Have we passed a tipping point?
El Niño has something to do with this, but let's not pretend that chart is anything but scary.
Although, of course, balancing the books is much more important if you are Labour.
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Yesterday evening on a February day, the station I was waiting for a train at seemed enveloped in what seemed like a Spring afternoon. Pigeons were busily mating on the platform; the low sun was surprisingly warm.
Up in North Yorkshire, friends reported Skylarks cavorting on the moors where there are still warnings about fires.
The fields along the river I pass on my rail journey are still filled with water. Will they become permanent oxbow lakes I wonder? The trees a long the river are full of plastic bags and…………….toilet paper?
I’ve heard we’ve got two weeks worth of rain to come.
You can get angry – sure – but there is just something so…………pathetic about it all isn’t there?
We created a utility called money and we just can’t agree on how to use it best.
Instead we use it to reward greed, satisfy short-term desires and create unaccountable power.
Yes. Pathetic is a good word I think.
Kevin Costner`s much reviled film “Waterworld” does not now look so stupid.
As you are a birdwatcher, Richard,and I`m in Somerset, we usually have about 20 overwintering ducks in our pond; this year none at all. Also our 20-year garden resident Canada geese. I have to suppose that avian flu is more tragic than we can imagine. I have also to say that economics is rather difficult for me to understand, but I follow your blog, and I, think, get the gist. Economics is a real, difficult, science to master, obviously. When I studied archaeology, it was defined as an arts course. No-one mentioned Bayes analysis. Things will change, and I really appreciate your generosity in making your trenchant analysis public. Very best wishes to you and yours.
I admit we don’t seem short of ducks or geese here at the moment, and I do count them
It really amazes me that so many people – including those who lead our political parties – seem to think that doing something to help us survive or mitigate climate change is optional. Too few of the rich and powerful have been negatively impacted by climate change so far. Until that happens, we’ll just get lip service and denial. In years to come it will surely be clear to all that climate change massively accelerated in the early 21st Century, with the 2020s indeed representing a tipping point.
Let me make it Kier every pledge I make is optional!
As with Brexit, the rich and powerful will not be inconvenienced bu climate change.
It’s always amazing how the siren song of certain politicians/parties mesmerise the less well off to support them.
“… balancing the books is much more important if you are Labour.”
Even more important it would seem is turning your party into a lost cause by believing everything Tories tell you about how the economy works.
I think the scientific consensus is yes, we have absolutely passed the point of irreversability and are now deep in to the mitigation stage, with each year passing without real action increasing the likelihood of catastrophic events. The frightening aspect of all this is just how little acknowledgement and urgency there is among our great leaders of the multi crises that we are facing. “Unbalanced books” is not one of them.
I don’t think there is a scientific consensus that tipping points have been either reached or exceeded, as yet, as the data we have is simply insufficient to match processes to outcomes.
For example, we know the Atlantic conveyor that brings warmer sub tropical water to our shores, and allows our mild winters, has slowed by 15% since measurements began, and we know how fast the Greenland Ice sheet is melting, and how fast that melt is accelerating, but we do not know the actual threshold when the thermohaline gradient will reach the point where the North Atlantic Drift simply ceases.
20 years ago the forecast was that there was a very low chance the conveyor would cease. It was thought to be relatively stable. Now with 20 years more data, this conclusion is seen as extremely optimistic, and even a halt within a decade becoming a possibility.
If UK and European politicians were forced to study the climate graphs for Barrow in Alaska, and told that if the North Atlantic Drift ceases, this would be our probable future, and small boats would not be necessary for immigrants from France, just a pair of snow shoes, and UK ports ice-bound for up to 6 months a year, then we might just see a greater sense of urgency.
That we have a hopelessly inadequate response to the data we have, at the political level is undeniable.
The precautionary principle for environmental impacts has been effectively dumped.
£28bn is about half the annual investment estimated that the UK would require to reach net zero according to a HoC report from 2021, so even that would have been tokenistic.
The point is that the decision makers, either political or economic just do not understand the likely impacts of climate change, and so see no need for immediate action.
It isn’t even corporate or institutional inertia, just plain stupidity.
Tony :
It’s likely denial. Having been presented with evidence it’s either denial or simply do not care. The decisions made at top level are by those wealthy enough that can easily ‘escape’ to suitable climes. Leaving the rest of us to suffer and pick up the pieces.
Tony:
I was referring to irreversability in human life timescales rather than tipping points where feedback loops create accelerating changes that are out of control and likely very long term (though as you state, there are strong indicators that these kinds of tipping points may have already been reached). There is much agreement that we have changed the biosphere to such an extent that it is very unlikely to be reversed on human life timescales.
Similar to what you said my comment was intended to highlight the huge discrepancy between the data available and the lack of political will, be it through stupidity or short-sightedness, to take meaningful, practical action.
Not fair, Richard.
It’s not just labour who think like that, and I can’t understand why Starmer is saying what he is either. Can’t stand the man or his party.
It’s the tories who have got us into this mess.
Sorry, Jenw, you cannot just blame the tories for the climate disaster. All of the developed world and some of the others bear responsibility. It is just Labout who have recently rowed back on the small amount they had announced they would do.
Mr Jenw, I’d suggest it is “the political system” and its inhabitants – and this applies not just to the UK’s but all. Everywhere. Relevant to the point made (re tipping points)
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/european-commission-backtracks-on-water-resilience-initiative/
Growing water shortage – agriculture largest user of water, EU backtracks on water resilience – because of demos by the vandals of the countryside – the farmers. The politicians show in response that they are cowards and brainless to boot. They look as far as the next election and no further. The focus is power retention, not governance (which is always a poor second to power retention – or in the case of LINO – obtaining power.) We face an existential crisis, this has been known for ++ 30 years & the response of politicians – dither, half-measures, lying and short-termism, all parties (greens excepted) all of the time.
I know, Mike Parr. I studied environmental science at college in the 70s.
What I was saying is that Richard can’t just blame labour for it, either.
I wasn’t.
I am saying Labour don’t care.
I suspect so. Judging from reports from scientists, the Gulf Stream is close to collapse and Greenland’s Ice sheet has melted enough that the island is rising.
And ancient viruses may be an issue as well. https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-15000-year-old-viruses-seen-in-melting-tibetan-glaciers
@ Martin,
I think, perhaps, you’re conflatingthe Gulf Stream withAMOC (Atlantic Overturning Meridional Current)?
Despite its name, the Gulf Stream starts off the west coast of Africa and travels west along the equator towards the Gulf of Mexico, where it picks up more heat and its name. It then swings around and heads northeast into the North Atlantic. The next leg of the conveyor is the North Atlantic Drift (NAD), which is also often conflated with the Gulf Stream, which carries warmish water past Western Europe to the Arctic.
There are two major influences on the density of seawater: temperature and salinity. What we’ve been used to is the supercool waters of the Arctic being denser than the more saline waters from the south, so they sink and travel the length of the Atlantic, passing under the Gulf Stream, to upwell in the Southern Ocean. Imagine the convection current in a room, where warm air rises and travels across the ceiling and cooler air, from a vent, falls to the floor; you’ll get better airflow and more even temperatures throughout the room if both factors are working in tandem. Seal the room up and you’ll retard the airflow; you then get stratification, where heat accumulates at the top. Something similar is happening with the under ocean element of the conveyor. The Arctic waters are losing density, due to decreasing salinity, as more freshwater flows in from melting ice in Greenland and less of it freezing out of the Arctic Ocean each winter. The supercool water is less inclined to sink and thus contributes less impetus to the system; essentially depriving the system of energy. As the density of the waters of the north and south reach equilibrium the energy of the Gulf Stream and NAD will get used up pushing north (as opposed to being pulled north as at present), their influence will wane and their reach will be pushed much further south.
To paraphrase Samuel Longhorne Clemens (Mark Twain): sorry about the long post, I didn’t have time to write a shorter one.
I was confusing them. Thank you for the long post. 🙂
@ Martin,
You’re welcome.
Talking of getting names mixed up, I let Andrew send an email yesterday and my phone has saved his name, to the position on the toolbar, where my name should be. I then button bashed my way through the details box, without paying attention.
/Drew
I believe that the possibility of any politicians anywhere being capable of passing any meaningful anti global ecocide legislation passed the tipping point a good 20 years ago.
As far as I can understand this suicidal insanity this is because they are all to a greater or lesser extent in economic hoc to Big Oil and Gas and it’s corporate offshoots. They also all sign up to belief in the modern day Micawber Principle that ‘something will turn up’, aka ‘Big Daddy’ science or tech or Moon/Mars landings will save them, so why worry ?
It is way past the point of expensive international talking shop conferences that deliver nowt but more useless and disingenuous future ‘targets’. Those already badly affected by 70 + years of hyper capitalist environmental destruction on our fragile planet are having to do environmental triage for themselves alone as best they can for brute survival against ignorant malicious short term political and financial interests.
Very likely, we have been trifling with positive feedback loops for years, Methane releases in particular are becoming a big problem. Given that we have been only too aware of the issues for fifty years or more and the denial most politicians are displaying we are basically f**ked.
The Planet I think is gradually becoming less habitable for humans especially given the inequality we practice. All our efforts to date regarding renewable energy and conservation etc, have barely achieved a slowing down of the rate of CO2 emissions.
Watching our politician basically acting like cavemen chucking spears about doesn’t give me much hope to be frank.
The evidence is overwhelming. We are heading towards a 3 to 4C increase by the end of the century. The consequences will include much of the US and Southern Europe becoming uninhabitable. Mass migration north and south will become necessary leading to even more instability and risk of conflict. We may end civilisation as we no it before the end of the century. The message from most but not all politicians is “Don’t Look Up”.
As the planet heats up, super storms will dump more downpours. Insurance companies are getting restive, either dropping properties at risk or massively increasing cover costs.
Labour will discover that “balancing the books” will be irrelevant because the UK state will need to consider extending Flood Re cover or become the insurer of last resort for a huge number of properties.
This is happening in Florida and Australia.
As for flood defence etc the austerity cash starved Environment Agency will not be able to cope.
We are talking multi billions probably trillions needed to deal with the flooding and produce an economy that greatly reduces damage to the environment.
It’s worse than that. Not only are politicians ignoring climate change, they also seem hell-bent on destroying humanity in every other possible way. “Profit” leads us to tolerate Putin, Netanyahu, Orban, Kim and others. Apparently Russia is developing a nuclear space weapon too, just in case Starlink doesn’t destroy enough of the skies.
2024 looks like being the year when my optimism finally fails.
The Tories are so unpopular, the Labour Party could have a ‘longest suicide note in history’ manifesto and still get elected. Instead, rather than offer hope for a better of future, they are setting themselves up to be midwives to despair, and ultimately, fascism.
5 years ago Sheffield City Council declared a climate emergency. By 2030 our emissions for the city are to be zero!
In those five years we have cut emissions by 3%!
The Green Group of fourteen Councillors (of a total of 84) have pushed for far more ambitious measures., Both Labour and LibDems have fought these measures every inch of the way. They fear thr backlash of the voters, rather than the consequences of doing nothing and hope the Green irritant will go way.
This last week they are cock a hoop that Labour’s South Yorkshire Regional Mayor Oliver Coppard has given the go ahead to fund the reopening of Sheffield and Doncaster airport!
They ignore the science, the positive opportunities, have forgotten why they are elected and clearly don’t care! They even voted against The Taxing Wealth Report 2024 claiming it had not been published!
Labour have lost its way.
Thanks for trying
As Amory Lovins pointed out back in the late 80’s Energy Efficiency isnt a Free Lunch, it is one we are paid to eat
But nobody chose to eat it
This board is like an echo chamber for old women!… Starmer is making sure the Labour Party is electable and will form a majority Government. You will never get the hard left Government you crave, come to terms with it. Starmers Government will be a massive improvement on what we have had and for that i am thankful..
If you typify those who will welcome Starmer we really are in trouble.
Typical dismissive stuff that I have come to expect from my former Labour colleagues about democracy, environment and being a shill for foreign governments. If you believe climate change is “hard left”, you are in the same space as Reform and MAGA.
Here’s a recent article and paper for those who want to look into the AMOC slowdown and the possibility of a seriously colder British Isles:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/07/what-is-happening-in-the-atlantic-ocean-to-the-amoc
Of course these are always projections and probabilities, various possible timeframes, and open to debate… Something else (a different climate or ecosystem crisis, another but worse zoonotic disease pandemic, a major war, volcanic eruption…) could happen first!
But surely it’s one of the major tasks of government to protect the people from threats? In the past that was primarily the risk of nasty people coming across the borders to kill or capture us and take our stuff or occupy our land. Now it’s more complicated… Where is the scenario planning for these possibilities and the prevention and mitigation measures and resources for relevant responses? Probably at the level of the pandemic planning: on the shelf – with such PPE etc as there was, inadequate and rotten. (And where are the Climate Change Committee papers? I assume few civil servants are tasked with doing anything on the recommendations other than help government with excuses; nor any planners for the putative TCP government…)
Britain almost starved in two wars in the 20th century (the First WW was a close run thing, I believe). You think the ‘TP run’ at the beginning of Covid was bad, ridiculous or what? “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” Our food security is non-existent.
Democracy is breaking down, here as elsewhere (under multiple stresses, per other posts); and one or other of these crisis events could well be a useful excuse to end it and implement fascism (perhaps cloaked with a promise to “keep you safe and protect your way of life” – although in the short run, tighten our belts, as “we’re all in it together”).
Ah well: “keep the faith, fight the fight”!
The markets, emboldened by the foolish reverence paid to them by successive governments from Thatcher onwards, have decided that climate change must not interfere with the flow of wealth that they have been enjoying and are prepared to continue partying on the Titanic as it sinks beneath them.
We all hope that Labour will direct a bigger slice of whatever pie they decide is available towards those most in need, but the backsliding on nearly every promise indicates that they won’t.
How will they handle the fall out? I see Starmer doing a Ramsay MacDonald and forming a National Govt alongside the Liberals and the less rabid Tories. There will be states of emergency due to weather events, strikes, street disturbances, racial/sectarian violence and general disorder and a “unity coalition” will be needed to save the country.
I was aware of the Gulf Stream and AMOC from of all people Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ – he spoke more about the former and after reading more deeply there was AMOC in the frame as well.
Frankly, we live in a world where facts don’t matter anymore? Opinions driven by conviction is all that counts. Add abuses of power from politicians in the mix as well.
In my work as a developer of affordable housing I see this all the time. I have people telling me all the time that I cannot do what we do because they are NIMBYS. They completely ignore rights of way and land ownership rules for example even though they use our land to access their land and the law requires us to work together to preserve access rights on both sides. As soon as I mention that they consult a lawyer and consider the expense, they soon shut up as they come face to face with reality. Or is it their own ignorance?
People say that fascism is ‘on the way’. Well, that’s wrong. It’s here now and has been for quite some time. Fascism (part of it) is the use of emotion to set people against something or each other. Think about the reaction to ULEZ and the 20 mph speed limits in Wales.
Politics now is pure theatre. The ideas we’ve been working with – the dominant one being neo-liberalism – has proven time and time again not to work.
So, to preserve that for as long as possible, identity politics and the making of foes in the shape of fascist political technology comes into being. The thing is is that it is also so typically ‘capitalist’ to look for a unique selling point (USP) in order to compete just for competitions sake. Competition is perpetual.
Everything is now just a big market for ideas that only exist because of a competitive mode of thinking that seems to be pushing out co-operative modes of thinking. And as these ideas circulate they attract advertising revenue too. Perpetual competition in politics has become a means unto itself. Resolution remains difficult if not impossible. Why resolve anything when competition generates revenue?
I watched a Youtube vid yesterday about a man who had gone back to a diesel car after two electric models. His reasoning? Depreciation rates!!! That’s all. But what he had to say about the EV market was telling – the incentives to change in the market alone are poor. And political action could change that. But as we know – in this country at least that seems unlikely to happen. But to this fella, understanding vehicle depreciation rates was more important than his awareness of the impact of his new diesel. I imagine there are millions of Britons who are very savvy about this market and that market – but the market for considering the end of world seems rather under-developed! What good is being ‘market savvy’ when extinction is at the end of the line? Oh – the things we post-Thatcherites think that are important!!
It’s like the Dodo deciding on not learning to fly because it puts his feathers out of place.
Competition for ideas is all very well if you are selling chocolate bars – but not when you are trying to sustain life on such an isolated planet as ours. Politics is inculcated with competition (related also because of competition for political funding which needs to be nationalised) – not the finding of resolution equitable to all sides and making change easier.
Along with the concept of competition is the concept of choice – you can choose what you want to believe – and to be green or a carbon lover is set out like the chocolate bars at a supermarket, presented as equally valid choices with slight variances you might be or not be interested in (cocoa content or price).
Everything being presented as a choice remains a problem because it obfuscates when right or wrong choices are actually the ONLY real choices in certain contexts. We infantilise this too by churning out reality TV shows.
And even worse, these choices are presented as a personal choice at one’s discretion as capitalism’s biggest triumph is that YOU are the most important person and you are effectively being decoupled from the rest of society.
And as a result, you will never connect with the immigrants you don’t want in your country you see escaping from their flooded villages because of the ‘choices’ the market and its crony politicians you voted for gave you and which YOU made. You will be innocent, won’t you? And the immigrants will be guilty (of course) for just wanting to live on dry land.
So the upshot is that we need immense political intervention in the markets delivering transport, energy food and water safety and security and energy because of global warming. But we are unlikely to get it, because politics has been bought to the point where it is no longer serious anymore. And neither is our democracy for that matter. As I said, it’s all theatre, to entertain and exploit but not intended to solve anything.
What an epitaph.
Nationalise party political funding NOW!