Now the climate crisis is self-evident, a common argument by those who STILL defend polluters is that “NZ is too small to make a difference, and so shouldn’t have to stop intensive dairy farming or driving Ford rangers to school in Auckland”
Rod Carr destroys it in this mic-drop moment.
This is false. While we can’t avoid climate change completely (it’s happening now), we can still limit the damage. Every 0.1 degree matters. This kind of doomerism is a form of denial.
I disagree. I don’t think .1 degree matters and I don’t think there is anything we can do to cool the earth by .1 degree or even prevent another .1 degree rise.
It’s truly too late. Even we got to carbon zero tomorrow the carbon in the atmosphere right now is going to have devastating impact for years to come.
Our only hope is that we somehow missed a feedback mechanism and it kicks in.
It’s not a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of science. Have a look at the IPCC reports, or read articles from legitimate sources, like:https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/04/recent-readings-on-climate-doomerism-and-science/
The science is clear on what the causes are (almost all of which are well within our control to mitigate), and on the differences between 2C and 3.5+C. The latter will be far far worse than the former, and there’s absolutely no technical or economic reason why 2C (or lower) is not achievable.
The IPCC has been drastically underestimating the rates and magnitude of climate change in all of their forecasts. It’s clear they are putting politics and PR above science in order not to panic the population.
I just don’t trust them to represent the actual science in the matter.
If you don’t trust climate scientists to represent the actual climate science, then I don’t know what to tell you.
This has nothing to do with trust. They put out forecasts and we know with 100% certainty that all of their forecasts underestimated how much warming there was going to be and how fast.
Why would you give them your blind trust after such a performance?
Do you really believe they were wrong in all of their previous forecasts but now they are right?
And to counter your disgusting accusation that I am anti science:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. It’s not “the climate scientists”. It’s a political body and it’s obvious that it’s white washing what their scientists are telling them and bowing to political pressure.
So fuck off with your insult and calling me a science denier.
The IPCC is a body made up of some of the top climate scientists from around the world. They work to summarise the latest climate science over the last few years. So it is definitely a scientific body.
Where is the scientific evidence that says it’s too late and there’s nothing we can do?
The collection of studies which show that all the predictions of the IPCC so far have underestimated both the magnitude and the velocity of climate change.
You’re right that the IPCC has tended to be conservative in it’s estimates (I.e. that warming / effects have generally progressed faster than predicted).
But it’s a huge jump from “things are worse than we thought” to “things are hopeless, there’s nothing we can do”. The science explicitly contradicts the latter. If we bring emissions down to near zero by around 2050, things will be way better than they could be. No serious climate scientist would argue against that. We also have most of the technology to achieve that without completely crashing the economy too.