Spaceship Earth

Spaceship Earth

-- for NASA Scientist Peter Kalmus

It’s like we’re on Spaceship Earth
and our top navigators warn
we will soon collide with asteroid belt
unless we change course.
.00000005 percent get to vote.

IPCC AR6 Part III (Translation: Global Leaders AWOL)

Bill McKibben wrote it best in his Substack publication The Crucial Years, "At 5 a.m. this morning [April 4, 2022] we were supposed to get the report from Working Group 3 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It didn’t come—because delegates were still arguing. And the arguments were over the two most fundamental questions of the climate era: must we get off fossil fuels, and can we do it in a way that’s fair to the developing world?" 

Regarding the IPCC “Summary for Policy Makers” agreed upon by 195 nations, I think Pink Floyd sang it best in their 1979 song “Comfortably Numb”:

“Hello? (Hello? Hello? Hello?)

Is there anybody in there?

Just nod if you can hear me

Is there anyone home?”

Regarding the IPCC Summary's main points, section C.1 notes, “[ . . . . ] Without a strengthening of policies beyond those that are implemented by the end of 2020, GHG [Greenhouse Gas] emissions are projected to rise beyond 2025, leading to a median global warming of 3.2 [2.2 to 3.5] °C by 2100 [FOOTNOTE39, 40] (medium confidence). (Table SPM.1, Figure SPM.4, Figure SPM.5) {3.3, 3.4}” 

A "3.2 °C" temperature rise is a problem for two main reasons. First, greenhouse gas emissions are, and have been, moving in the upward direction as Tim Crosland recently noted. Second, 3.2 °C means, according to Gregor Aisch at Datawrapper, “High risk of reversing of carbon cycle triggering runaway warming spiral. Droughts and famine for billions of people, leading to chaos and wars."       

In similar bad news, Section C.3 of the IPCC Summary notes, “All global modelled pathways [ . . . ] that limit warming to 2°C (>67%) involve rapid and deep and in most cases immediate GHG [Greenhouse Gas] emission reductions in all sectors [ . . . . ]” 

Vested interests have long resisted overall reductions for any reason. So, will this happen in time to avert more severe climate disasters?

You can be sure items agreed upon by 195 nations are likely, due to political interference sometimes referred to as “compromise,” to be like Sir Alec Issigonis' quote, "A camel is a horse designed by committee." In 2019 Writer Dahr Jamail spoke about a pattern of severe IPCC underestimations. 

Billions of humans and nonhumans have relied on IPCC-informed world leaders to respond in meaningful ways at 26 COPS (Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), and these leaders have repeatedly “dropped the ball” as football fans in the U. S. would say. I wish I could write there is hope on the horizon. Poetic honesty demands three other responses to consider: 1) water security; 2) food security; and 3) community building.