Comments by "" (@titteryenot4524) on "Ocean temperatures rise to new record high" video.
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Whenever the topic of climate change/global warming comes up, as someone neither particularly right nor particularly left politically, I despair at how tribalised and polarised this debate becomes with each camp ensconced in their respective corners, equally convinced that their case is watertight. As ever with these things (and the reason I’m a centrist in almost everything), the truth lies somewhere in the middle. One of the most reasoned and balanced paragraphs I have ever read about this topic is the following from Stephen Pinker:
If the emission of greenhouse gases continues, the Earth’s average temperature will rise to at least 1.5°C above the preindustrial level by the end of the 21st century, and perhaps to 4°C above that level or more. That will cause more frequent and more severe heat waves, more floods in wet regions, more droughts in dry regions, heavier storms, more severe hurricanes, lower crop yields in warm regions, the extinction of more species, the loss of coral reefs (because the oceans will be both warmer and more acidic), and an average rise in sea level of between 0.7 metres and 1.2 metres from both the melting of land ice and the expansion of seawater. (Sea level has already risen almost eight inches since 1870, and the rate of the rise appears to be accelerating.) Low-lying areas would be flooded, island nations would disappear beneath the waves, large stretches of farmland would no longer be arable, and millions of people would be displaced. The effects could get still worse in the 22nd century and beyond, and in theory could trigger upheavals such as a diversion of the Gulf Stream (which would turn Europe into Siberia) or a collapse of the Antarctic ice sheets. A rise of 2°C is considered the most that the world could reasonably adapt to, and a rise of 4°C, in the words of a 2012 World Bank report, “simply must not be allowed to occur.”
The planet is warming. Fact. Humans (according to the overwhelming scientific consensus) are the principal cause of this warming over the past couple of centuries through fossil fuel burning. Now, given this, and given the consequences eloquently outlined by Pinker, we have to collectively decide whether we want to continue on this trajectory or not. For me, given the data, and given the projected consequences contingent upon that data, it makes utter sense to phase out fossil fuels. With this caveat: we must do it sensibly. They will be needed for some time to come as the transition to renewables is made. Who knows? Given that we are currently in an interglacial period, 500 years down the line when we have stopped using fossil fuels, the planet might start a rapid cooling trend leading to that ever-promised next Ice Age, and there might be a desperate clamour to start burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible!
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