Last updated 10.24.23
The following definitions and descriptions are essential to understanding the states, processes, and consequences of global warming (aka climate change,) now being discussed throughout the media. This short glossary will hopefully make it considerably easier for the public to understand the many complex facts and processes surrounding today's global warming issues.
This glossary is not in alphabetical order. In order to allow individuals new to the global warming subject to get the basic definitions first, these definitions have been listed in order of least to the most complex.
The essential climate change and global warming definitions and related concepts:
There are certain essential climate change terms you will need to understand to understand climate science and climate research papers.
We recommend that you look up each of the following four terms on wikipedia. Their definitions are comprehensive with illustrations on these complex climate science issues:
carbon sinks,
climate sensitivity,
net-zero carbon,
radiative forcing effect,
Here are other terms you should know as well:
Greenhouse gases: Atmospheric gases like water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone that can either absorb and emit heat radiation. When they absorb heat radiation they warm the globe, hence global warming.
Global warming: A term used for the observed century-scale rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system and its related effects. Qualified climate scientists are more than 97% certain that most of global warming is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and other human-caused activities.
Extinction-level global warming: There are 3 levels of climate -driven extinction to be concerned about:
- Mass extinction: We have been so grossly ineffective in slowing and reversing global heating for so long that about half of the human population will die by mid-century. This mass extinction is unavoidable because of our 60 years of climate inaction, ineffective action, and denial.
- Near-total human extinction: A global heating-driven near-total human extinction is a scenario where as much as 50-90+% of humanity could go extinct before we slow and reverse the current runaway global heating. (The processes of near-total extinction is partially described in the first three extinction-accelerating tipping points on this page and then on this page.)
- Total human extinction: A global heating-driven total human extinction can only occur if we allow carbon levels in the atmosphere to rise to 800 to 1700 parts per million (ppm). At those levels, we risk our atmosphere being pulled out into space and 100% of everything else that depends upon oxygen suffocating and going entirely extinct.
The total extinction term is associated with temperatures exceeding pre-Industrial levels by 5-6° Celsius (9-10.8° Fahrenheit). Extinction-level global warming begins as early as phase 4 or phase 5 of the Climageddon Scenario. If our atmosphere is also lost in the final stages of phase 6 of the Climageddon Scenario, this will result in the extinction of almost ALL planetary life.
Global warming consequences: The illustration below lists many of the most important consequences of global warming. These consequences will also dramatically increase in severity, frequency, and scale as global warming continues to escalate.
Global warming tipping points: The point where a process or stimulus experiences a sudden change, causing the process to jump from one state to a new, significantly different state—much like a tipped wine glass going from being full to empty.
Point of no return: The point of directional motion and momentum at which a developing process thereafter irreversibly moves toward crossing its tipping point.
Positive feedback loop: A process that occurs as a self-reinforcing loop in which the effects of a small disturbance on a system feedback upon itself to increase its magnitude, furthering and increasing the disturbance process in an unending loop. Positive feedback loops can and often do produce tipping points.
West Antarctic Ice Sheet: A good example of the dangers of crossing a point of no return and its tipping point, this ice sheet has already begun the irreversible collapse process. Once this particular ice sheet melts completely, it will trigger the subsequent melting of most of Antarctica's ice, significantly raising global sea levels.
Global warming emergency: is defined by the current 400-409 ppm level of carbon parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere as well as by the continued exponential rise of annual carbon ppm in the atmosphere (now at about 4 ppm additional per year). We are currently in a global warming state of emergency and are either poised at the edge of or already at irreversible global warming.
Global warming temperature prediction models: To predict future temperatures, scientists use supercomputers to create many different models and simulations that incorporate current observational data. They also experiment with many different formulas and factors as there are many variables. There are climate inertia and momentum variables, as well as adjustment variables for the overall climate changing more slowly in the past than today. Additionally, although different formulas and factors may be used for determining temperature increase time frames and these predictions may vary somewhat, what hasn't changed is that 97% of all climate scientists say human-caused global warming is real, dangerous, and an immediate problem for the future of humanity.
Meta-systemic analysis used for global warming: Examining systems and subsystems involved in global warming from a meta perspective that considers them both as stand-alone and individual systems as well as being interconnected and interdependent with and upon each other. Meta-systemic analysis involves detailed analysis of processes, contexts, relationships, and the continual transformations occurring among and between interconnected and interdependent systems and subsystems within the selected area of analysis. To read more about meta-systemic analysis click here.
Runaway global warming: Runaway global warming means that global warming will continue to increase on a runaway course. Imagine a train going down a steep hill with no functional brakes. Once the runaway global warming "train" gets started, in most cases, it will continue to roll on of and by itself with no practical way to stop or control it.
There are several phases to runaway global warming. These phases of runaway global warming are described here within the four extinction-level climate tipping points. The different phases or levels of a runaway global heating-driven extinction are defined as:
1. The beginning level of runaway global warming is defined as the point where numerous climate change and global warming consequences become catastrophic and unavoidable! For example, the UN's new 1.5 C climate cliff temperature threshold now means that because of what just the beginning level of runaway global warming can do, going above 1.5C level will eventually lead to the extinction of about half of humanity by mid-century. (This link will show you how this mass extinction event will happen.)
2. The mid phase near total extinction level runaway global warming is the level of runaway global warming that will ensure humanity's near-total extinction.
3. The final phase of runaway global heating is also referred to as runaway greenhouse effect or Venus-level runaway global warming. This final phase describes the circumstance in which the climate destabilizes catastrophically and permanently from its original state.
Venus-level runaway global warming will be so bad that it rips the atmosphere off our planet. As a result, the Earth will lose all human and biological life. This level of runaway global warming is believed to have happened to the planet Venus when the planet lost its atmosphere out into space. This is thought to have happened to Venus 4 billion years ago, resulting in a carbon-rich atmosphere and minimum surface temperatures of 462° C.
Understanding the differences: climate, weather, and the global warming processes
Carbon parts per million (ppm): The current level and concentration of carbon molecules in our atmosphere, as measured by the Keeling curve (below) in parts per million. Additional carbon molecules are the main reason behind today's escalating global warming. Because of the immutable laws of physics, the more cumulative carbon particles we add to the atmosphere, the faster temperatures will rise!
Keeling curve for measuring atmospheric carbon: A graph below plotting the ongoing change in concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere since 1958 as charted by Charles David Keeling. Keeling's measurements showed the first significant evidence of rapidly increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Using Keeling curve observational data for temperature increase predictions, one can extrapolate that for each additional 25 ppm of carbon added to the atmosphere in the future, the temperature would raise an estimated 0.27° Celsius (0.5° Fahrenheit). The length of time for that temperature increase to be realized varies, but in general, the more cumulative carbon we add to the atmosphere, the faster temperatures will rise!
No matter what you're hearing in the media or being told implying we are making progress reversing global warming, if the atmospheric carbon ppm level is not going back down towards the carbon 350 ppm safer zone, global warming is not getting better! This is because more atmospheric carbon ppm equals increasing global heat in the future.
Carbon 425 to 450 ppm tipping point): At or around this point, there is a significant increase in the speed and scale of crossing of global warming tipping points within the many global warming systems and subsystems. The carbon 425-450 ppm range also marks the last battle line and last chance for maintaining meaningful control over the processes that will prevent irreversible global warming from eventually becoming extinction-level climate destabilization.
Parts per million (ppm) and parts per million by volume (ppmv): A measurement of the concentration of pollutants in the atmosphere, "ppm" describes parts per million by weight, which typically accounts for one pollutant (such as carbon) and does not account for traces of other pollutants. Parts per million by volume (ppmv), on the other hand, includes other trace gases, such as methane.
Carbon sequestration: is the process involved in carbon capture and the long-term storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon sequestration involves long-term storage of carbon dioxide or other forms of carbon to mitigate or defer global warming. Carbon dioxide is naturally captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical, and physical processes.
Climate: “This is the statistics of weather, usually taken over a 30-year interval. It is measured by assessing the patterns of variation in temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, precipitation, atmospheric carbon and other particle count, and other meteorological variables in a given region over long periods of time. Climate differs from weather, in that weather describes only the less than 30 year short-term conditions of these variables in a given region.” (From Wikipedia.) Fossil fuel lobbyists like to confuse us by directing our attention to the shorter time cycles of weather and climate, whereas the global warming temperature humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, precipitation, atmospheric particle count, and other meteorological variables cycles that have occurred over hundreds of thousands or millions of years are the most important ones to understand our current global warming emergency. When we compare current global warming cycles to past global warming cycles and time frames rather than current weather, or 30-year climate cycles, we can more clearly see what's really happening and how dangerous out current trends of rapidly escalating global warming is to our future. See graph below for long-term variations in carbon ppm concentrations in our atmosphere.
Image via Robert A. Rohdes, Wikimedia commons.
Climate change: An intentionally misleading term forwarded by fossil fuel lobbyists and the media they control to focus the target audience’s attention on the less than 30 year weather changes to downplay the real and longer-term dangers of global warming to the public and media.
Garrett global warming crisis: If we do not scale up green energy generation as fast as we scale down fossil fuel energy generation, the global economy will collapse. If we do not radically shut down fossil fuel energy generation immediately, civilization will eventually collapse and humanity may go extinct.
Methane time bomb: Popularly known as the clathrate gun hypothesis, an increase in sea temperature that triggers a sudden release of methane from seabeds and permafrost, leading to irreversible temperature rise. There is evidence of these occurrences in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum extinction event 55.5 million years ago and the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago. (Please click here to watch a short video that brilliantly explains the extinction process once we start releasing methane clathrate from our coastal shelves. New research shows we actually begin this release process once we reach 5°C and by 6°C it is in full bloom.)
Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) extinction event: A warming event 55.5 million years ago in which gigatons of carbon and methane were released into the atmosphere after the global temperature rose 5° C. It resulted in the extinction of roughly 70,000 species and is the most recent and accurate event within Earth's geologic history to compare to today's global warming.
Sixth Great Extinction: Also known as the Holocene or Anthropocene extinction, this refers to the ongoing extinction event during our present Holocene epoch due to human activity, especially global warming. At present, the rate of extinction is estimated to be up to 140,000 species per year—the greatest loss of biodiversity since the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago.
Keystone tipping point: A tipping point that triggers other dependent and interconnected tipping points. Crossing a keystone tipping point is one of the potential triggers for irreversible global warming, leading into the later extinction phases of the Climageddon Scenario
.
The perfect storm of perfect storms: The process of multiple global warming tipping points crossing over to degrade and destabilize climate, human, and biological systems and subsystems in a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop and meltdown.
Climagees: Refugees from areas stricken by the various consequences of global warming such as famine, drought, and flooding.
Climageddon: This coined term combines the words climate and Armageddon. “Armageddon” is often used to refer to any end-of-the-world scenario. Global warming as described in the new book Climageddon has evolved into an impending end-of-the-world scenario.
Climageddon Scenario: A new time-sequenced, analytical prediction and planning model to better understand the complex and intertwined processes, contexts, relationships, transformations, tipping points, and consequences of the escalating global warming emergency, up to and including an extinction scenario. (See illustrations below.)
Receive Free Climate Change & Global Warming Info!
Precautionary principle: “Used by policymakers to guide discretionary decisions in situations where there is the possibility of harm from making a certain decision (e.g. taking a particular course of action) when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking. The principle implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the public from exposure to harm, when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk. These protections can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that provide sound evidence that no harm will result.” (from Wikipedia)
Destructive creation: The evolutionary recycling meta-pattern for parts or wholes of a system or subsystem that are unable to adapt. This core meta-pattern of breakdown and recycling allows these parts to be reused and once again to support future experiments in the evolutionary process.
Climate destabilization: According to Alexei Turchin, “[a] transitional state of escalating global climate instability...characterized by greater unpredictability, which lasts until the global climate eventually finds a new and different stable state of dynamic equilibrium and balance at some different level of temperature and other climate qualities from what it has held for hundreds or thousands of of years."
Catastrophic climate destabilization: Term associated with a measurement of carbon 400-450 ppm (Climageddon Scenario Phase 1). The eventual temperature range commonly associated with catastrophic climate destabilization is an increase in average global temperature of about 1.2°-2.7° Celsius (2.2°- 4.9° Fahrenheit). When global warming-caused storms, floods, seasonal disruption, wildfires, and droughts begin to cost a nation 30 to 100 billion-plus dollars per incident to repair (like Hurricane Sandy), we will have reached the level of catastrophic climate destabilization.
Irreversible climate destabilization: A term associated with the overall state of the global climate and a measurement of carbon ppm beginning around carbon 425 ppm up to about carbon 550-600 ppm (Climageddon Scenario, Phases 2-4). The eventual temperature range associated with irreversible climate destabilization is an increase in average global temperature of up to 4° Celsius (7.2° Fahrenheit). Irreversible climate destabilization is a new average global temperature range and a set of destabilizing climate consequences we will never recover from—or that will take hundreds or even thousands of years to correct or re-balance. When global warming-caused storms, floods, seasonal disruption, wildfires, and droughts begin to cost a nation 100-300 billion-plus dollars per incident to repair, we will have reached the level of irreversible climate destabilization.
Irreversible climate Change: Irreversible climate change means that we will not be able to get the dangerous levels of excess greenhouse gases (like carbon) back down to normal and human safe pre-industrial level out of our atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. (As of July 2023, We are currently at the insane atmospheric carbon level of 420 ppm. We will soon enter the generally considered irreversible and second phase of runaway global heating sometime between 2025-2031. This is when we enter into the carbon 425-450 ppm range.)
Extinction-level climate destabilization: Term to describe when the amount of carbon in the air reaches carbon 600 ppm and global temperatures average between 5° and 6° Celsius (9-10.8° Fahrenheit), resulting in the eventual extinction of up to half or more of all species on Earth (Climageddon Scenario, Phases 5-6). Extinction-level climate destabilization occurs when life can no longer successfully exist. There is a possibility that extinction-level climate destabilization may never correct or re-balance itself to some new equilibrium level. If the climate were able to correct or re-balance itself from this level of destabilization, it could take hundreds to thousands of years.
Complex adaptive system: The collective whole of connected structures and processes (systems and subsystems) that are highly unpredictable, self-organizing, and often include spontaneous or unexpected outcomes and tipping points. They also contain nonlinear relationships, meaning that one area can affect a completely different system or subsystem where there seems to be no discernible cause-and-effect relationship. Please also see wikipedia for the full definition it is that important.
Second Industrial Revolution: A period of innovation between 1870 and 1914 that introduced the combustion engine, the telegraph, radio, mass production via assembly lines, widespread usage of electricity, and the expanded use of oil and steel.
Third Industrial Revolution: A new industrial revolution based on moving out of fossil fuel energy generation and into green energy generation, as well as using new Internet and other digital technologies that will create hundreds of millions of new jobs. Like the mechanization of the textile industry in the First Industrial Revolution and the introduction of mass production via assembly lines in the Second Industrial Revolution, the Third Industrial Revolution is occurring as manufacturing moves from fossil fuels to green energy and into digital innovations such as the Internet of Things. This term refers to Jeremy Rifkin's concepts from The Third Industrial Revolution.
Sustainable prosperity: A set of new sustainability principles that create shared sufficiency as well as abundance for individuals, communities, and nations in the vital and meaningful areas of life, and to have this qualified prosperity sustained over the long term. (See “Sustainable Prosperity” at JobOneforHumanity.org.)
First Great Evolutionary Bottleneck: A drastic reduction in the global human population due to a supervolcanic eruption 50,000 years ago. This global disaster was theorized to have reduced the human species to 3,000-10,000 survivors and as few as 1,000 to 200 remaining mating pairs. If escalating global warming continues, we are headed for the second great evolutionary bottleneck.
Global warming slowing and lessening actions: Critical actions required to have a meaningful chance to prevent irreversible global warming from becoming extinction-level global warming, such as achieving carbon neutrality and transitioning globally to renewable green energy generation immediately in a global mass mobilization effort.
Wild card: An unpredictable positive or negative factor that can drastically influence the outcome of a situation.
45th parallel north: A circle of latitude 45 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean. (It is important because this is the current northern demarcation line for safe global warming migration zones.)
45th parallel south: A circle of latitude 45 degrees south of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, Australasia, the Pacific Ocean, and South America. (This is the current southern demarcation line for safe global warming migration zones.)
Celsius to Fahrenheit conversions: These amounts are usually used to represent temperature increases above pre-Industrial (1760-1840) average global temperatures. The illustration below also shows the projected temperature increase at each phase of the Climageddon Scenario, which is defined further below.
Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e): A standard unit for measuring all greenhouse gases in terms of the amount of warming they create compared to CO2.
Job One for Humanity organization: A nonprofit social benefit organization whose mission is to provide accurate facts and strategies to its members and to the global warming educational movement to help this movement adjust its no longer appropriate strategies, to prepare for the unavoidable escalating global warming future of worsening catastrophes and, to avoid the later extinction-level phases of the Climageddon Scenario. (JobOneforHumanity.org)
Job One for Humanity Plan to end global warming: A comprehensive “first-things-first” plan using innovative remedial strategies and the best science available. It is a fully prioritized sequence of action steps designed to prepare individuals to survive what is coming and slow and lessen global warming.
The great adaptive challenge, great evolutionary adventure: A positive perspective for viewing the current global warming emergency and challenge.
Eco-prepper: For those of you who may not know, a “prepper” is someone who prepares ahead of time for the possibility of future catastrophes. An eco-prepper is someone preparing, in particular, for coming ecological catastrophes, seeking survival through sustainable prosperity practices, and other important social and economic principles and practices.
Most eco-preppers also see themselves as evolutioneers, (someone that consciously helps evolve a better world, in part, through the example of sustainable living through and after an ecological catastrophe like the escalating global warming emergency and its interrelated climate, human and ecological consequences.) Eco-preppers also see themselves as those leaders (and communities,) that quickly learn from and do not repeat the same mistakes that caused the ecological catastrophe.
Irreversible global warming: You have seen the news about global warming-aggravated weather, like hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Marie, or the horrible wildfires in northern California and the west coast. We have repeatedly provided reliable data informing the public that until we reverse our suicidal fossil fuel burning habits, global warming-aggravated climate consequences (like what you are seeing almost every day in the news,) will continue to increase in frequency, severity, and scale…
We are now compelled to inform you of a new reality about global warming that you will hear first in our Global Warming Blog. In the new book Climageddon, it was strongly suggested that global warming may already be irreversible.
Due to new climate findings, gross miscalculations by global warming authorities, the worsening of average global warming temperature, and the crossing of numerous bellwether tipping points, our organization now realizes, accepts, and forwards the excruciating fact that global warming has now entered a state of irreversibility. We will tell you more about exactly what that means to your future, but first, we must put this horrible news into an appropriate context to prepare you to respond to it.
Even though global warming has now reached irreversibility, we still have a significant amount of time left (about 10-15 years) to prepare and adapt to save humanity and civilization. We still have time to live meaningful and enjoyable lives.
It is useful to think about our new condition of irreversible global warming much like a slow-moving, planet killing-sized asteroid about 10-15 years away from colliding with Earth. If you have not prepared locally, in about 10 to 15 years accumulating mass migration shifts of climagees (climate migrants,) escalating economic effects and/or political destabilization in many more areas of the world will have impacts rapidly escalating in severity in almost all areas of the world.
If we are smart and move quickly, we can still reduce or slow some of the worst of the coming consequences to reduce suffering, financial losses, and death. During this 10 to 15 year window, we can still have control of a good portion of our lives, far longer than those individuals who deny, ignore, or are unaware of this disheartening new global warming condition and reality.
See this page for 28 reasons why runaway global heating may already be out of our control.
What irreversible global warming means
Irreversible global warming describes both the process of the earth’s average global temperature continually increasing, as well as the distinct climate state created by the combination of increasing temperatures, crossed global warming tipping points, and multiple self-reinforcing positive feedback loops. These factors collectively cause the global climate to change until it reaches a new higher temperature that is irreversible in time scales far, far longer than the average human lifespan.
At the minimum, the relative time frame for sequestering (removing) the carbon particles we are now adding to our atmosphere is centuries. This unfortunately means that long after we stop polluting our atmosphere with fossil fuels, the 20 most deadly consequences of those actions will last from centuries to thousands of years.
Why we have reached irreversible global warming
We are in this state of irreversible global warming because of:
a. the gross miscalculations by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC).
b. we have continuously failed to act effectively to either slow or reverse global warming. This is in spite of 30+ years of loud and detailed warnings by credible climate scientists, verified scientific research, and 22 international conferences on how to solve the global warming crisis.
c. the reality of the minimum time needed to convert all global fossil fuel energy generation systems to green energy generation systems (currently about 35-50 years).
d. we have crossed many known and unknown global warming tipping points over the last 30 + years within relevant climate systems and subsystems. This process invariably condemns us to continue crossing even more dangerous known and unknown global warming tipping points at faster and faster rates years as we try to convert over to green energy generation systems and eliminate almost all fossil fuel use over the next 30-50 years.
Why understanding fossil fuel carbon (Co2) pollution of our atmosphere is important to understanding irreversible global warming
Viewing atmospheric carbon ppm measurements is the single best way to see both current and future global warming trends. Because of the laws of physics, if carbon keeps going up in the atmosphere, heat will increase. Despite what you hear in the media, we are not making atmospheric carbon reduction progress.
It is already terrible, and it is going to get much worse.
As of October 2017, we have 404 carbon parts per million (ppm) in our atmosphere. Until 2016, we were creating an average increase of 3-4 or more carbon ppm each year. (October of 2016 carbon amounts were later adjusted down to carbon 402 ppm.)
There are also minor monthly variations in carbon ppm levels, as well as cyclical weather variations due to things like El Nino or La Nina. In spite of such variations, the clearly dominant trend for the last 70 years is carbon ppm rising faster and faster.
At these current carbon levels, the stability of the bellwether West Antarctic ice sheet has already been breached and is now also irreversible. (The West Antarctic ice sheet is an excellent example of another critical global warming tipping point the world has hurdled past faster than anyone had foreseen.)
At the carbon 425-450 ppm threshold (which we will hit in about 4-10 years) we will continue crossing more of the 11 critical global warming tipping points within the climate’s many systems and subsystems but at a faster rate!
Once we cross the carbon 500 ppm threshold ALL ice and ALL glaciers on Earth will go into complete meltdown and the oceans will eventually rise by 70 meters (230 feet). Crossing the carbon 500 ppm threshold has happened repeatedly in Earth's geological history.
When we did cross this carbon ppm level, sea level inevitably began it's rise to the 70 meters (230 feet) range. At our current annual carbon ppm emission rates we will reach the catastrophic carbon 500 ppm range in about two dozen years.
The initial temperature range associated with triggering irreversible global warming is an increase in average global temperature of about 2.2° to 4° Celsius (4°-7.2° Fahrenheit) which, unfortunately, is almost where we are now considering all other “already baked in” and unchangeable global warming temperature raising factors.
There is no way to fix our situation--only ways to survive it
At the present time, we are at the beginning stages of irreversible global warming because we also can’t stop carbon ppm levels from continuing to rise at about 3-4 ppm or more per year for at least another 30 - 50 years. This is due to the fact that we cannot quickly enough transform the world from being dependent upon dirty fossil fuel energy generation to employing clean green energy generation.
To better understand why we are already committed to irreversible global warming, it is important to look deeper into the term committed global warming. It means there is an already "baked-in" average global temperature increase between about 1.5° and 2.7° Celsius which the Earth has or will soon hit and that it too, will not change for centuries no matter what we do.
This is due in significant part to:
a. the existing momentum of carbon ppm already in the atmosphere,
b. the new carbon ppm per year that we will inevitably and invariably keep adding over the following 3-5 decades,
c. the already existing ocean warming,
d. the unknown crossed or soon to be crossed new global warming tipping points and,
e. the necessity of re-compensating mathematically for the grossly unrealistic calculations by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based on their projections for a new “miracle technology” appearing in the second half of the 21st-century for the mass removal of carbon particles from the atmosphere. This new “miracle technology” that will save us at the last minute is a false hope and delusional groupthink distortion of the worst kind.
False promises for a nonexistent "miracle technology" that can't save us in time
Unfortunately for us, it is this currently non-existent, earnestly wished for “miracle technology” that the IPPC’s 2015 Paris Agreement calculations rely most heavily upon to keep our future average global temperature increases below their unachievable target of 2° Celsius by 2100. The mathematical, scientific, and mechanical feasibility (to adequately scale up the non-existent miracle technology) as well as the unknown negative side effects of this non-existent, “miracle technology” have already been debunked by respected climate scientists like Kevin Anderson. This nonexistent new technology will not reverse our current irreversible global warming emergency, no matter how many times famous billionaire techno-optimists like Bill Gates suggest we must believe and trust that it is coming.
The dangers of delusionary groupthink on our survival
Most unfortunately of all, instead of telling the people of the world the difficult and necessary truth that we must immediately and radically cut back on fossil fuel usage to save both ourselves and future generations, the 2015 IPCC Paris agreement instead signaled:
“Don't worry humanity, you don't have to give up any of your current comforts or, even make any immediate, difficult, or costly changes in your existing fossil fuel-dependent lifestyles and business practices. A nonexistent new ‘miracle technology’ will magically appear sometime after 2050 which will allow us to suck all of those bad greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and miraculously save us long after we have already gone way past any safe levels for fossil fuel emissions."
This type of delusional groupthink and reliance upon a magical and non-existent miraculous new technology is only appropriate in children’s fairy tales—-never for vital scientific projections, particularly when those projections are the very projections which humanity and our civilization are relying upon for planning our future survival.
Keep this bad news in perspective
Because of the arrival of this new state of irreversible global warming, the processes for our extinction have accelerated. In spite of this bad news, keep in mind that if we are able to honestly face this new level degree of threat and act now, we still have time to prepare, adapt and save most of humanity and its achievements. Moreover, we can also continue to live meaningful and enjoyable lives!
Would you like to see the dangerous rise of human-caused carbon ppm in our atmosphere from a longer historical perspective?
The following graph will help illustrate the rising potentials of future problems of our currently rising carbon dioxide and carbon ppm levels in the atmosphere from a perspective of hundreds of thousands of years. As you can see in the last part of the graph, which has been broken out in the smaller yellow box to better illustrate our last 1,000 years, it clearly shows we have entered a whole new range of increased atmospheric carbon risk and threat exposure. We have gone from Ice Age long term cyclical carbon ppm highs of about carbon 275 ppm to over carbon 400 ppm.
Image via Robert A. Rohdes, Wikimedia commons.(Parts per million by volume [ppmv] includes other pollutants and trace greenhouse gases, such as methane.)
For hundreds of thousands of years through the various Ice Age cycles, we always stayed below the human civilization safe level of about 275 carbon parts per million by volume (ppmv). But, since the beginning of our use of fossil fuels starting with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, average global temperatures have soared to levels we have not seen for millions of years (about 1.5° to about 2.7° Celsius) and atmospheric carbon levels have soared to 409 ppm today.
This is very bad for our futures and our civilization because as mentioned above, in 4 to 10 years, carbon ppm in the atmosphere will reach 425 to 450 ppm. This is roughly double the previous civilization safe highest Ice Age cyclical average point of about carbon 275 ppm for the last 400,000 years.
In summary
When the public takes into account all of the above facts concerning the causes and conditions behind the new irreversible global warming reality, critical-thinking individuals and organizations will agree that we have, in fact, already entered a new state of irreversible global warming. Unfortunately, that also condemns us to endless chains of disastrous consequences and new crossed global warming tipping points.
Want information on how you can protect your family, business, and nation from the looming global warming catastrophes?
Want more information on the causes and what to do about irreversible global warming?
Many of the gross miscalculations by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as the other key factors that helped bring about today's state of irreversible global warming have been described in the new book Climageddon.
All of the preceding, and far more information about the escalating warming emergency can be found in the Climageddon book. Get your copy now!
If you are interested in understanding the climate science and analysis procedures we used to present the above information, click here for a technical explanation of our climate research process.
Be the first to comment
Sign in with