Article COP28: Five reasons for optimism on climate

[C C]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67627242

INTRO: It's easy to feel overwhelmed by bad news about climate change. Even for those of us used to covering it every day as journalists, it can sometimes seem relentless.

Of course we are right to worry. This year will be the warmest twelve months in 125,000 years, scientists say, as its impacts hit home in every corner of the Earth.

But as delegates try to reach a deal at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, there are some real reasons to be optimistic too. Here's a look at some of them... (MORE - details)

COVERED: 1 - The secret solar revolution ..... 2 - The EV that pays for itself ..... 3 - Betting on big batteries ..... 4 - Here comes the judge ..... 5 - "When hope and history rhyme…"

[Syne]

The United Nations is expected to tell Americans to cut back on their meat consumption to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, despite serving meat products during its COP28 climate summit in Dubai. - https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/polic...onsumption

[geordief]

I was surprised to see this guy
https://www.billnye.com/
being interviewed on CNN(by Erin Burnett, I think)

He said that research (presumably recent research) indicates that the proposition that we are facing a tipping point wrt global warming and climate change seems to be wrong and that we are looking at "more of the same" if we allow things to continue.

He suggested it was more likely that ,as temperatures rise (and water levels rise on the coasts) that it will "just" mean worse fires ,worse storms,worse ecological degradation ....but no tipping point.

If he is right (and I don 't know what his sources are(if any) )then that seems to me both good news and bad.

Does anyone know what he might be referring to?

The tipping point has been an article of faith with me.
I would be initially glad to see the back of it but will it sap our morale to adjust to a new sustainable economy if the dangers of backsliding are possibly less alarming and dramatic?

[Syne]

If true, it's just another step in the long history of climate doomsayers having to change their tune.

[C C]

[...] Does anyone know what he might be referring to?

I have no idea, especially since the recent Global Tipping Points Report hardly sounds like they're off the table. Strange that Nye of all people might be channeling something else.

Here are its key points: https://global-tipping-points.org/summar...-messages/

Article in The Conversation below.

https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/glossary/

Tipping point: A level of change in system properties beyond which a system reorganises, often in a non-linear manner, and does not return to the initial state even if the drivers of the change are abated. For the climate system, the term refers to a critical threshold at which global or regional climate changes from one stable state to another stable state.

(Dec 6, 2023) Climate tipping points are nearer than you think – our new report warns of catastrophic risk
https://theconversation.com/climate-tipp...isk-219243

EXCERPT: The climate system has many potential tipping points, such as ice sheets disappearing or dense rainforests becoming significantly drier and more open. It would be very difficult, effectively impossible, to recover these systems once they go beyond a tipping point.

We along with 200 other scientists from around the world just published the new Global Tipping Points Report at the COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai. Our report sets out the science on the “negative” tipping points in the Earth system that could harm both nature and people, as well as the potential “positive” societal tipping points that could accelerate sustainability action.

Here we look at the key messages from report sections on tipping points in the Earth system, their effects on people, and how to govern these changes.

Having scoured scientific evidence of past and current changes, and factored in projections from computer models, we have identified over 25 tipping points in the Earth system.

Six of these are in the icebound parts of the planet (the “cryosphere”), including the collapse of massive ice sheets in Greenland and different parts of Antarctica, as well as localised tipping in glaciers and thawing permafrost. Sixteen are in the “biosphere” – the sum of all the world’s ecosystems – including trees dying on a massive scale in parts of the Amazon and northern boreal forests, degradation of savannas and drylands, nutrient overloading of lakes, coral reef mass mortality, and many mangroves and seagrass meadows dying off.

Finally, we identified four potential tipping points in the circulation of the oceans and atmosphere, including collapse of deep ocean mixing in the North Atlantic and in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, and disruption of the West African monsoon.

Human activities are already pushing some of these close to tipping points. The exact thresholds are uncertain, but at today’s global warming of 1.2°C, the widespread loss of warm water coral reefs is already becoming likely, while tipping in another four vital climate systems is possible. These are Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet collapse, North Atlantic circulation collapse, and widespread localised thaw of permafrost.

[geordief]

A pity I can't track down a clip of that interview.

It doesn't seem to be on his website or YouTube and Erin Burnett doesn't seem to do a podcast of her daily programme.

I can't be bothered wading through Nye's website ,especially as he seemed to be saying it was a very recent opinion.

If I come across anything related to it in the next week or so I will post again here.

Perhaps there is a distinction he was relying upon between a single tipping point and multiple tipping points?

It seems incontrovertible that multiple tipping points do exist (or at least incontrovertible that it cannot be shown that they do not exist)

[Syne]

... (or at least incontrovertible that it cannot be shown that they do not exist)

Since science cannot show that things "do not exist," this is an a-scientific statement at best. Claiming it "incontrovertible" is just pure hubris.

[geordief]

... (or at least incontrovertible  that it cannot be shown that they do  not exist)

Since science cannot show that things "do not exist," this is an a-scientific statement at best. Claiming it "incontrovertible" is just pure hubris.

An overstatement perhaps but does anyone seriously contend that tipping points in climate do not exist?

Are you just being contrary ? Making a mountain out of a mole hill.

[C C]

A pity I can't track down a clip of that interview.

It doesn't seem to be on his website or YouTube and Erin Burnett doesn't seem to do a podcast of her daily programme.

I can't be bothered wading through Nye's website ,especially as he seemed to be saying it was a very recent opinion.

If I come across anything related to it in the next week or so I will post again here.

Perhaps there is a distinction he was relying upon between a single tipping point and multiple tipping points?

It seems incontrovertible that multiple tipping points do exist (or at least incontrovertible that it cannot be shown that they do not exist)

I couldn't locate anything on his website, either. It is unusual to not even find a snippet on YouTube (though occasionally it can take a few days).

- - - EDIT - - -

Okay, I found a 5-month-old video labeled NBC News where he's essentially saying something along that line, responding to mention of a tipping point.

https://youtu.be/wheAZbSNT0w

TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT: I have to ask, is this the tipping point that everyone has been warning about, or is this just El Nino being a little warmer?

Oh, no, it's more than just El Nino.

So everybody generally believes right now that there will not be this catastrophic moment where everything changes like in the movie where the Atlantic freezes over or the Gulf Stream shuts off completely.

Instead, everything will just get worse and worse and worse.

The Gulf Stream will slow down, the conveyor belt around the world will slow down.

And these events, where it's really warm and the ozone is held near the ground by an inversion layer and all that, it's just going to get worse. And people have been talking about this for years...

https://youtu.be/wheAZbSNT0w

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/wheAZbSNT0w

[Syne]

... (or at least incontrovertible  that it cannot be shown that they do  not exist)

Since science cannot show that things "do not exist," this is an a-scientific statement at best. Claiming it "incontrovertible" is just pure hubris.

An overstatement perhaps but does anyone seriously contend that tipping points in climate do not exist?

Are you just being contrary ? Making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Considering the climate has been much hotter and more dominated by greenhouse gasses in the distant past, it's demonstrable that not all tipping points are catastrophic nor irreversible. So like the triviality of "climate change," its not about the tipping points, themselves. It's about the doom and gloom the prognosticators have repeatedly gotten wrong.

And just a simple fact, especially in science, that nothing can "incontrovertibly" be shown to not exist. Misrepresenting science to support politics does a disservice to science.