What’s Not In The Latest Terrifying IPCC Report? The “Much, Much, Much More Terrifying” New Research On Climate Tipping Points

By Jon Queally
Common Dreams (10/9/18)

If the latest warnings contained in Monday’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—which included pronouncements that the world has less than twelve years to drastically alter course to avoid the worst impacts of human-caused global warming and that nothing less than keeping all fossil fuels in the ground is the solution to avoid future calamities—have you at all frightened or despondent, experts responding to the report have a potentially unwelcome message for your already over-burdened heart and mind: It’s very likely even worse than you’re being told.

After the report’s publication there were headlines like: “We have 12 years to act on climate change before the world as we know it is lost. How much more urgent can it get?” and “Science pronounces its verdict: World to be doomed at 2°C, less dangerous at 1.5°C” and “A major new climate report slams the door on wishful thinking.”

But as Jamie Henn, co-founder and the program director for the international climate group 350.org, stated in a tweet on Tuesday, the “scariest thing about the IPCC Report” is the fact that “it’s the watered down, consensus version. The latest science is much, much, much more terrifying.”

A series of dynamic feedback loops that could push the world into a climate scenario not seen since the dawn of the Helocene Period, nearly 12,000 years ago.

Henn was actually responding to Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann who was pushing back against those criticizing the IPCC report as too “alarmist” in its declarations and warnings. “If anything,” Professor Mann declared, “it is the opposite. Once again, with their latest report, they have been overly conservative (ie. erring on the side of understating/underestimating the problem.)”

This is very possibly true and there is much scientific data and argument backing this up. As Henn and Mann both indicate, the IPCC report is based on the consensus view of the hundreds of scientists who make up the IPCC – and its been consistently true that some of the most recent (and increasingly worrying) scientific findings have not yet found enough support to make it into these major reports which rely on near-unanimous agreement.

The weakest link

According to Durwood Zaelke, founder of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, speaking to The Guardian in the wake of the latest IPCC report,  it “fails to focus on the weakest link in the climate chain: the self-reinforcing feedbacks which, if allowed to continue, will accelerate warming and risk cascading climate tipping points and runaway warming.”

In August, as Common Dreams reported, research published by Johan Rockström and his colleagues at the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden found that it is precisely these feedback loops and tipping points that should most frighten and concern humanity. While nascent and not conclusive in its findings—two of the reasons you won’t find it referenced in the IPCC report—the study warned that humanity may be just 1°C away from creating a series of dynamic feedback loops that could push the world into a climate scenario not seen since the dawn of the Helocene Period, nearly 12,000 years ago.

Quoted in Tuesday’s Guardian article about the dangers of ignoring potential tipping points, Nobel prize laureate Mario Molina, who shared the award for chemistry in 1995 for his work on ozone depletion, said: “The IPCC report demonstrates that it is still possible to keep the climate relatively safe, provided we muster an unprecedented level of cooperation, extraordinary speed and heroic scale of action. But even with its description of the increasing impacts that lie ahead, the IPCC understates a key risk: that self-reinforcing feedback loops could push the climate system into chaos before we have time to tame our energy system, and the other sources of climate pollution.”

The purpose of recognizing the terrifying predictions is not to instill fear, however, climate campaigners and advocates for bold solutions say.

In a paper authored last year—titled Leading the Public into Emergency Mode: A New Strategy for the Climate Movement—Margaret Klein Salamon writes that while a World War II-style mobilization is necessary to achieve the kind emission cuts and energy transformation that science now mandates, understanding the stakes does not necessarily mean being debilitated by that knowledge. In an op-ed for Common Dreams, she argued “that intense, but not paralyzing, fear combined with maximum hope can actually lead people and groups into a state of peak performance. We can rise to the challenge of our time and dedicate ourselves to become heroic messengers and change-makers.”

And as Rajiv Sicora, senior manager of research for The Leap, wrote to his group’s supporters in an email on Tuesday: “This is not the time to turn away, whether in fear or in active denial of the facts. This is a time to use our fear as fuel: because the report also makes clear that the worst effects of global warming can still be prevented, and the urgency of transformative change should excite and empower all of us who are fighting for justice anyway.”

(This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.)

(Commoner Call art by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )

  • What Does Climate Change Really Cost Society? — One of the biggest hubs of real-time climate research is a lab hundreds of miles from the rising seas and melting ice caps. There are no test tubes or beakers. Instead young scientists and economists hunch over computers analyzing the newest data. A group of them are currently reviewing a study that considers whether crime levels are connected to monsoon seasons. The findings are a tiny part of a big question: how much is climate change costing society, and who’s paying? … Read the Rest

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Time Is Rapidly Running Out To Control Runaway Climate Change, U.N. Report Warns

On Point / WBUR (10/9/18)

A new U.N. report says the targets set by the Paris climate accord aren’t enough to stop massive ecosystem change in the next 50 years. We’ll look at what can be done.

Guests:

  • Chris Mooney, covers climate change, energy and the environment for the Washington Post. (@chriscmooney)
  • Drew Shindell, professor of climate sciences at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University.

Link to 48-Minute Audio

(Commoner Call art by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )

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Climate Scientist: As U.N. Warns of Global Catastrophe, We Need A “Marshall Plan” for Climate Change

Democracy Now! 910/9/18)

A new report from the United Nations’ climate panel warns humanity has only a dozen years to mitigate global warming and limit the scope of global catastrophe. Otherwise, millions will be imperiled by increasing droughts, floods, fires and poverty. The sweeping report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urges immediate and unprecedented changes to global policy in order to keep global warming at a maximum of 1.5ºC.

We speak with Kevin Anderson, Zennström professor in climate change leadership at the Centre for Environment and Development Studies at Uppsala University and chair of energy and climate change at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester in Britain. He says that the IPCC report fails to hold the world’s highest emitters accountable, and argues a “Marshall Plan” for climate change is necessary to save the planet from destruction.

“About 70 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide come from about 20 percent of the world population. … When we try to address climate change and reduce our emissions by focusing on all 7.5 billion people, I think it misunderstands where the actual responsibility of emissions resides,” Anderson says. “We’re not developing policies that need to be tailored to that particular 20 percent.”

Link to Story, Transcript and 19-Minute Video

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Ex-NASA Scientist Dr. James Hansen: We Need To Act Now To Preserve Our Planet for Future Generations

Democracy Now! (10/10/18)

As Hurricane Michael barreled down on Florida, famed climate scientist Dr. James Hansen traveled to Minnesota earlier this week to testify on the imminent danger of climate change. He was supposed to be an expert witness at the trial for the “valve turners,” the anti-pipeline activists who staged an unprecedented coordinated action to shut down the flow of oil from Canada to the United States in 2016. But the judge ruled she would not allow witnesses like Dr. Hansen to testify on the clear and present danger posed by climate change.

On Tuesday, valve turner activists Annette Klapstein and Emily Johnston were acquitted. We speak with Hansen in Minneapolis about the valve turners, the recent IPCC report about the imminent threat of climate change and what must be done to save the planet from destruction. Hansen is the former top climate scientist at NASA. He is now the director of Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. We also speak with Klapstein and Johnston.

Link to Story, Transcript and 8-Minute Video