Water whatsoever - Dagsavisen

If I had said that there is 95 percent chance that you die from reading this comment – would you still do it?

Water whatsoever

If I had said that there is 95 percent chance that you die from reading this comment – would you still do it?

There are two ways to be a climate skeptic. One variant is the few who constantly insist that climate change is man-made. No matter how much scientific facts they are served. For them, this is not science. It is religion masquerading as science. There is little point in spending time on them. IPCC presented its fifth report in Stockholm yesterday. It states that climate change is man-made with 95 percent certainty – a scientific context in crazy high number. It hardly makes an impression on these guys (it is mostly men, yes). On the contrary, we can expect a lot of mobilization and an onslaught against the new report. If you are in doubt – stay tuned in a comment field near you.

The other way to be climate skeptic is far more serious and far more sinister. This variant is not a small sect, but many large and key decision makers. They manage some of the world’s largest companies and most powerful countries. They see that the climate is changing. They know it’s going Tues be very dangerous, very fast. They understand that it is human emissions are the cause. None of this is the skeptical. But for some mysterious reason they are reluctant to do anything about it.

This group will not run any onslaught against the IPCC report, which was presented yesterday. They’re not going to try to pull the findings into question. They are contrary to put their faces in severe folds and repeat that this is the greatest challenge. That urgency. That it is the planet’s survival is at stake. They’re going to quote Thomas Stocker, vice chairman of the IPCC. At the press conference yesterday he said about climate change: “They threaten our planet. The only home we have. “

report, which was presented yesterday is the first of three volumes and up to the climate summit in Paris in 2015. The next two will deal respectively what will be the consequences of climate change and what we can do to reduce greenhouse gases. They come next year. Yesterday’s report describes and predicts climate change. It includes four different scenarios of what might happen. In summary, the main message that it is not going to go well. It can either go pretty little bad, not so good, very bad – or so it can go straight to hell, which of course is a terrible warm place.

Both rabid climate skeptics and handlingsvegrende politicians may be tempted by a seemingly sparkles in the new report. It turns out that the warming is slower than previously estimated. It is a wonderful good news. On paper. But one of the reasons for that is that the oceans have been able to absorb more heat, deeper than previously thought. The air temperature rises more slowly than predicted, but the warming of the planet as a whole occurs equally cursed. It’s just that much of it takes place at sea. Temperature and climate change is not something that only happens in the air. It also occurs in the water. The problem is that it is virtually impossible to know how long this can continue. At some point, the oceans cease to function as a global air bag. Therefore, it is irresponsible to directly read yesterday’s report that the message that we have bought time or that climate change is just unsubstantiated rumor.

It now looks like now, the IPCC horror scenario is the most likely. It requires that we continue as before, without doing anything special. Estimates in the report is that the atmosphere as a whole can tolerate a spill of 1,000 Gt CO2 and still sneak under a temperature increase of two degrees Celsius, an increase that clearly will be felt, but, hopefully, to live with, quite well. This “quota” of one million tonnes has already used up a little over half.

Yesterday was otherwise well known that the group has become the world champion. A discovery outside Canada makes the oil company is the’ve found most oil and gas this year. It is inspiring, obviously. Now is explored more. Not for climate solutions or smart renewable technologies, but for more oil and gas. The Norwegian climate paradox is about to take the step from tragicomedy to the absurd theater world.

Taking the water over your head means you will embark on a task that is too big, too hard, as you can possibly manage. But in this case there is no way around it. It is so serious that civilization as we know it is going to collapse if we do not bursts loose on the seemingly insurmountable right away. The report predicts that the IPCC sea level will rise. Depending on how high the temperature gets, the IPCC estimates that by 2100 we can expect a sea level that is between 26 and 98 cm higher than today. The choice is basically very simple: Either we take water over his head, figuratively – or so we get in over his head, literally.

hege.ulstein @ dagsavisen.no