[MCN] Yes, the Climate Crisis May Wipe out Six Billion People

[Lance Olsen]

Yes, the Climate Crisis May Wipe out Six Billion People

Creator of the ‘ecological footprint’ on life and death in a world 4 C hotter.

William E. Rees <https://thetyee.ca/Bios/William_E__Rees/> 18 Sep 2019 | TheTyee.ca
William E. Rees is professor emeritus of human ecology and ecological economics at the University of British Columbia.

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/09/18/Climate-Crisis-Wipe-Out/ <https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/09/18/Climate-Crisis-Wipe-Out/>

Excerpts

Prominent climate scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director emeritus of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, argues <https://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/What-Lies-Beneath-V3-LR-Blank5b15d.pdf> that, in these circumstances “a trend towards ‘erring on the side of least drama’ has emerged” and “when the issue is the survival of civilization is at stake, conventional means of analysis may become useless.”

Exploring this argument, policy analysts David Spratt and Ian Dunlop conclude <https://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/What-Lies-Beneath-V3-LR-Blank5b15d.pdf>, “Climate policymaking for years has been cognitively dissonant, ‘a flagrant violation of reality.’ So it is unsurprising that there is a lack of understanding amongst the public and elites of the full measure of the climate challenge.”

As much as a decade ago a climate symposium organized to discuss the implications of a 4 C warmer world concluded, “Less than a billion people will survive.” Here Schellnhuber is quoted <https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/23/earth-4c-hotter/> as saying: “At 4 C Earth’s... carrying capacity estimates are below 1 billion people.” His words were echoed by professor Kevin Anderson of the U.K.’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change: “Only about 10 per cent of the planet’s population would survive at 4 C.”

Similarly, in May of this year, Johan Rockström, current director of the Potsdam Institute opined <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/climate-crisis-heat-is-on-global-heating-four-degrees-2100-change-way-we-live> that in a 4 C warmer world: “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that.... There will be a rich minority of people who survive with modern lifestyles, no doubt, but it will be a turbulent, conflict-ridden world.” Meanwhile, greenhouse gas concentrations are still increasing.

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"No one wanted to pay attention to the implications of a world four degrees warmer… It's too horrendous to think about.  And no one talked about it. 

"Then a few scientists said let's have a conference and actually talk about it. They held this conference in Oxford and I went along. 

"As the conference started, there was a kind of suppressed emotional intensity, except in the coffee breaks. It was then that I would buttonhole a couple of scientists and say: 'Well, you know we're speculating about this. But what do you really think is the situation?' And one of them just looked at me and said: 'We're f--ked.'" — Clive Hamilton 
 
Paul Kennedy. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Thursday September 07, 2017
<<http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/are-we-f-ked-decoding-the-resistance-to-climate-change-1.4277614 <http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/are-we-f-ked-decoding-the-resistance-to-climate-change-1.4277614>>>
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“When the real estate and insurance industries more aggressively translate the risk of weather/climate volatility to each person's pocketbook, the hue and cry will be huge. We are at the threshold of that collective cry.”

<<https://www.greenbiz.com/article/why-real-estate-and-insurance-lobbies-will-have-huge-influence-climate-policy <https://www.greenbiz.com/article/why-real-estate-and-insurance-lobbies-will-have-huge-influence-climate-policy>>>

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"Muzzling agencies from speaking out about climate change and preventing them from planning for its impacts is a recipe for disaster.”

Union of Concerned Scientists
<<https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2018/03/16/ignoring-role-climate-change-plays-us-disasters-helps-no-one <https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2018/03/16/ignoring-role-climate-change-plays-us-disasters-helps-no-one>>>

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