It proposed a new goal of limiting the “overshoot” of rising temperatures and eventually figuring out how to undo the temperature gains, a highly uncertain path.
Additional coverage:
It proposed a new goal of limiting the “overshoot” of rising temperatures and eventually figuring out how to undo the temperature gains, a highly uncertain path.
Additional coverage:
How exactly do you reverse runaway feedback loops?
These ones?
We uh, can’t.
Not in the timescale that matters to us, with the resources and technological development available at hand.
But generally speaking?
You would need to introduce a different, runaway feedback loop that modifies/cancels/counters the first.
Like fungi did when they learned to eat lignin, or cyanobacteria introduced when they started spitting out that horrible and nasty O2.
Time and scale are what will do us in.
We just didn’t pace ourselves at all, societally speaking.
Weren’t able to build the chemistry and engineering tools needed to meaningfully expand the scope of the system beyond our planet to access any other resources or solutions beyond it…
And still cannot agree to any meaningful planet side changes that might even remotely allow for later pipedreams, because they need to happen now.
The Futurama ice cube joke is funny, but we can’t even attempt anything half as harebrained on a fraction of that scale.
Destroy the nearest star.
They’re not yet at runaway. If we drop emissons to zero, then temperatures stabilize within a human lifetime
You realize we’re already locked in for between 4-10C in warming, with the highest probability being at 6C, right? That’s if you stopped all emissions right now.
We’d be hit with an immediate 1-1.5C in warming as we lose the cooling effect of all the particulates (like diesel exhaust) in the atmosphere, pushing us to +3-3.5C. From there, the natural feedback loops take care of the rest.
The amount locked in is more like 2°C if we did a crash shift off fossil fuels and meat. Those higher numbers presuppose that people won’t forcibly shut down fossil fuel using plants and equipment before the end of its useful life.
We’re almost at 2C already and that’s with the cooling effect from all of the particulates.
Lmao