Science Snippets: There's No Going Back

Draft script:

We can reverse our decisions. We cannot reverse our actions. We can apologize. We can try to help someone we have harmed. But there is no going back from poor decisions that have led to poor actions and outcomes.

The headline at The Verge on 23 October 2024 reads Trying to reverse climate change won’t save us, scientists warn. Here’s the subhead: “Counting on new technologies to cool down the planet comes at a cost.”

Here’s the lede: “Tech companies think they can reverse climate change with fancy new tools to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.” The following two sentences complete the first paragraph: “But new research throws cold water on the idea that cooling the planet after it has already heated beyond a key turning point can avoid serious damage. Much of the toll climate change takes — from rising seas to lost homes — can’t be undone, recent research published in the journal Nature warns.”

The lead author of the paper is head of the integrated climate impacts research group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. In a call with reporters before the peer-reviewed paper was published, he said “Climate change comes with irreversible consequences. Every degree of warming, or every point of a degree of warming ... comes with irreversible consequences.”

The Verge is admitting that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was correct with its IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. The special report was published on 24 September 2019, and it concluded that an overheated ocean makes climate change irreversible. Finally, a corporate media outlet—albeit a minor one—admits that Earth is amid irreversible climate change.

The story in The Verge explains that startups are developing technologies to help big polluters capture their carbon dioxide emissions. All of these strategies—from filtering CO2 out of the air or the ocean to trapping CO2 in rocks or concrete—have yet to demonstrate that they can scale up to a meaningful level.

Large tech organizations such as Google and Microsoft are supporting these emerging tactics to remove carbon dioxide. Even as these organizations have committed to net zero or net negative emissions, their carbon footprints have grown in recent years as they have expanded data centers for AI. So-called renewable energy, in the form of solar panels, wind turbines, and so forth, is insufficient for Google and the gang to operate without generating greenhouse gas emissions.

The article at The Verge dedicates an entire paragraph to a series of lies with which we are all familiar: “Globally, emissions need to reach net zero around 2050 to keep the planet from heating up much more than it already has. Nearly every nation on Earth has signed onto the Paris climate agreement of stopping global average temperatures from exceeding roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above temperatures before the Industrial Revolution. The world is quickly approaching that threshold — having warmed by around 1.2C already, which is supercharging climate-related disasters like monster storms and wildfires.”

Oh, my. Where to begin picking apart this paragraph. Nations of the world concluded we eclipsed the 2 C Rubicon more than a year ago. Net zero in 2050 is likely, although only because our species will be extinct long before then.

The article at The Verge continues with cheerleading for tech giants Google and Microsoft. These companies “have been among the biggest supporters of these emerging carbon removal tactics. They’ve made commitments to eventually reach net zero or net negative emissions, but their carbon footprints have grown in recent years as they expand data centers for AI. And there isn’t enough renewable energy installed yet to run these companies’ operations without still generating greenhouse gas emissions. Increasingly, tech companies are inking carbon removal deals to try to reverse the impact their pollution has had on the climate.

Globally, emissions need to reach net zero around 2050 to keep the planet from heating up much more than it already has. Nearly every nation on Earth has signed onto the Paris climate agreement of stopping global average temperatures from exceeding roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above temperatures before the Industrial Revolution. The world is quickly approaching that threshold — having warmed by around 1.2C already, which is supercharging climate-related disasters like monster storms and wildfires.

One of the hopes with carbon removal is that it can potentially reverse climate change, bringing temperatures back down if we overshoot that 1.5-degree target. But things won’t just go back to normal, the new research conducted by 30 scientists shows.”

I’ll turn to that peer-reviewed paper in Nature shortly. First, though, a short comment on the preceding two paragraphs. Again, net zero by 2050 is essentially guaranteed, one of the consequences of human extinction before then. Earth has warmed by more than 2 C, not the 1.2 C mentioned by The Verge. Continuing to mention a target of 1.5 C is ridiculous.

The peer-reviewed, open-access paper in Nature was written by 30 scholars. Published 9 October 2024, it is titled Overconfidence in climate overshoot. The Abstract cites considerable peer-reviewed evidence in an honest assessment: “Global emission reduction efforts continue to be insufficient to meet the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. This makes the systematic exploration of so-called overshoot pathways that temporarily exceed a targeted global warming limit before drawing temperatures back down to safer levels a priority for science and policy. Here we show that global and regional climate change and associated risks after an overshoot are different from a world that avoids it. We find that achieving declining global temperatures can limit long-term climate risks compared with a mere stabilization of global warming, including for sea-level rise and cryosphere changes. However, the possibility that global warming could be reversed many decades into the future might be of limited relevance for adaptation planning today. Temperature reversal could be undercut by strong Earth-system feedbacks resulting in high near-term and continuous long-term warming. To hedge and protect against high-risk outcomes, we identify the geophysical need for a preventive carbon dioxide removal capacity of several hundred gigatonnes. Yet, technical, economic and sustainability considerations may limit the realization of carbon dioxide removal deployment at such scales. Therefore, we cannot be confident that temperature decline after overshoot is achievable within the timescales expected today. Only rapid near-term emission reductions are effective in reducing climate risks.”

That last sentence tells the sad story: “Only rapid near-term emission reductions are effective in reducing climate risks.” As a society with an economy dominated by billionaires in the tech industry, I cannot imagine we will make a transition that includes the necessary “rapid near-term emission reductions.” As with most of what I say and write, I would be ecstatic to be proven wrong.