It's Too Late to Stop Global Warming, Scientist Says

[PunkTheFunk 125,734]

Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton scientist and longtime observer of UN climate talks, says that the world has lost its last shot at staving off dangerous global warming.

Oppenheimer, a Princeton professor since 2002, has worked on or in some of the most important environmental programs of the modern era. He is currently a coordinating lead author of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and he edits the journal Climatic Change. From 1981 to 1996, he worked as the senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, where he helped write the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act that reduced acid rain.

Along with other scientists, he lobbied the United States to start negotiating the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which President George H.W. Bush signed 25 years ago this week. Since then, he has attended the major UN climate negotiations, including Paris in 2015.

"I’m upset and troubled—as I rarely am, because I’ve been involved in this issue for 35 years. I’ve seen a lot of ups and downs, but this is the most discouraging. It is more discouraging than when George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol."

"The reality is the clock has been ticking all this time, all those 35 years the clock has been ticking. And because the clock has been ticking, Earth is already a degree warmer than it would otherwise have been. We don’t have much time to avoid the two degrees of warming that would destabilize ice sheets, entail extreme heatwaves, and potentially undermine food security. And this decision is just enough to push us over the edge, in my view. I think it’s totally unrealistic now to believe that we are going to meet that objective."

"So in a personal way, for someone who has worked on the issue for decades, this more so than any other setback seems to indicate that it’s highly unlikely that we can make the two-degree goal. The Trump action pushed us over the edge, and basically Trump owns the responsibility now for this problem."

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/oppenheimer-interview/529083/#article-comments

Earth:

The Human Race:

[Werk 13,166]

I refuse to believe this 

 

[littlepotter 76,625]

but

her

emails!

[DeleteMyAccount 11,881]

It's always been too late though. I thought we all knew that. However, these policies, like the Paris Agreement, are more about stabilizing and doing what we can to make the best of what we have of the world today and hopefully for the next few decades. 

 

[Saint Hollywood 37,364]

Trump to humanity:

[Chromatislaps 34,854]

It was irreversible, we can slow it down tho...but stopping it will take a lot more time.... 

I do think Trump needs to be put in jail.... he jeopardizes everything for putting more money in his pockets, gaining more fat after floppage and screwing over the entirety of the world.... fvck him....

the preservation of the climate should be a world right or something...and jeopardizing it for greed should be a crime for those in power positions...

[Yuuri 21,636]

Yeah planting trees will no longer work. The only way I can guess is to plant a ton of algee, as the ocean is greater than the land.

[River 129,020]

I don't care, the human race deserves this... I just feel bad for all the animals and plants that will die because of the selfish idiotic mind of the human race..

[TropicOfCANCER 6,292]

There's something to keep in mind. Trump can't withdraw the US from the Paris agreement until 2020. The withdrawal date is literally set for the day after the next election, so DEMOCRATS MUST VOTE TO GET A LIBERAL IN OFFICE TO ENSURE WE STAY IN THE AGREEMENT.

[ItWasntLaauv 6,392]

Honestly, I think the only way global warming could "reverse" at this point would be if people stopped f***ing reproducing so much, put more effort and money into clean energy, and made animal agriculture limited or outlawed.

The answers are right in front of us, but people are too attached to their societal norms and the emotions that come with them to make any actual change. Smh at literally everyone on the planet. 

[Bebe 17,289]

Yeah, coming from somebody who lives outside of the U.S this was my biggest worry with Trump getting in. Some of the other decisions he has made is disastrous for the U.S and that's terrible, but this decision is going to f*ck the world and that's deeply depressing. 

[RAMROD 118,151]

Hmmm, I thought the objective was to slow down the process than stop it altogether?

I think we been knew it is not possible to fix the situation completely since the beginning

 

[ryhanna 3,507]

Not surprised.

The worst part is that we're STILL taking too long with progress. It's not only inevitable, but we're also doing our absolute best to make sure we speed things up. 

[PunkTheFunk 125,734]

5 minutes ago, RAMROD said:

Hmmm, I thought the objective was to slow down the process than stop it altogether?

I think we been knew it is not possible to fix the situation completely since the beginning

Obviously we can't completely "stop" global warming per se. I think when he says "we can't stop it" he means "we can no longer slow it down."

[zakariah 11,787]

1 minute ago, PunkTheFunk said:

I think when he says "we can't stop it" he means "Happy 4th Birthday to We Can't Stop. Hit single by Miley Cyrus. Please Buy & Stream it on iTunes & Spotify."

Fixed. 

 

OT: I think we all kind of knew that the human race was gonna go to sh!t anyways.