Experts Say Potential Ending Humanity ‘Too Dangerous Unexplored’ – Interested in That?

news7g08/03/2022

6 3 minutes read

Experts Say Potential Ending Humanity 'Too Dangerous Unexplored' - Interested in That?

[“Experts” ~cr]

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Global heating could become a “catastrophe” for humanity if rising temperatures are even worse than predicted, or trigger a cascade of events we haven’t taken into account, or indeed both. The world needs to start preparing for the possibility of a “climate end game”.

This is according to an international team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge, who have proposed a research program to deal with worst-case scenarios. These include outcomes ranging from the loss of 10% of the global population to the eventual extinction of the human species.

In an article published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesThe researchers urge the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to issue a future report on catastrophic climate change to encourage research and inform the public.

“There are many reasons to believe that climate change could be catastrophic, even with modest warming,” said lead author Dr. Cambridge said.

“Climate change has played a role in every mass extinction event. It helped fall empires and shaped history. Even the modern world seems to be adapted to a particular climate,” he said.

“Pathways to disaster are not limited to the direct effects of high temperatures, such as extreme weather events. Consecutive effects such as financial crises, conflicts, and new disease outbreaks can trigger other disasters and hinder recovery from potential disasters like nuclear war.”

Kemp and colleagues suggest that the consequences of warming of 3°C or more, and the extreme risks involved, have been thoroughly examined.

Modeling by the team shows that regions with extreme heat (average annual temperatures above 29°C), could cover two billion people by 2070. These regions are not just some. most populous regions but also some of the most politically fragile.

“The average annual temperature of 29 degrees is currently affecting around 30 million people in the Sahara and the Gulf Coast,” said co-author Chi Xu of Nanjing University.

“By 2070, these temperatures and the social and political consequences will directly affect the two nuclear powers, and the seven maximum containment laboratories are home to the deadliest pathogens. There is serious potential for disastrous effects, he said.

Last year’s IPCC report suggested that if CO in the atmosphere₂ double the pre-industrial level – which the planet is halfway through – there is about an 18% chance that temperatures will rise above 4.5°C.

However, Kemp is a co-author of a “text mining” study of IPCC reports, published earlier this yearshows that IPCC assessments have moved from high-grade warming to increasingly focus on lower temperature rise.

This builds on previous job he contributed to showing that extreme temperature scenarios are “unexplored relative to their likelihood”. “We know the least about the most important situations,” says Kemp.

The team behind PNAS The paper proposes a research program that includes what they call the “four horsemen” of the climate end game: famine and malnutrition, extreme weather, conflict, and vector-borne diseases transmission.

Rising temperatures pose a major threat to the global food supply, they say, with the possibility of a “bread-tray failure” increasing as the world’s most agriculturally productive regions suffered collective crises.

Hotter and more extreme weather can also facilitate new disease outbreaks as habitats for both humans and wildlife are altered and reduced.

The authors warn that climate disruption will likely exacerbate other “interactive threats”: from rising inequality and misinformation to democratic breakdown and even new form of destructive AI weapon.

A future that could be highlighted in the paper involves “warm wars” in which advanced technological superpowers fight against both shrinking carbon spaces and giant experiments. aimed at deflecting sunlight and reducing global temperatures.

More focus is needed on identifying all of the potential cut-off points in “Hothouse Earth”: from permafrost-melting methane to deforestation that acts as, the researchers say. carbon sink”, and even potentially disappearing cloud cover.

Professor Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said: “The more we learn about how our planet works, the greater the reason for concern.

“We increasingly understand that our planet is a more delicate and fragile being. We have to calculate the disaster to avoid it,” he said.

Co-author Professor Kristie Ebi from the University of Washington said: “We need an interdisciplinary effort to understand how climate change may be causing mass morbidity and mortality in humans.”

Kemp added: “We know that an increase in temperature has a ‘fat tail’, meaning a range of lower-probability but potentially extreme outcomes. Facing a future that accelerates climate change while remaining blind to worst-case scenarios is risk management at best naive and at worst stupid. “