In this Climate Chat episode, Climate Chat hosts Dan Miller and Leon Simons discuss recent report from the German Meteorological Society and Physical Society that says that a warming of +3ºC (+5.4ºF) is possible by 2050. This is significantly more the IPCC and many other climate scientists say. As we will discuss, when it comes to existential threats, we must assume the worse and hope for the best.
Transcripts here for readers writers and researchers
Watch 3ºC by 2050?! Climate Chat Sep 28 2025
[Music]
0:18
and welcome to Climate Chat. I'm your host Dan Miller with my co-host Leon
0:25
Simons who's had a little trouble with this camera. We'll see how that works out over time. And today uh we are
0:33
talking about a new report from the German Meteorological and Physical Society
0:39
uh on reaching 3° Celsius by 2050.
0:45
And the way I would put that is that you know there could be an alternative headline large asteroid to hit Earth in
0:52
2050 and yet no one is covering it. So, we're going to talk both about the the
0:58
science of this prediction as well as the sociological uh implications of this
1:06
because I just got back from climate week in New York City where there's tons
1:12
of well really literally hundreds of events going on regarding the climate
1:18
and uh and and I think this ties into that in an interesting way but um With
1:25
no further ado, I want to welcome Leon here to tell us a little bit about this
1:30
uh new new report. Welcome, Leon. Hi. Hi, Dan. Yes. Uh let's dive into it.
1:38
I'll share my screen.
1:45
Yes. So, this is a a new report that was published last Thursday. It's by uh
1:53
DMG and DPG which are the Deutsche Metrologus Gazette shaft and the Deutsche physical ed which indeed means
2:01
the like the German methological and physical societies
2:06
um which published this called it's like it's it's like a warning call where they
2:12
where they present the the science and the an update on where we where we stand
2:21
with regards to climate change as from the perspective of course of the of the
2:26
German methodology methological society and the physical society and those that's that's in Europe that's quite an
2:34
authority and of course especially in Germany and um yeah what they what they
2:39
say is plainly global warming is accelerating
2:45
and um they call for decisive action And uh yeah what they they
2:53
include this graph and I think that's this this similar summarize it quite quite well where where they show that
3:01
over during the period of human civilization where we
3:07
had agriculture the the planet hasn't been as warm as it
3:12
is now hasn't been above one degrees Celsius warmer than it was before the
3:18
industrial revolution started. And then in at at the moment we are at about 1.5
3:25
degrees Celsius of global warming and we could reach
3:30
as high as 3° C in 2050 and that and of course then
3:36
later century even even higher and that's as they mention at the rate we
3:42
are going now. So I think that this is quite quite a
3:48
quite a message. And then 5C by 2100 is also, you know, kind of mind-blowing as well. But um
3:56
three to but but I think the important thing is like it would be like getting back to the asteroid example. Um and people might
4:05
say, well, it's it's you know, there's no proof that we're going to hit three degrees. You can't prove that. I mean,
4:12
whatever. It's um is not the point. Well, well, it isn't the point. And this
4:19
is actually a really important point when it comes to climate change. And it also gets back to a lot of the stuff
4:24
that happened at climate week. Um in science, you like to be able to prove things. If you're a a professor and
4:31
you're writing a research paper, you can't publish that paper. And I mean, you shouldn't publish that paper unless
4:37
you're like 95% certain what you're writing is correct. like a two sigma
4:43
kind of thing. That that you're you're right. And uh which is fine by the way when
4:48
it's black holes or some other kind of physical phenomenon that we can take our
4:53
time and learning about. But it it's not okay when it comes to climate change because if there's a 50% chance of like
5:02
hitting three degrees, let's just say, let's pick that as an example, by 2050, that is absolutely mind-blowing. you
5:09
would never ever in any party of your life take a risk like that. And um it
5:15
would be like saying you're going to put your children on an airplane and they come out and say, "Well, um if they said
5:22
we're it's 95% certain the plane is going to crash on the way to the destination, everyone would agree, okay,
5:28
we're not going on that plane." But it's like saying the pilot comes out and says, "By the way, there's a 50% chance
5:35
that the plane's going to crash on the way to the destination, but don't worry, it's not a 95% chance.
5:40
So go put your children on the plane because it's only a 50% chance." I mean, you would you wouldn't do it if it was a
5:46
1% chance. You know, airplanes are like the safest thing you ever do because you you're they measure these probabilities of one
5:53
in a million kind of thing. So, and anything above that, they just stop.
5:58
they they don't take off or if it if it's an in-flight they declare an emergency and they land you know they
6:03
don't take chances when everyone's on the plane. Well, we're all on this plane
6:09
at a team to the end. They don't take the risk. They don't take the risk. They don't accept the risk. Uh of course
6:17
there's always a risk from when you fly an airplane, but they they don't uh accept uh risks above
6:26
a certain threshold. So they they do everything they can of course to avoid um the worst outcomes and
6:33
right otherw and they are of course they are held accountable if if if the plane does
6:39
crash and I think it's yeah maybe let's go a bit further into this disc into into into
6:48
not just science of it but how we're all reacting to it. The fact that we're doing this show with this headline
6:54
Yeah. and it's not on the cover of every newspaper in the world just tells us
7:00
something that we treat the risk from climate change very very differently than we treat the risks of everything
7:07
else that we face in our life. Let's fuel up. Yeah. So I think that's Yeah. They they
7:16
really uh clearly say that there is acceleration of global warming which of
7:23
course we we we had been warning about already for for years and as as expected
7:30
in after 2023 happened and 2024 happened. um this the the uncertainty of of this
7:38
acceleration has thisre decreased significantly and that's also one of the reasons why I think m um more
7:46
institutions are open to to clearly stating that there is acceleration of
7:51
global warming and that of course results in in also a higher estimate of
7:56
near-term warming and I think that's to me that's that's really the the main risk that that we will have a lot of
8:05
near-term warming much more than than most have anticipated.
8:10
Um and and and of course that's as as I think everyone acknowledges
8:15
every expert acknowledges that the risk of climate change one of the big one of the main reasons why climate change is
8:23
such a risk is is the rate of change. If the rates of change has doubled maybe or
8:28
maybe even tripled as this suggests
8:34
then of course the the the impacts will be much higher as well. it will be much high harder to adapt to these rapid
8:42
changes and and that that's also what the what the report clearly mentions and I think this is um so wait um yeah this
8:52
is about um they they they advise to um discuss
9:00
withdrawal from lowlying coastal regions on the north and baltic seas and I'm I
9:07
live in I live on in the North Sea, right? I live in the North Sea region where um over 30% of my country is
9:15
already below sea level and if if we will have multiple meters of sea level
9:22
this century and the next um of course we will and we are already
9:28
doing that. There's already some discussion at least among experts about what do we do? How do we make sure that
9:36
when the the hits the fan that that that we're able to to migrate
9:43
to to higher lands and whether that's uh there was a documentary maker who went
9:48
to Norway for example as a somewhat of as a joke but also quite seriously to to to ask if we would be welcome
9:56
if our country uh will disappear because of sea level rise. They they they
10:02
responded as of course you are welcome. You you have the same culture as we have
10:08
and we we have a we have a very small population. We have many jobs. So you're most welcome and um yeah the the
10:18
of course the migrants will not just come from I think that's what documentary maker also tried to make
10:25
quite clear that and and also the in a way the hypocrisy that of course
10:33
that just saying you are welcome because you have the same culture of course uh yeah
10:42
That's in a way and it's not going to be just the Netherlands by the way a lot of countries and not just because of sea
10:47
level rise because of extreme heat and therefore drought and therefore no agriculture where you live and and
10:53
therefore you know central America and I mean this is an Africa this is already happening. In fact, um, if you look back
11:00
to the Syrian conflict, you know, as Tom Friedman wrote about this and I think a
11:06
whole book on it, um, that that was actually exacerbated, triggered, you
11:12
could different words by a five-year drought before that. Farmers couldn't
11:17
grow food. They went to the cities and stirred up trouble. That caused conflict and that caused people to leave Syria.
11:24
most of them going to Africa by the way, but a small portion went to Europe. And this drove Europe, you know, crazy. They
11:30
implemented all these policies against uh migrants and things like that. And so, and that was that was like at this
11:37
point what 10 something years ago. I was a long time ago. And yet that little bit
11:42
of uh of migration, the climate migration caused a lot of problems. And
11:49
now imagine that at 10 or even 100 times more than that. um it it's not going to
11:54
go well. And it was also quite strange to experience then when
12:00
the the the Russians entered Ukraine that that that
12:06
the Ukrainians were welcomed and and of course there was a discussion like from
12:12
the at least from the Dutch perspective they were saying they were that they always encourage regional um um
12:22
refugee uh settlements and Then of course then then they say okay now we are the region in a way now Europe is
12:28
the region. So now and now we had to take them in but yeah one one thing that
12:34
was say okay they have the same culture as we do so it was easier to accept them as refugees I think but
12:42
coded language in there. Yeah. No it's it's often it's there is
12:48
some racism there of course it's quite it's not really coded. It's it's it's painfully obvious.
12:54
Right. Yeah, it's probably obvious, but but because it's it's in a way like it's like like positive racism and then
13:00
it's Yeah. the the ones saying it don't may
13:05
often don't realize what they're saying because by the way the science behind this uh
13:12
report is this coming out of the the paper from you and Jim Hansen global
13:18
warming the pipeline is there new independently done research that they're
13:24
using or are they more collecting the research that's occurred yeah they're collecting the research and they they
13:30
of course they they site also our paper and in in their report and of course many other recent studies and of course
13:38
when you have the IPCC report this that's uh that comes out every five or
13:44
eight years um that also use that's not a separate
13:50
science different report but that's accumulation of the most recent science
13:55
and of course this is in a way you could see it as a regional update of the of the climate science. So
14:02
yeah again accelerated warming is a threat of to life and limb and here we
14:09
get again to the migration also like increasingly extreme weather conditions are making predictable agriculture
14:16
difficult and in some cases impossible in large parts of the world. I think
14:21
that's that's really yeah the the the main message right if you cannot grow
14:27
food anymore that's a that's a big big risk and uh that's
14:35
cause of course because of heat but also because of potential amok slowdown and as we discussed before so what they say
14:42
is for hundreds of millions of people currently primarily in the global south these developments pose a very high
14:49
potential for impoverishment and famine.
14:55
And there's a high risk that the limits of habitability will exceed in some
15:00
region of the world. And of course that's if you read that there is a high risk that the limits of habitability
15:07
will be exceeded in some regions of the world. It's like people will die. People
15:12
will start dying because of climate change. That's in a way what it says, right? And it's and it's often this
15:17
language and of course we do it as well when we write scientific papers. We we were we had a similar similar statement
15:25
in in our paper in 2023 um led by Bill Ripple and all and and
15:32
others where where we we also said that the the risk of habitability is
15:39
the limits of habitability are are coming in sight and but it it it means
15:46
that people will start to die because of climate change as as And this would
15:52
significantly increase the likelihood of people that people would would be forced to leave these regions. Of course, they
15:58
could move. But then we see that already that it's uh they are trying to move
16:06
already from Africa from from famine for example and from South America. But
16:12
there are there are fences and walls being built to make sure that they cannot come across the borders, right?
16:18
and and that's already happening while there is plenty of food for to go
16:24
around. And I think that's that's that's also important to to realize that it it
16:29
might get much worse when when climate change gets worse.
16:35
Mhm. So yeah, they say we need sisfaction and you I recommend everyone to I think the
16:43
it's in the description then the Yeah, this link to this is in the description. The link to this is in
16:49
description. I recommend everyone to read it. I think they they they're going to publish it in English as well, but uh
16:57
um this I translated this and it it's in German, but I checked and I speaks both
17:02
German and English and it's translation is automatic translation is as fine as
17:07
as far as I could determine. Okay. Yeah, I I put the link in to the English
17:14
page, but it hasn't been translated yet. So, the English page is in German, but maybe in maybe in a few days it'll be
17:21
updated or something. Okay. Yes. Otherwise, just do automatic translation. That should work. Yeah.
17:27
Great. Oh, yeah. Again, I sorry I include this twice. So, again, this graph Yeah. So, and it it might seem a bit controversial
17:34
to some that we could reach 3 degrees um by 2050, but that's
17:43
it's not controversial at all. That's also what uh if you if you just do the extraolation and this is from the ECMWF
17:51
era 5 data um with Doug Bamur um plotted
17:57
using their their their code and you can see if you have this nonlinear
18:02
extrapolation of the past 30 years to 2030 we would reach it already around
18:09
2050 right and then of course we don't know
18:14
I think to September will be about 1.5 again. So we there's there's quite some
18:20
uncertainty, but that doesn't mean that we that it won't happen because of course if you
18:26
look at the Earth's energy imbalance, as we've talked about here many times before, you see that it's it's above any
18:33
of the scenarios, right? the observations from NASA are are above the
18:38
scenarios above the climate models whatever scenario you put in because of
18:44
the near near-term warming is much higher than the global heat uptake from the is much higher than in the models
18:53
and here I this uh table I I extrapolated further and from
19:01
this this global warming has accelerated significantly preprint from Grant Foster and Stefan
19:08
Ramstodorf where I show also that if you you extrapolate of course and linearly
19:15
from and that's the the the warming rate they determined based on um when when
19:22
accounting for natural variability of of of the sun and of volcanoes and of of
19:28
the El Nino and Leninas when they account for that they got these this the
19:35
the these different from NASA from Noah and all these the different data sets
19:40
and they get these points where we will cross 1.5 degrees Celsius and then if you and because of this rate of warming
19:48
and if you extrapolate that linearly then you will get to to three degrees
19:56
uh yes on average in60 but of course that that it could still as as as as the
20:04
paper mentioned um it could it could also increase or decrease the rate of warming. So we
20:12
right we don't know but but it's and and here the another one where where
20:18
where you show these different models and where you have from this from the latest IPCC report where they show that
20:25
using these different scenarios and then in degrees Celsius like the the
20:31
worst case scenario in like I think that the 5% chance within these models of re
20:38
there's a 5% r chance of reaching 3 degrees or 3.2 two or 3.4 when using
20:45
these scenario. So that's by way I think it's important to mention that you use the word scenarios and
20:52
these are scenarios. They're actually not really predictions. A prediction would say this is what I
20:58
think it's going to be. It says this is what we believe the temperature will be if if the world follows these scenarios.
21:08
SP, you know, the SP SSP scenarios, but
21:13
those SSP scenarios have certain assumptions about energy use, for example, how much fossil burning, fossil
21:20
fuel burning we're going to do versus, you know, getting rid of it, which is, by the way, in our hands.
21:26
Um some people we had Bill McKibben on uh just a couple weeks ago and he felt
21:32
uh because solar is so cheap and it's got liberating in many many ways uh that
21:37
it's actually unstoppable and going to grow rapidly even with what the Trump administration's doing in the US. I mean
21:44
in China it's it's it's accelerating tremendously. So there's those kind of
21:49
assumptions could be wrong. But then again there are assumptions that
21:55
Let's get back to Here we go. Let's wait. Let's do um
22:04
the welcome one. Oh, there we go. Okay. Um there are assumptions in here about
22:10
feedbacks like perafrost melt and clather rate release. Um on and on and
22:17
on. uh oh and about aerosols about how fast we clean up aerosols and things like that that are not necessarily
22:25
reflected well the reality of what will happen is not necessarily what's built
22:30
into those SSP scenarios. So I do want to emphasize that these are scenarios
22:35
and these are not inevitable outcomes. We we you know the future still is in
22:42
our hands. I mean as just one example something we talk about on the show a lot is uh geoengineering and you know so
22:48
we could artificially cool the earth we are artificially cooling the earth today on massive scale we're just not doing it
22:55
for that purpose but it's still it's doing it well it it's intentional that we're
23:00
burning the fossil fuels and we do know those fossil fuels give off aerosols which cool the earth so it's I wouldn't
23:08
say accidental is just just not with that purpose in And so all of these things factor into
23:15
what's going to happen. But I also have to say that we're talking about 3C by
23:20
2050. But if you looked at your chart before, it also says we're going to hit 2C in
23:27
the 2030s sometime, which is only 10 15 years away depending on you know what
23:32
time of the decade and that is utterly catastrophic.
23:39
People don't the we think of 2C as some safe number because we use it like in
23:46
the Paris Accord and everything as the uh you know what the threshold that or
23:52
the target temperature we're trying to stay under and the implication is if it
23:57
is a target temperature you're trying to stay under is that staying under it will keep you safe and that's not true. I
24:05
mean it is safer than three degrees and that's safer than four but uh it still
24:12
will lead to far more drought and flood and wildfire and extreme weather than
24:20
even today. Even today, if you if you look, we're now at about
24:26
420 part million CO2 and over 570 plus
24:32
million CO2 equivalent. And that's uh so that's that's higher
24:38
than the the mid plyiosene warm period when that's and that's 3 million years
24:44
ago which is almost like impossible to imagine how long ago that is, right?
24:50
That's before. Yeah. The the last ice age was uh um
24:57
23,000 years ago was the maximum when when sea levels were 134 meters lower
25:03
than they are today. Mhm. And 20,000 years ago, you have to go back 3 million years to get to to reach
25:10
a temperature um equal to what we have experienced in
25:16
um Well, we're not there yet though. I mean, this is 2.5 to four. Yes. I mean, we're on our way to that, but we're but
25:22
we're not up there. Yeah. But but so you would have got back three
25:28
million years to to reach to to to to find a temperature global average
25:34
temperature equal to what I I could experience if I live long enough. Right.
25:39
Or Right. Right. Right. We're on our way. And and and that's then you could you could reach that
25:45
level if if you if you live long enough. If you live uh let's say 20 years, you
25:50
could reach that you could experience a temperature that's never been that hasn't existed for two three million
25:56
years. That's right. That's and and and that change within
26:01
one lifetime, right? And people think I mean people don't pay attention to this might think
26:07
well you know it could go that high but maybe it'll go lower or something like that. No, that's not the way it works.
26:13
We have an earth energy imbalance that we can measure today and it's very large
26:19
and that means there's more energy coming in than going out of the earth and whenever and like this is just
26:25
physics now this is not sociology when there's more energy coming into something than going out that thing is
26:32
going to absorb energy and get hotter and so it is inevitable
26:37
that we will continue to go up in temperature not only because we're
26:42
continuing contining to build to burn fossil fuels. But because there is oh let me make up a phrase. There is global
26:49
warming in the pipeline and uh and the earth energy imbalance requires that the
26:56
earth uh get warmer unless we take artificial steps like geoengineering or
27:02
something like that. So and and what I want to emphasize again though is that
27:07
2C is terrible. Okay, it's catastrophic
27:13
and in in 15 years, right? And uh yet in
27:18
uh we're on our way to three. And if you recall our conversation with Kevin
27:23
Anderson from I don't know like six months ago up at this point, maybe longer. um when I asked him about his
27:29
quote that he made in 2010 about 4C being incompatible with a an organized
27:35
global community and he said well given what we know since then about how
27:41
impacts are worse than we thought and this kind of thing I would probably update that to be three degrees so we're
27:48
talking about a temperature that could destabilize civil society it by the way
27:53
it doesn't mean that everyone becomes extinct doesn't mean all humans die. I mean, it's a lot of humans die, but but
28:01
it it's it it's more like you're you're devolving into a Mad Max scenario where
28:07
people are getting by on their own because uh there isn't the government
28:12
around to uh to organize things and help help with response and things like that.
28:18
And that's going to be true in more and more places. and poor places that don't have much to start with and then they
28:24
don't have agriculture. It's very difficult to have an organized government in that situation. More like Somalia kind of situation. So
28:31
anyway, that's these these numbers are mind-blowing and not being discussed at
28:37
all in the mainstream press right now. Yeah. So pretty pretty crazy situation we're
28:43
in. Yeah. And then we I think we get to this um
28:49
in a way discussion of uh let me try this club of Rome.
28:55
Yeah. So this is a the 19 from the 1972
29:00
limits to growth report which is mainly about the the yeah the the limits to to
29:07
exponential growth as well where you see um
29:13
so they I think this is one of the first times when
29:18
it is that that they used a a model earth system model
29:26
to to in and to to see what will happen if you if you have a system with with uh
29:34
population growth and increased resource depletion and increased pollution and um
29:42
depending dependence on food and so what they found was that there are as
29:50
the report is called limits to growth. So there are limits to how how much uh
29:56
re you can grow pollution. There's limits to how much population can grow. There's limits to how much food you can
30:03
consume. And that will lead to almost certain collapse if if if you
30:10
have a system that keeps growing. So of course we have pollution that keeps growing. We we keep emitting more and
30:17
more CO2. And and this is quite accurate. If you look at the the the CO2 level of CO2
30:24
emissions, it were almost exactly as um as as produced by the model in the real
30:32
world. There was a small dip in 1991 because of a volcano that cooled the ocean. So the oceans took up a bit more
30:38
CO2 than otherwise would have. But the the rate besides that the the rate of
30:44
CO2 growth almost perfect fit this fit this line.
30:49
So you have this increase in pollution and know increase in glo CO2
30:54
accumulation in the atmosphere and there wasn't covered well in in 1972 because
31:02
we didn't know that there would be so much uh climate impact from those that CO2 at the time. There was of course
31:08
there was some research on that but it wasn't as well accepted science as it is today of
31:14
course but now that that turns out that that will be I think the main challenge for
31:21
food production and for population and um so this is and this is with the res
31:29
world natural resource reserves doubled and even if if you would have them like
31:35
unlimited so if you would really have you an enormous amount it doesn't change much right so you can discuss whether
31:43
the x-axis or the y axis or are accurate or what it means but I think that it was of course from the 1972 from 1970 and
31:51
1972 um it was it was already quite complex to produce such a in a way simple model
31:58
but there was yeah we didn't we didn't have the computers at that time that we have
32:05
today But yeah the the the the output is quite uh quite alarming and so
32:14
at that time we were already talking about billions of deaths because of collapse and
32:21
the the big question is of course when it happens and I wanted to share some I I uploaded it then but I wanted to share
32:28
something Dennis Meadows talked about in uh when we interviewed
32:35
him in in Netherlands. when he was here and Dennis Madison is one of the authors of the limits to growth report from 1972
32:42
and also next um studies but I think yeah does this work
32:50
well you can try good go ahead yeah
32:56
expect that we're going to avoid collapse
33:03
uh I'm not sure what what it will look like. I mean, and uh
33:10
so I I I simply don't know. I could I have many different scenarios, but but and actually we don't know. It's not
33:16
it's not knowable. I mean um some huge volcano could blow up
33:23
tomorrow in Indonesia which uh reduces the agricultural output
33:29
of the GL planet by uh 40 or 50% for five years.
33:35
How do we know that could happen? It it has happened several times in the past. So usually speaking something which
33:40
happened in the past could happen again generally. So that could happen or
33:47
or or epidemics. I mean I don't know what what it will be but uh but in one way or another
33:54
we are so far globally we are so far above the population and the consumption
33:59
levels which can be supported by this planet that I know in one way or another it's going to come back down. So I don't
34:05
hope to avoid that. Uh I hope that it
34:11
can occur in a a a civil way. I I and I mean civil in a
34:19
in a special way. I peaceful. Peace doesn't
34:25
mean uh that everybody's happy, but it means that conflict isn't solved through
34:31
violence, through through force, uh but rather in other ways. And so
34:37
that's what I hope for um that we can I mean the planet
34:46
can support something like a billion people
34:53
maybe two billion depending on how much liberty and how much material consumption you want to have. If you
35:00
want more liberty and more consumption, you have to have fewer people. And
35:06
conversely, you can have more people. I mean, we could even have eight or nine billion probably if we have a very
35:13
strong dictatorship, which is smart. That's unfortunately, you never have smart dictatorships. They're always
35:19
stupid. So, but if you had a smart dictatorship and a low standard of living, you can have a but but we want
35:25
to have freedom and we want to have a high sentence. So we're going to have a billion people and we're now at seven.
35:30
So we have to get back down. I hope that this can be slow, relatively slow and
35:36
that it can be done in a way which is relatively equal uh you know so that
35:42
people share uh the experience and you don't have a few rich you know trying to
35:47
force everybody else to to deal with it. So those are my hopes. I mean these are
35:52
pretty pessimistic hopes you know but I mean that's that's what lies ahead then
35:59
you can say well yeah we could go on a bit but um any
36:05
thoughts well yeah I mean I I think uh I generally
36:12
agree although I don't I don't know the time frames I don't I'm not saying he knows the time frames either he said
36:18
but when you look at Go ahead that's his point it's unknowable and I think that's that's of course also part
36:24
of the discussion here where um so what do we reach can will we face a billion
36:30
deaths or four billion deaths by 2030 or because because of the warming we
36:37
reach in 2030 but he his point is which I agree on that it's yeah we
36:43
cannot know that we cannot know whether that will happen because um there's so
36:49
there's so much much uncertainty in the system and but that that that doesn't
36:55
mean that we shouldn't take the shouldn't assume that it will happen
37:00
because the risk of it happening is is is quite high and the the impact of of
37:07
it will be extreme. Oh, I I'd also say that and yeah, this might come as a surprise to some people
37:13
listening, but we're all going to die someday, you know. So, so I accept that.
37:19
Now, the question is, we don't know, but it's funny because you I could tell you like uh you're
37:26
going to die. You're going to be 97. it's going to years old and it's on this particular day and all you become upset
37:34
even though you know you're probably going to live a lot longer than most people do. But the point being um that
37:40
we're all going to die and so and and humans have been have built in denial of
37:46
that so they can go function in their lives, right? It's not like you say let's go to a movie. No, I'm gonna die
37:51
someday. I don't want to go see a movie. So, so we're able to put that out of our head and so we're certainly good at
37:58
putting the 3C by 2050 out of our head when however there there are some
38:04
pathways forward that are peaceful. For example, in most developed nations, the birth rate is below reproduction and
38:11
it's all all because of education and health care and things like that that lower the birth rate. And um and so
38:20
there could be a path forward that way where we provide education, we provide health care, we could provide healthy
38:26
lives so people don't feel they need to have lots and lots of children to survive. It's often the discussion is what can
38:33
women reach a point where they have as many children as they want and I would recommend everyone also to
38:40
to read the the this report from from 1972. You can find it as a PDF limits to
38:48
growth report um in for and if you just Google it the PDF and we can put it in
38:54
the sub description as well. It's a very read accessible book and it also
39:00
explains that it if if people have as many children as they want
39:07
you will see population a decrease in population and of course there's
39:14
I don't think that's a problem. Some people think that's a problem and they like Elon Musk for example, he sees that
39:20
as a as something that's very bad if there's population decline and your pension fund will won't like
39:27
that either. there's less um and of course it will it it will
39:33
impact societies if if if there's a shift in in demographics but in the end
39:39
of course um we do a a decrease in population and
39:44
especially a decrease in resource use per person or and then of course that
39:50
multiplied by by the population could have a significant uh improve could
39:56
cause of an improvement ment in inevitability on this planet. Mhm. So, um yeah, I think um
40:06
I want to talk a little bit about the climate week. Um it sort of relates to this as well.
40:12
Yeah. And that is I I jokingly say the first rule of climate week is that you don't
40:19
talk about climate change. What What do you mean you don't talk about that? So climate week literally hundreds hundreds
40:26
of events going on in New York City and there and it's not centrally controlled. I mean you could put on your own climate
40:32
event at climate week and you you you know you get a a venue and you and you
40:38
either can publish it on the official list of climate week events or you could keep it private and only invite certain
40:43
people. But but it that that's it's set up and so there's all kinds of things you can only go to a tiny tiny fraction
40:50
of the total events that are going on. Then I went to some and I focused on agriculture because that's an area I'm
40:56
working in and also on geoengineering. And the geoengineering event was
41:01
interesting. Uh it was it was put on by Succi Tatto who we interviewed here um
41:07
on climate chat a while ago and and her group the what is it for the deliberate
41:13
discussion of solar geoengineering. I'm not getting it exactly right. It's it's to uh to try to bring together people to
41:20
have a a reasonable discussion on the governance issues around geoengineering
41:26
and and decision-m and um that's what this seminar was all
41:31
about. Um but yet it was like many others on the subject of geoengineering
41:38
where you talk about the problems of geoengineering and the risks the difficulty in governance certainly is
41:44
one of them. the moral hazard. Maybe we won't reduce our emissions as much if we
41:50
do geoengineering. Uh there could be side effects and you know all this is all this is true. But what was not
41:57
discussed at the meeting was 3C by 2050
42:02
2C next literally next decade. Um in other words it was kind of like having a
42:08
discussion about chemotherapy where you don't talk about cancer. Now,
42:13
if you had a discussion on chemotherapy without bringing up the subject of cancer, it would be a very strange
42:20
conversation. You could talk you're going to lose your hair, you're going to get nauseous, almost kill you, just feel
42:25
terrible. You got to go in every week. Got it. It would just sound like no one would take it.
42:31
No, the most awful thing in the world. Of course, no one should take it unless the alternative is dying, right? That's
42:36
the alternative. So um so I find it very interesting that in a place filled with
42:44
people working on climate and you have and and these are not this is not a climate science week. It's a climate
42:51
think of it more as a climate solutions week. They're talking about reforestation of areas and all over you
42:57
know different parts of the world. How do we how can we improve climate finance, especially to developing
43:04
countries? Um, on and on and on. Um, and and don't get me wrong, these are all
43:12
good things people are trying to accomplish. But what isn't spoken about
43:17
at these at climate week in general with at least a few exceptions I'm aware
43:24
of there is they don't talk about climate science like where we are now
43:30
and where we are headed and how despite all the discussions of all these um call
43:37
them point source solutions of you know stopping deforestation here or there um
43:42
that we are not on track to keep the climate under control and that's just
43:48
the reality of it. I do think if that was part of the hopeful uh hopeful celebration of
43:55
everything that's being done without acknowledging that it's not enough or
44:00
Well, I think obviously there's so many different things, but I would say in general it's
44:06
let's Hey, of course, when I speak up and ask a question at one of the events, they they don't like it because I'm
44:12
asking the questions about like what we're talking about here on the show. like wait a second you haven't taken into account how bad it's getting you
44:18
know this kind of thing. Um, no, I think it's they're just focused. Hey, that we're not talking about that. We're
44:23
talking about these solutions. These are good solutions. So, let's keep focused on that. And it is sort of a, you know,
44:30
it's natural for all people to want to have some positive story going forward. I mean, it's kind of hard to get through
44:35
the day otherwise. And so, I think there's there's some of that. Um, but I do think that and of course there's also
44:42
the whole Trump thing where they're even denying climate change. And so there was a lot of discussion of that, you know,
44:48
given the current administration and what progress can we make that kind of stuff going on as well. He said, he said, she said
44:54
Yeah. Yeah. But I think what is would have been helpful if everybody really was
45:00
aware of like 3C by 2050, 2C by 2030 kind of numbers and that we're not on
45:06
track and we're missing it. Then there should be more alarm, which is you you
45:11
alarmists, if you're not paying attention. If you're not alarmed, you're not paying attention. And that would
45:18
help drive the narrative to the public because the public knows even less than these people know. And would get people
45:25
talking about climate change more. And the more we talk about climate change, the more there's a chance we'll do
45:31
something about climate change. But right now we're talking about these dangerous future situations without any
45:37
serious plans being put in place to to do something about it. Remember this 3C
45:44
is by 2050 is with the Paris accord in place right theoretically that we're not
45:51
meeting of course but but you know there supposedly the countries are scaling back their emissions and this that and
45:56
the other thing and yet we still have this risk of three degrees and with and certain I should say risk of hitting
46:02
three degrees by 2050. I would say there's not really much of a quote risk. Well, I mean there we're definitely
46:09
going to hit 3C this century for like almost 100% sure. It might not be 2050.
46:16
Um I mean again that's leaving out geoengineering and some other things that we we could step in and do and to
46:22
see for sure next decade or maybe a little bit more in the 2040s. And these things should be setting off alarm bells
46:28
in everyone's head and yet it's crickets literally. And I want to say that if
46:34
that story was, by the way, there actually are stories every once in a while that a particular asteroid has a 1
46:42
in 10,000 chance of hitting the Earth in let's say 10 years or so. You know, they
46:47
do a quick calculation of the orbit and they see the error bars. You know, there's a tiny tiny tiny tiny chance
46:54
it's going to hit the Earth. That makes the headlines. You know, asteroid might hit Earth in 2037, you know, and they
47:00
do. And then of course two weeks later they have more refined orbital calculations and they no there's like no
47:06
chance and then then it goes away. This is like one it it's on track to hit the
47:12
earth like we're we're quite certain it's going to hit you know we're not sure what year you know maybe it's going
47:17
to be 2050 or 203 but you know it's going to hit the earth and nothing. I
47:24
mean it the silence is deafening as we say. So, um, I think there's there's not
47:30
just a science aspect to what we're talking about today, but there's definitely a sociological aspect. Uh,
47:36
you know, we're very good at denial. Um, and I'm not talking about the general public necessarily. I'm talking about,
47:41
first of all, journalists who shouldn't be doing it. And also climate people. I
47:46
mean, the climate people at Climate Week do not want to talk about dire climate
47:54
science predictions. They just don't want to do it. Uh yeah, again there are exceptions.
48:00
Stefan uh Ram uh Johan uh Roststrom, Johan Rostrom was at climate weekend. He
48:08
gave a talk on planetary boundaries. I got to meet him and then I invited him on climate chat. We'll see if we can
48:13
line up a time for him. Um so you know there was that uh talk and but you know
48:19
it's one of like 500 things going on over there. Anyway, that's enough of my rant about climate week. I mean, it's a
48:26
good thing to go to if you're involved in climate. You get to meet a lot of interesting people, especially if you're working on solutions and you can, you
48:33
know, meet the right kind of people for that. I did get some guests through that that we're going to have on soon,
48:40
meeting them there. Um, but I am still shocked how little people in the climate
48:47
community focus on the climate science and what it means.
48:52
Yeah, I agree. Okay, maybe we should go to Yeah, go ahead.
48:58
Um, yeah, I I also wanted to maybe discuss these
49:04
risk assessment. So why is it that these risks why that it's so hard to to to get the
49:12
mess of these risks across that or to to um the severity of these risk but also
49:20
the um yeah just in a way just to talk about
49:26
these risks right to get it in attention for it and um this was a presentation by
49:33
Simon Sharp um and I couldn't I don't think it's a line. I took this
49:39
screenshot during his presentation. um from the Met Office in 2021 where and
49:46
and here he talked about uh about risk assessment, the principles of risk
49:52
assessment and and as we discussed also where indeed you have you have health risks, you have u insurance risk of
49:59
course you have the risk of terrorism and and flood defenses
50:06
and this statement when we think about keeping our nation safe. We have to plan
50:12
for the worst case scenarios. And of course that's that's done when people talk
50:19
about terrorism. They take very serious um
50:26
uh measures to to to defend their country against terrorism.
50:33
Well, but the chance of of of terrorism happening is quite small if you compare
50:39
to the if you if you do the impact assessment of whatever, right? If you
50:44
look at the air pollution death is much higher than than the terrorism deaths or
50:49
but so it's also about perceived threats, right? Um
50:56
and as he as he summarized here he says identify the risks relates to the
51:03
objectives and identify the biggest risks. I think to me I think climate
51:08
change is in many ways the biggest risk. Um
51:14
and yeah you can read yourself and I I asked them for the presentation. I hope
51:20
I can find it. But um Mhm. And what? Sorry.
51:27
No, I was going to say I just made a little bit bigger so people could read it there. Yeah, maybe do it like this because then
51:33
you can read the bottom as well. So what what they said was what he said was that
51:39
um quoting here Trevor Maynard is it has always concern me that our use of the
51:47
word conservative has the opposite meaning in insurance to his meaning in science.
51:54
Right. And that's climate scientists are conservative in the opposite way that a risk manager is
51:59
conservative. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And and Yeah. in climate science means not
52:07
telling you how bad it could get. Yeah. Right.
52:12
When we when we translate that to aerosols for example, then if if aerosols had been cooling much more so
52:19
of course the probability might be low. But if you're conservative as a as a
52:24
scientist you say okay let's focus on this right let's focus on what we on on the the most probable scenarios. But if
52:32
you're conservative from a risk management perspect or a risk reduction
52:37
perspective, if you want to reduce risk, you want to avoid the uh the scenario where where we have the biggest risks,
52:45
you say this, we could face this. So we have to avoid this as and then at at any chance we
52:54
have because if if aerosol cooling is stronger that means that there will be much more warming when we reduce air
53:00
pollution. right um and then we will be faced with extreme temperature increase very
53:07
rapidly so we have to avoid that at all cost right and I think that's why we are
53:12
now where we are starting to experience as we talked about last week that we
53:17
that we are in many ways especially regionally experiencing
53:22
extreme level of warming very rapidly and and that that was from a scientific
53:29
perspective that has often not being communicated clearly because of because of this um conservativeness
53:37
to not to not be to be afraid that they will exaggerating. Of course that what
53:43
we've been facing past years a lot um after the publication even with the
53:50
publication of the preprint of our research in 2022 before all these high temperatures in 2023 and 204 happened.
54:00
They were telling us that we are they were implying that we were lying or intentionally exaggerating. Right? But
54:06
of course now it's more and more obvious that we were we were not exaggerating.
54:11
It's it's like even worse than we thought it was. Well, by the way, there's two things that happen. One, ahead of time, they
54:17
say, "Let's just focus on the most probable thing. Hansen, Simons, they're they're not they're not within the
54:22
mainstream." They say all of that and then when it turns out that you were right and and it's in the red zone, then
54:29
they say, "Well, it was in the models." They look that's when they look at the
54:34
whole spread. They say, "Let's only focus on this now." But when it turns out to be wrong, they say, "Well, it was
54:40
in the range of our error bars, you know, so everything is fine." So you get that.
54:47
Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Is it like to me that's quite
54:53
dishonest if if you're if if you spend one one or two years saying that we are
55:00
that that what we are saying is and and you saying saying Hansen isn't
55:05
part of the consensus, right? It's like uh that's that's what I've been quite surprised by that calling.
55:11
I think they're wrong. Being dishonest would imply that they know they're doing it. I think there's a lot more
55:18
psychological protection going on here that they're able to shift their
55:23
thinking without telling themselves, "Oh, I already said this before."
55:28
What do we call disingenuous? Is that what you No, no. Disinguous would mean that they're aware. I I don't think they're
55:35
100% aware when they when they call you when they call you out they think you're outside the mainstream and then when
55:40
they see you were right they say well it's it's within the models and yes I
55:46
mean quote they were wrong but but I think they still believe in what they're saying that oh you know they it's I
55:54
don't know there there's a lot of ways that everybody but by by the way let's put it very clear everyone's in denial
56:01
about climate change even climate scientists Maybe especially climate scientists are
56:06
in denial. I mean, that thing really blows my mind, including some of the guests we've had on this show, how they
56:12
aren't particularly worried about these future scenarios.
56:17
Yeah. And and that blows my mind because they should know, you know, that what
56:23
this means. Um, anyway, we've been going on. I think we should take some question unless you have another some more
56:30
information you wanted to get up on the screen. We discussed many of these things. I I I might I might wanted have wanted to
56:38
discuss we discussed it. I think last week we just talked a lot about about the why why there are so there's so much
56:45
risk of these higher temperatures. We talked about these tipping points. We could talk about it more but I think we
56:52
covered it quite broadly last week. So if anyone wants to see that we can
56:57
I do want to say there there is one more thing I want to say. uh and that is we are not saying and
57:05
you're not saying that 3C by 2050 is a
57:10
sure thing. That's not what's being said here. What is being said here is that 3C
57:16
by 2050 is a reasonable possibility. And you say, well, but if you're not sure,
57:22
and I here's the point I want to make. I I've spoken about this before, but the
57:28
space shuttle Challenger blew up not because there was anything quote wrong
57:33
with the the space shuttle. You might think it was. It was not designed to launch in cold temperatures. It would be
57:40
like saying, "I drove my car on the lake and it it sunk in terribly. I mean, it's
57:45
a terrible the car is made all wrong." No, it's not designed to drive on water.
57:51
And a space shuttle is not designed to launch in 26 degrees Fahrenheit temperature. In fact, the rule for it,
57:58
the rule was you can't launch below 40° C. I mean, Fahrenheit, Fahrenheit. And
58:06
the NASA mistakenly thought the number was 32 degrees, but it turns out you're
58:12
not allowed to transport the shuttle in 32 or below. You're not allowed to put it on a truck and move it, let alone
58:19
launch it. Okay? But so they made that mistake, but they still launched at 26. And why am I bringing any of this up?
58:26
It's because the night before the launch
58:31
26 uh oh Celsius minus three or four or
58:37
something like whatus? Yeah, minus three or four Celsius. But
58:42
um below freezing. How about that? You know, so it's below freezing. And the night before the launch, they asked the
58:51
rocket company, "We're going around. We're getting the clearance to launch. Can we launch?" And the rocket engineer said, "No, you can't launch. It's too
58:58
It's predicted to be too cold. We launched at 53°. That was like the coldest." And it remember this is
59:04
Florida where it doesn't get that cold. It almost blew up at 53 degrees and now you want to launch at 26. So you can't.
59:12
They didn't They didn't say maybe. They said you can't. And then NASA said, "Can
59:17
you prove that it's going to blow up?" And this is very critical, like how what
59:24
questions you ask and how you ask. Like, by the way, Leon, can you prove it's
59:30
going to be 3C by 2050? Can you?
59:35
Your answer is no. Yes, I can. Okay, you can. All right. Well, then, hey, we better
59:41
if we do a show on that. But the answer was he couldn't prove it of course, right?
59:48
But it was totally the wrong question to ask. He they should have been asking can you prove it won't blow up and then the
59:54
answer is no. And then the and then of course it means you don't launch. The
1:00:00
same thing is happening with this. Can you prove it's going to be? No, I can't prove it. That is totally the wrong
1:00:05
question to ask when you're talking about um existential threats.
1:00:10
You must uh ensure that they don't happen. And so you have to ask the right
1:00:16
questions. Is is this a poss? You say, "Is this a possibility?" Yes, it is. Is it a reasonable possibility? Yes, it is.
1:00:23
Oh, now we have to do everything we can. I mean, we can't launch. We can't
1:00:28
continue doing what we're doing. We have to stop. And so there so it blew up. Oh, then I forgot to finish the story. The
1:00:34
NASA called back the the blew up. I didn't know that. No, no. The night before they I know
1:00:40
they called back the managers of the engineer who said you can't launch. They said please. They had him leave the
1:00:47
room. They had a private conversation with his bosses who of course didn't even understand the stuff as well as he
1:00:52
did. And they said we expect you to say yes. And they did say yes without and
1:00:59
the rocket engineer was crazy. It went crazy. He tried whole all night to stop it but he couldn't. He didn't think it
1:01:05
would clear the launch pad. He thought it would just blow up on the launch pad when they launch. And he was wrong. He was so relieved after it left the launch
1:01:12
pad and oh, it's okay. And but then 73 seconds later, it blew up. And and and
1:01:17
again, it wasn't a fault. I mean, it the thing was not designed for it and they
1:01:23
and they pushed it way way beyond its limits. And there were other problems with it, but
1:01:28
if they launched it in warm weather, it would have been fine. But that's a checks and balances, right? So if you I think I think that's quite
1:01:35
an important like if you have the in sorry in this
1:01:42
situation of course you have all these different people with all the responsibilities.
1:01:50
Mhm. And you would expect that all these checks and balances are in place to make sure that the worst thing which is the
1:01:59
shuttle blowing up with people on board doesn't happen. But that that wasn't done. These checks
1:02:06
and balances I don't I assume they were there in place, right? Otherwise, why
1:02:12
they had the conversation? They they Well, no. The reason they they pushed it is that the President Reagan was giving
1:02:17
a speech that night and there was a teacher on board the shuttle and for the first time and he wanted to give a
1:02:23
speech about how wonderful it was to have this teacher in space and so there was a lot of pressure to launch that day
1:02:29
and not delay it so that Reagan can give his speech and that's what the they were the pressure they speech went right that's of course
1:02:36
oh no he totally changed his speech but um yeah and uh but of course it
1:02:43
happened again. Then they they they did the study about what caused the problem and everything. They found out that it was um sort of the management structure
1:02:51
of NASA allowed this to happen. So they changed everything and then exactly the same but not exactly but the very
1:02:56
similar thing happened um with another shuttle uh getting destroyed on re-entry
1:03:03
for again something that they could have checked on and they just said nah we don't it was optimism but maybe it's not
1:03:10
bad. We could look use a telescope to see if there's a hole in the wing. We could, but let's not and just cross our
1:03:18
fingers and hope it's okay. So, so again, I I I want to get it back to climate. Yeah. Yeah.
1:03:23
Climate scientists, politicians, journalists
1:03:29
are all first of all using optimism bias. Maybe it will be okay. They're not
1:03:36
asking the right questions. They're saying, "Hey, Leon, can you prove it's going to be three years?" But that's not the right question, Leon, is can you
1:03:43
prove it won't be? And the answer is no. And so it's really important
1:03:49
to keep focus and and pay attention when you're listening to the climate deniers
1:03:55
out there, but not just the climate deni, but the scientists and the journalists when they're telling these
1:04:00
stories. see if they're focused on
1:04:05
the uh disproving the really bad thing which you can't do
1:04:12
you know versus pro you know this this reversing the questions and that's anyway that's what the point
1:04:18
I wanted to make about this is that and I wrote all I probably should put in the description in 2010 I wrote an article
1:04:25
on the space shuttle challenger and climate change about this exact point that we're not asking the right question
1:04:31
that was 2010 And we're still making the same mistakes now. Anyway, let's bring Stacy in.
1:04:37
Accountability. I think she has her cat with her. Wait a second. Let's Let's grab her while she has her cat in her arm. There we go. We wanted
1:04:42
to go with Oh, there we go. We got both cats.
1:04:47
I have both of them here. All right. Incredible. Um, and I have to apologize. I hit
1:04:54
refresh and lost all of the chats at the very beginning. Um, which is
1:05:01
unfortunate. I did save some of them. If you have an important question, please
1:05:06
Well, by the way, we can always go to YouTube and see them. I mean, by the way, people don't understand where we're using it. I couldn't even I couldn't even scroll
1:05:13
back there, Dan. I I was stuck on both. Yeah. So, I um Yeah, I cannot rearrange
1:05:19
my my window. So, I do have a few pinned ones. So uh
1:05:24
um there was um the one thing I wanted to say I is please if you have not liked
1:05:32
and subscribed would you please hit the like button. I know that there were at least a hund when I did my refresh I saw
1:05:39
that there were a hundred more people watching than at the moment than had actually liked the show and that helps
1:05:45
us get up in the algorithm I don't know in the algorithm or something so more people will be able to
1:05:51
see this um and um Martin had a number of of good comments um he you know he
1:06:00
remarked nothing new here just scientists catching up with what Leon and others have been saying for years
1:06:06
and um he was almost yelled at by a
1:06:11
climate scientist who did not want to talk about the dangers of climate change on a Friday's for the future
1:06:17
demonstration. So weird. Yes, the denial is is thick.
1:06:23
Um and um he also found Bill McKibben to be somewhat in denial in that we can
1:06:30
install as much solar as we want. Nature does not care at all if emissions do not go down. Nothing else matters. And
1:06:38
to be fair, I did ask him specifically about that. You know, go back and look at towards the end you I said there's a
1:06:45
difference between solar growing and climate change and he did accept that. And I mean his book to to be fair was
1:06:53
about the promise of solar energy and the positive nature of that. But he wasn't saying that's going to
1:07:00
avoid the climate problems. And when he did talk about that, you could tell he got a little less positive and excited
1:07:07
and, you know, a little he knows about it. He knows about and he was asked about it and go go go
1:07:14
watch that part. Okay. Yes. Um and then the one it's tough to
1:07:20
get it um without reading it but Nevitz forever said to the number two C s e or
1:07:29
not to see that is the question and I thought that was very
1:07:34
or not to see that is the question yes yeah and it's yeah because no one's
1:07:40
uh wants to look at it um Nadia was talking about Mad Max um that Um it was
1:07:47
about peak oil happening as the only catastrophe is is not climate catastrophe but peak
1:07:55
everything plus chemical collution chemical pollution catastrophe al
1:08:00
together um and that is something um that well let's put this one up here because
1:08:06
this is similar question from Michael that's that's the one I have okay I'm a bit confused shouldn't we
1:08:13
focus on overall ecological overshoot and not just climate limit what makes it unique. So first of all um as uh Leon
1:08:21
was showing limits of growth there's a there limits to growth are built there's a lot of things although the question is
1:08:27
which one's going to get you and actually if I believe if I'm not mistaken when they updated that limits
1:08:33
to growth 50 years later they uh at first they thought there would be not enough resources
1:08:40
and you know 50 years ago there not enough resources and that would be what would bring us down right if you run out
1:08:46
of resources but when they update ated it and looked at the real data and and then and they plugged it all in. They
1:08:51
said, "Oh, pollution," which in this case is CO2. That's what's going to get us first. So, yes, it's all going to get
1:08:57
us, but what's going to get you first? And I think that so I think we're going to run out, let's
1:09:03
put it, we're going to run out of atmosphere before we run out of fossil fuels, you know, in other words, we're
1:09:09
going to get hit by climate change. It's near-term. We're talking about
1:09:14
literally decades, not centuries. uh and and and we're talking about zero time
1:09:19
because it is getting us today. Now you could argue that pollution is getting other forms like plastic pollution, PAS,
1:09:27
I mean you can go on and on. There is pollution nonclimate pollution which is
1:09:33
harming us today. But I think the scale of the climate impacts over the next 30
1:09:41
years are going to be the biggest ones. Now, that doesn't mean those other things are not going to be really big
1:09:47
problems and or are big problems, but they're probably more um controllable
1:09:53
than the climate ones. Once those go out of control, you know, we're pretty much
1:09:59
screwed. Except for geoengineering, but even then, you know, you'd have to have an organized uh government to to do it.
1:10:06
And so, so I think that it's not that climate change is the only
1:10:11
uh global planetary problem we have to deal with, but it perhaps is the most urgent is maybe the way I would put it.
1:10:19
Yeah. Okay. Um the other another one that tags on to that or is very similar is Frosty asking
1:10:27
what will happen if the oceans become so acidic that any animal that requires calcium to survive cannot produce shells
1:10:33
or bones like the bottom of the food chain in the ocean require oceans require a shell. I think the answer is
1:10:39
that would be bad combination with
1:10:44
with the with the coral reefs the tropical coral reefs um being more or less doomed already at the current
1:10:52
level of global warming right who if the the the the oceans are will be
1:10:59
impacted very much and I think that's also rel to to Nadia her question let me put it up there where so what does when
1:11:07
the hits the fan mean I think that's there's a there's a lot of ways to to answer that and I think it's
1:11:15
um let me share that one again the this one you know this I think this in a way
1:11:23
answers the question of um what what what the hitting the fan
1:11:30
means is is the green ice sheet collapsing is the core reefs dying is the western ice sheet melting
1:11:38
both meaning 7 m of sea level rise, but also the agriculture
1:11:44
production declining and of course all the the
1:11:50
increase in food prices and the impact that has on on democracy when and and of
1:11:56
course populists uh gaining gaining strength in by saying
1:12:03
that uh they will help to bring the price of eggs down while they cannot really do that right we have all these
1:12:10
we already starting to see these impacts happening and uh
1:12:15
yeah I think we if if you see now what's happening with politics around the world
1:12:21
with war and in of course in in the Middle East what's happening to the Palestinians which is now officially
1:12:28
called a genocide what's uh what's happening in still happening in the on
1:12:33
the eastern border of of Europe with the war of Ukraine with Russia So there's there's many ways where
1:12:40
as uh um Meadows already calls it that that
1:12:46
collapse is already happening in many ways. So we could all you could always say that that is hitting the fan
1:12:53
too. Go back to the other question. Okay.
1:12:59
By the way, I'm I'm going to just throw in a little teaser here that one of the subjects we'll be talking about in the
1:13:05
future is a a new old form of geoengineering
1:13:11
talked about long ago but never got any traction that would work well for coral reefs. In other words, it's uh you can
1:13:16
make it hyper local and just cool the oceans around uh the coral reefs quite
1:13:23
inexpensively actually and uh using all natural stuff. So, nothing nothing
1:13:29
strange going on there. And so, I'll and I'll I'll just give you one more hint. It involves bubbles. So, we'll uh we'll
1:13:36
be talking about that in a few weeks. So, make sure you like and subscribe so you don't miss all the exciting new
1:13:42
stuff we're going to be talking about. Thanks for all the followers. We now reached 5,000 followers. So, it's
1:13:49
for I want to have that million subscriber YouTube plaque behind me when
1:13:56
we You know, by the way, if we were talking about like the revised American Express
1:14:01
Platinum credit card instead of climate change, we would have like 10 times or 100 times more subscribers than talking
1:14:08
about something that lit and how many people does that affect, right? This literally impacts everyone on Earth and
1:14:15
all their children like for sure. And yet, you know, hardly
1:14:21
any. I mean, this has to get back, it gets back to the whole denial structure and the, you know, that kind of thing.
1:14:28
But we do have cats now. Plus, we need we need subscribers for cats, right? So, so we have cats. That's going
1:14:34
to increase our subscribers a lot there. Okay. Let's see what else we got here. Oh,
1:14:39
let's let's get Eli on. Wait, wait, let's get Eli on here and then Okay, great. Eli, welcome to the show. How are you
1:14:47
doing? And are you there? Because maybe I just surprised you by turning your your mic on. Oh, okay. Well, his mic is
1:14:56
on, but he he might have been stepped away because he didn't know he was about to be called on. So, say any other um
1:15:02
See, I go. Yeah, Martin had another had a question at 11:08 um uh Amos study that put the
1:15:11
likelihood of collapse at 70% by 2100. Does anybody know what temperatures at
1:15:16
what point and what ECS they used? Sorry, Am sorry 2100 sounds late now.
1:15:25
Yeah. Um I this one that one.
1:15:33
Does anybody know what DCS and climate estimates the recent study regarding the AMO collapse were using? Oh, he must have asked that earlier and
1:15:41
I don't have. Okay, I have that one. um you know there we had a bunch of
1:15:47
scientists on I mean by the way some are just based on observations so they're not based on future scenarios I mean
1:15:53
they just looked at the statistics of how much it's weakening um I think they
1:15:59
they're using the traditional SSP scenarios
1:16:05
you know you got thing about the SSP scenarios is that the worst ones which everyone said thank god we're not on the
1:16:11
worst case emissions scenario IO, you know that we're not like increasing coal plants tremendously every every month or
1:16:18
something. And while that's true, when you look at not the emissions, but the
1:16:23
emissions causes a forcing, forcing is the thing that forces the temperature to
1:16:29
change, the forcings are at the worst case. The emission scenario is not at
1:16:34
the worst case, but the resulting forcing. That's because, as Leon and Hansen came up with, you know, if the
1:16:40
ECS is really 4 and a half degrees instead of three for any given amount of of um greenhouse gases, you're going to
1:16:46
have more warming, more forcing than was assumed. And so we are seeing that um
1:16:53
but anyway, um it's almost certain they didn't use three degrees.
1:16:58
Yeah, they weren't they were not using 3C by 2050. That's I'm probably I think the point then is also that the
1:17:04
aerosols were hiding more of the greenhouse gas force. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Yes. Agreed with that.
1:17:11
Yeah. Um well the I wanted to also thank um
1:17:16
Enk Jerome Robert for their uh and Ree um for their recommendations for people
1:17:22
to have on. That is always appreciated. You can put it here or you can put it in the comments um on any of the shows when
1:17:31
they're um posted. That's that's and I have to say that's better because it's very hard for me to follow the the live chat, but I do go
1:17:39
back and wa and I'm able to read all of the um comments that are stable for a longer
1:17:44
period of time and so it's better to put it there. Well, I've I recorded them so I'll send
1:17:51
them to you also. Um and um I liked what Olrich said. Economy will keep growing
1:17:58
like a cancer. True. Okay. Um but that is that's most of your back
1:18:05
here. Oh, and okay. Don't see anything. Okay.
1:18:11
Yeah, I'm I'm here. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah, we can hear. Yeah.
1:18:16
Yes, we can hear you. Oh, it's in and out. I'm sorry.
1:18:22
Okay, we hear you but you may not hear us. Okay.
1:18:27
All right. We are cat.
1:18:32
Okay. All right. I send it by chat. Yeah.
1:18:39
Okay. All right. Anyway, I think we So, um
1:18:44
Okay. Eli is having trouble with his connection. So, that's uh what's going on there. Um anyway I I think we covered
1:18:52
the subject 3C by 20 by 2050 is possible and and highly probable within the
1:19:00
around that time you know maybe by60 it doesn't really matter if it's 2050
1:19:05
versus 2060 these are all catastrophic numbers to see by 2030s is is very
1:19:13
possible and very likely by the 2040s that itself is terrible
1:19:20
and catastrophic and so far so far we're not doing anything about it and we can
1:19:26
so I'm very as I said I'm very optimistic about what we can do I'm not optimistic about what we will do but
1:19:32
once we start all um talking about climate change and the fact that a
1:19:38
headline like this gets zero coverage outside of climate chat and a few other
1:19:44
places uh if we can change that and get the world to actually be willing to talk
1:19:49
about these things just like they're willing to talk about asteroids. Um then then we can actually do something I'm
1:19:56
gonna do one more shot. Are you Oh, you're not on anyway. I I can turn you on one more time.
1:20:02
Yeah. Okay. Can can can There you are. Now we're now we can hear you. So do you have any final thoughts or questions?
1:20:07
Yeah. Okay. I'll uh Yeah. So a few comments um uh about the you know well
1:20:13
the models turn out to be to it's within the range uh but the central estimates
1:20:18
are different and it really has to be taken taken to them that uh you compare
1:20:25
two models you compare their predictions. You can look at different regions and the predictions that the
1:20:30
models make for the different regions and different effects and so on. And you choose the model that gives the best fit
1:20:39
with the observations, not the one that you're just holding on to,
1:20:45
right? And they are just holding on for dear life.
1:20:51
Well, they're updating them too to show more acceleration actually as they with the more data coming in. But yeah,
1:20:58
and they're they're worried about, by the way, I mean, it does show acceleration recently, but you got to
1:21:03
remember there was quote that pause in the 1990s, and that wasn't indicative of a pause. It was just a natural variation
1:21:11
um and and then, you know, it continued on its way. So, they're worried that if we say there's acceleration and then it
1:21:17
turns out there's a correction and it was just natural variation, they don't want to look bad. So, so there are
1:21:23
reasons. I mean, I understand why they say what they say, but at the same time,
1:21:28
right now, if that was true, if it was natural variation, the temperature should be much lower than it is right
1:21:33
now, given that the leninia conditions are kind of in place. That should send us way below the uh the trend line, and
1:21:40
it's not. We're still way up high, and that's consistent with the global warming and the pipeline paper. So when
1:21:48
you don't want to look bad, I think you shouldn't give people a false sense of security when the risk are so high.
1:21:55
Yeah. Very good. Another point uh quickly on uh the ocean uh not just uh ocean
1:22:02
acidification uh but also heat stress is is uh um
1:22:07
really uh affecting uh corals and uh we are on track to lose 95 uh% of corals by
1:22:16
2050. And that that is the the trophic
1:22:22
support the energy the food for 95% of animal life in the ocean. So so not just
1:22:29
the ocean acidification but everything that we're doing uh is threatening 95%
1:22:35
of the animal life in the ocean. So uh that's you know that's also a a
1:22:41
catastrophe for people who uh depend on on animal life in the ocean as part of their diet. uh which is still a lot of
1:22:48
people. Uh but also uh on on the ecological uh uh topic, um we've all probably heard
1:22:57
about people going to uh Antarctica to
1:23:02
to see it while it's still there and and looks recognizable to uh the way we've
1:23:07
known it. Well, you don't have to go there anymore. You can just go to a
1:23:12
mountain. Uh because what happens during warming is that uh e ecosystems
1:23:18
uh as things get warmer they just move up the mountain but when they get to the
1:23:24
top there's nowhere else to go. So you can go to the top of some mountains and
1:23:31
look at the animal life and if uh things keep going the way uh that that that
1:23:38
it's been going uh it won't be there by 2050. If
1:23:45
you want to see something that will be gone, you can go go many places. Yeah, that's true.
1:23:52
Well, here's one. Is this a denier here? Do we actually have a denier? Imagine how spread out each CO2 molecule is.
1:23:58
They plan to collect that amount. That's ridiculous.
1:24:03
As I say, it doesn't matter what the percentage of CO2 is because uh oxygen
1:24:08
and nitrogen don't trap heat. So it's irrelevant how much of there there is of that
1:24:14
they're talking about carbon they're talking about carbon capture Dan oh
1:24:20
it's necessary it's necessary but not necessarily achievable so that's
1:24:25
actually it's 20 to 30% in a in a cold plant flu stack so it's actually quite
1:24:30
easy to capture it there but whole other section I thought they were talking about CO2 as trapping heat
1:24:36
but okay let's leave that alone all right anyway so we had a good discussion and uh a very very very alarming
1:24:43
headline that is not being covered anywhere and as I said it's not just climate science it's psychology and and
1:24:49
societal we we that's why we on the show we actually cover a lot of people in the social sciences and psychology
1:24:56
communication and these kinds of things because climate change is not a problem of science we know all the science we
1:25:03
need to know we're going to learn more but you know in terms of knowing what to do we have to act we know that in terms
1:25:10
of solutions. We also have what we need to know to get started. Yeah, we'll get more. Don't worry, we'll get more, but
1:25:16
we have all we need to get started. So th those two things are not the issue. The issue is we know all of this and
1:25:22
we're choosing, as Kevin Anderson says, we're choosing to fail. We're choosing not to act, which is kind of crazy
1:25:30
actually. And and given the risk profiles of what we know is going to happen, you would not accept these risks
1:25:36
in any other aspect of your life. If your house had a chance of burning down like this, if your the plane your kids
1:25:43
were on had a chance of crashing like that, you would never ever in a million years do it. And um yet for some crazy
1:25:50
crazy reason um collective psychological psychosis or something, we're all
1:25:57
agreeing to sort of go la. It's inconvenient, Dan. Change is very
1:26:05
invenient. You're gonna get the change. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about change. So, so um the
1:26:12
status quo is no longer an option as we say, right? That's not one of the options. So, which one which path
1:26:18
forward would you like? The bad one or the good one? As I like to say, it's it's you're given a choice. Would you rather win the lottery or would you
1:26:24
rather be waterboarded? And given that choice, we're choosing water boarding for some strange reason.
1:26:31
I'm not exactly sure why, but um so anyway, with all of that ranting, I want
1:26:36
to thank Leon and Stacy and Eli and everyone in the comments.
1:26:43
And we will see you next time. Maybe I don't want to say it yet because it's not been confirmed, but with a guest I
1:26:49
met at Climate Week this last week. So, um we'll see you next time and thanks everyone for coming.
1:26:55
Thank you, Dan. Bye. Bye. I
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