Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change yields Charney (fast-feedback) equilibrium climate sensitivity 1.2 ± 0.3°C (2σ) per W/m2, which is 4.8°C ± 1.2°C for doubled CO2. Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era—including ‘slow’ feedbacks by ice sheets and trace gases—supports this sensitivity and implies that CO2 was 300–350 ppm in the Pliocene and about 450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet, exposing unrealistic lethargy of ice sheet models. Equilibrium global warming for today’s GHG amount is 10°C, which is reduced to 8°C by today’s human-made aerosols. Equilibrium warming is not ‘committed’ warming; rapid phaseout of GHG emissions would prevent most equilibrium warming from occurring. However, decline of aerosol emissions since 2010 should increase the 1970–2010 global warming rate of 0.18°C per decade to a post-2010 rate of at least 0.27°C per decade. Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming increases hydrologic (weather) extremes. The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature. Required actions include: (1) a global increasing price on GHG emissions accompanied by development of abundant, affordable, dispatchable clean energy, (2) East-West cooperation in a way that accommodates developing world needs, and (3) intervention with Earth’s radiation imbalance to phase down today’s massive human-made ‘geo-transformation’ of Earth’s climate. Current political crises present an opportunity for reset, especially if young people can grasp their situation.

My basic summary (I am NOT a climate scientist so someone tell me if I'm wrong and I HOPE this is wrong for my children), scientists had dismissed hotter climate models due to the fact that we didn't have historical data to prove them. Now folks are applying hotter models to predicting weather and the hotter models appear to be more accurate. So it looks like we're going to break 2C BEFORE 2050 and could hit highs of 8C-10C by the end of the century with our CURRENT levels of green house gases, not even including increasing those.

EDIT: Adding more sources:

Use of Short-Range Forecasts to Evaluate Fast Physics Processes Relevant for Climate Sensitivity: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019MS001986

Short-term tests validate long-term estimates of climate change: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01484-5

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[+] TCB13 -65 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (67 children)

What's your suggestion as alternative? Being vegan is even worse for the environment. Aren't Avocados also a monoculture?

We've to eat something and preferably not crickets. There's no excuse to cut on meat production, especially during the food crisis that Ukraine / Russia created for Europe.

[–] htrayl 57 points 5 months ago (63 children)

Being vegan is absolutely not worse for the environment.

[+] TCB13 -60 points 5 months ago (62 children)

Yes it is, you're talking about mass producing tons of very specific plans, poisoning everything with monsanto and it required more land and for what's worth it might not be that healthy. We should eat about everything not just plants.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

So first there is a difference between reduction of meat products and an elimination. Having people consume less meat is good and helpful even if they don't cut it out completely.

Second, as a vegetarian, I don't understand what you mean by producing a bunch of monocultures. Do you think vegans just sit around all day eating avocados? I eat very little dairy or egg, and my diet consists largely of beans, rice, chilli, bread, stir fry, tofu, peanuts/legumes, veggies, baked potatoes, sandwiches, etc. I eat a large variety of staple goods cooked into a variety of dishes from around the world, and classic American fare, just without meat. Avocados and other resource intensive crops like almonds are a minority of my diet by a large margin. Things like beyond meat is also an infrequent treat.

Edit: here's a decent article. https://www.nytimes.com/article/plant-based-diet.html

Generally speaking, a plant-based diet consists largely of vegetables, fruit, beans, legumes, grains and nuts, with little or no meat, dairy or fish.

Yet another major study has recently been published, showing that eating a plant-based diet is significantly better for the environment than eating a meat-based diet.

The research, conducted by Oxford University, found that people who follow a meat-free diet are responsible for 75 percent less in greenhouse gas emissions than those who eat meat every day, and that following a low-meat, vegetarian or pescatarian diet is proportionally less detrimental to land, water and biodiversity than a meat-heavy diet.

Referenced research: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00795-w

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