A projection of what Phoenix will be like in 2060
Credit: Shutterstock
There has always been an odd tenor to discussions among climate scientists, policy wonks, and politicians, a passive-aggressive quality, and I think it can be traced to the fact that everyone involved has to dance around the obvious truth, at risk of losing their status and influence.
The obvious truth about global warming is this: barring miracles, humanity is in for some awful shit.
Here is a plotting of dozens of climate modeling scenarios out to 2100, from the IPCC:
So what’s the scenario?
The black line is carbon emissions to date. The red line is the status quo — a projection of where emissions will go if no new substantial policy is passed to restrain greenhouse gas emissions.
We recently passed 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere; the status quo will take us up to 1,000 ppm, raising global average temperature (from a pre-industrial baseline) […]
If these projections materialize humanity will die back to the level that can be sustained by the remaining biosphere. Problem solved. The biggest problem we have is thinking that we can have infinite population and economic growth on a finite planet.