[MCN] Human self-perception, spending power and climate change, timid scientists, pragmatism, and how recovery fails

[Lance Olsen]

The Lancet goes off the deep end, devaluing human life as no more important than animals
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/the_lancetem_goes_off_the_deep_end_devaluing_human_life_as_no_more_important_than_animals.html <https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/emthe_lancetem_goes_off_the_deep_end_devaluing_human_life_as_no_more_important_than_animals.html>

“… man hath no pre-eminence above the beast: for all is vanity.” 
Ecclesiastes 3:18–20


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"We’re logically left with one primary path: cutting the demand for fossil fuels.

“The hard truth about this path, a truth the Davos elite and most mainstream media seem reluctant to acknowledge, is that it will require personal sacrifices, especially from the world’s wealthiest people. 

"On average, the top 1% of global earners – people who earn $130,000 a year or more – cause 110 metric tonnes of carbon emissions each year per person. For perspective, that’s about 2,200 times the carbon burden of a typical citizen of Burundi.

“The world’s 1-percenters out-polluted the poorest half of humanity twice over between 1990 and 2015, and recent estimates suggest they are collectively responsible for more than 11 times the annual greenhouse gas emissions attributed to notorious climate villain ExxonMobil. Meanwhile, the top 10% – which includes earners who make $39,100 a year, a middle class income for individuals in Global North countries like the US – produce nearly half of all carbon harms. 

"No arithmetically coherent plan to cut carbon emissions can ignore this reality.”

https://science.thewire.in/environment/technofixes-elites-responsibility-climate-crisis/ <https://science.thewire.in/environment/technofixes-elites-responsibility-climate-crisis/>


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Cleaner Production Letters <https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/cleaner-production-letters> Volume 4 <https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/cleaner-production-letters/vol/4/suppl/C>, June 2023
 <https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/cleaner-production-letters/vol/4/suppl/C>
Millionaire spending incompatible with 1.5 °C ambitions

StefanGössling AndreasHumpe

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clpl.2022.100027 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clpl.2022.100027>
Under a Creative Commons license <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>
Open access

Abstract

Much evidence suggests that the wealthiest individuals contribute disproportionally to climate change. Here we study the implications of a continued growth in the number of millionaires for emissions, and its impact on the depletion of the remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5 °C (about 400 Gt CO2). To this end, we present a model that extrapolates observed growth in millionaire numbers (1990–2020) and associated changes in emissions to 2050. Our findings suggest that the share of US$2020-millionaires in the world population will grow from 0.7% today to 3.3% in 2050, and cause accumulated emissions of 286 Gt CO2. This is equivalent to 72% of the remaining carbon budget, and significantly reduces the chance of stabilizing climate change at 1.5 °C. Continued growth in emissions at the top makes a low-carbon transition less likely, as the acceleration of energy consumption by the wealthiest is likely beyond the system's capacity to decarbonize. To this end, we question whether policy designs such as progressive taxes targeting the high emitters will be sufficient


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"In 1972, pursuing his calculations of ice-cover feedbacks, Budyko declared that, at the rate we were pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, the ice covering the Arctic Ocean might melt entirely by 2050." 

"Most scientists spoke more cautiously.”

Spencer Weart. The Discovery of Rapid Climate Change. 
Physics Today, American Institute of Physics
<<https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1611350>>

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“… the serious meaning in a concept lies in the difference it will make to someone if it is true.”

William James (1842 –1910)
Pragmatism. Meridian Books, 1955

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A species or ecosystem's recovery from disturbances can be reversed, and  fail; e.g.,  “  …  recovery rates decrease as a catastrophic regime shift is approached, a phenomenon known in physics as 'critical slowing down.'  ….  In all the models we analyzed, critical slowing down becomes apparent quite far from a threshold point, suggesting that it may indeed be of practical use as an early warning signal” (van Nes and Scheffer. American Naturalist, 2007).

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