangelists that sit on either end of the spectrum of discussion - tend to become the subject of undue scorn and insults; for example, one clown on this forum accused me of being "wrong" despite my not even having expressed an explicit view of my own but having merely cited the research of third-party agencies (highly credible ones, at that).


But back to your question of, "Do you think the world is doing enough to avert a 1m sea level rise at the end of this century as predicted by a vast majority of climate scientists?"

I have no idea.
And I put it to you that no one really does.

We can take guesses at it.
But that's all they will be given the intractable nature of the issue: just guesses.

Which is why I think it is a waste of time arguing about the sea level will do over the next 50, 60 or 80 years.


And what is especially a waste of time is protesting and "demanding" that the Australian government does something to address carbon emissions.

This political tactic is the biggest piece of flawed, virtue flagging, conscience-assuaging, horse-manure, con job going. It is flawed for two reasons:

A. Australia is already performing more than admirably in terms of its adoption of renewable energy (as my earlier post, citing the European Commissions climate research group, demonstrated), and

B. This is not a problem that is able to be solved from Australia; nor, for that matter, even from within the rest of the the developed world.


Consider the following salient points:

1. In 2000, the aggregate level of global carbon emissions was around 26 billion tonnes pa, split roughly half between developed countries and underdeveloped/developing countries, at circa 12 to 13 billion tonnes pa for each group. Fast forward to 2018, and total global annual carbon emissions are 38 billion tonnes. Since 2010, emissions from developing countries have fallen by 10%, to around 11 billion tonnes pa. For the group of developing countries, emissions have doubled(!) over that 18-year period, to 27 billion tonnes pa.

2. Over that short period of less than two decades, China has increased its emissions by an amount that is equivalent of 18 (yes, eighteen!) times Australia's current emission levels of 415 mtpa. India's increased emissions - up 50% over the past 8 years - have added the equivalent of four Australia's in terms of CO2 emissions.

3. Seemingly-insignificant countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico, Pakistan, Algeria, and Philippines, have increased their emissions by, respectively, 263 mtpa, 216 mtpa, 212 mtpa, 190 mtpa, 183 mtpa, 149 mtpa, 136 mtpa, 132 mtpa, 125 mtpa, 124 mtpa, 110 mtpa, 100 mtpa, 90 mtpa, 8 0mtpa and 70 mpta. Collectively, that grouping of emerging emitters has added 2.25 billion tonnes pa (equivalent to almost five-and-a-half Australia's) since 2010 alone!

4. Emissions from International Aviation and Shipping - growing structurally at around 2%pa to 3%pa - currently represents almost 1.3bn tpa of CO2 (equivalent to emissions of more than three entire Australia's).

5. Even lowly, impoverished Bangladesh is adding meaningfully to the global emissions count, having increased its emissions by 60% in just the past 8 years and now being the 45th largest global emitter, bigger even than many first world countries such as Greece, Austria, Singapore, Ireland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark.

6. And then there is the next generation of fast-growing emitters which are currently still operating on low bases, but which will become noticeable emitters within the next decade: countries such as Nigeria, Angola, Myanmar, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Ghana, Guatamala, Cameroon, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Cambodia, Senegal, DRC, Zambia, Uganda, Laos, Guinea.


I could go on, but the picture should be quite clear to any rational human being who has the ability to view matters clinically and objectively, based on the cold hard facts (as opposed to ideological hysteria):


The unfavourable trend of the past decade or two is only going to continue for the next decade or two, and in fact, it is going to increase in speed before the growth rate slows.

And the reason it is going to continue at an increased rate is that we've got a large emissions number (that of the developing world, which is now two-and-a-half times that of the developed world) getting exponentially larger (it is exponential because of the combined effects of rising population as well as rising per capita emissions), while the smaller emissions number (that of the developed world) is becoming only linearly smaller (linearly because while per capita emissions are falling in the developed world, its population base is static).

Because in an algebraic expression containing a large exponential function and a small linear function, the overall expression behaves very much like the exponential function.

And no amount of protesting and demanding and stomping of feet and wailing and gnashing of teeth or people gluing oneself to roads and bridges will alter that.

So if increasing carbon emissions is what causes you anxiety today, I'm afraid you need to brace yourself... because it is only going to get worse before it gets better.

And no government action, nor the frantic bashing out 50, or even 100, posts per day in fights with strangers online, will alter things.

Sorry.

.