Climate Change
Feb. 24th, 2025 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Arctic study urges stronger climate action to prevent catastrophic warming
Remember when 2 degrees Celsius of global warming was the doomsday scenario? Well, we're now staring down the barrel of something much worse. From the fish on your plate to the weather outside your window, everything's about to change. A new study underscores the grave risks posed by insufficient national commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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The research underscores that current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) -- the promises made by nations under the Paris Agreement -- will not suffice to achieve the 2°C target, which is the threshold marking a known tipping point beyond which widespread and severe global impacts are expected. Without substantial increases in these commitments, a future characterized by extreme temperatures and profound ecological disruptions appears unavoidable. This also suggests that scientific and policy efforts to understand the future risks of climate change need to now consider what a +3 or +4 degree world means.
People aren't really trying to meet the Paris agreement. So now things are rapidly getting worse. >_<
Remember when 2 degrees Celsius of global warming was the doomsday scenario? Well, we're now staring down the barrel of something much worse. From the fish on your plate to the weather outside your window, everything's about to change. A new study underscores the grave risks posed by insufficient national commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
[---8<---]
The research underscores that current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) -- the promises made by nations under the Paris Agreement -- will not suffice to achieve the 2°C target, which is the threshold marking a known tipping point beyond which widespread and severe global impacts are expected. Without substantial increases in these commitments, a future characterized by extreme temperatures and profound ecological disruptions appears unavoidable. This also suggests that scientific and policy efforts to understand the future risks of climate change need to now consider what a +3 or +4 degree world means.
People aren't really trying to meet the Paris agreement. So now things are rapidly getting worse. >_<
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-02-27 06:03 pm (UTC):-/
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-02-27 07:46 pm (UTC)It is a sad time. People are choosing to destroy a lot.
We have about a 75% drop in insects, a third less birds, and plummeting populations of amphibians. The web of life is unraveling.
>> I feel like we could be making more of a difference <<
As a species, this is true; people just don't want to do it. As individuals, however, we are free to make many of our own choices. Most are free to reduce or eliminate eating meat, to grow and/or eat climate-resilient or Earth-friendly foods, plant native instead of exotic landscaping, move a bug outside instead of squashing it in the house, donate to nature charities instead of human ones, etc. And if ore individuals made more Earth-friendly choices, that would add up quickly.
Case in point: we joined Grand Prairie Friends, hmm, between 20-30 years ago, when it had just a few small reserves. Now our biggest is over 1000 acres of upland forest, riverbottom, and adjacent grasslands. And there are bald eagles in central Illinois again; I suspect the refuge contributes to that. I've personally seen bobcat tracks there. Decades of nature nerds sticking together has made a difference.
>> but at the same time I'm almost worried it won't make much of a difference because this has been going on too long now :-/
It helps if you understand how an ecosystem works, what some of the important parts are. Take ants. Most people ignore them, but they are enormously important. If you have so much as a patio, you can help ants survive. It also helps if you know how a mass extinction tends to work, killing off species that are large, specialized, and/or hyperlocal. Flip that around and what tends to survive are small, widespread generalists. So you can focus on helping them. Another excellent approach is to support keystone species who have a huge impact on the ecosystem -- wolves, beavers, oak trees, goldenrod, etc.
When it comes to saving the world, most of the time you won't know that you've done it. But you can know the kinds of things that do it, and do those things. Every mass extinction is a hurricane of butterflies flapping their wings: the tiniest change can make the difference between a species surviving or not surviving. If you need more concrete evidence of making a difference, however, look for starfish opportunities where you can say, "I made a difference for THAT one."
Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-03-01 11:44 pm (UTC)Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-03-02 10:52 am (UTC)Re: Well ...
Date: 2025-03-03 12:53 pm (UTC)