IPCC 'Survival Guide'. Hope or delusion?

The latest IPCC report suggests we can survive the 21st century by making unprecedented and totally radical changes in the next eight years. But even then we'll still need to suck billions of tons of CO2 back out of our atmosphere for decades. The IPCC reckon it can be done. But are they deluding themselves and giving us a false sense of security?

IPCC Report Link

Help support this channels independence at

Or with a donation via Paypal by clicking here

Video Transcripts available at our website

Check out other YouTube Climate Communicators

zentouro:

Climate Adam:

Kurtis Baute:

Levi Hildebrand:

Simon Clark:

Sarah Karvner:

Jack Harries:

Our Changing Climate :

Engineering With Rosie

[kennethdavis]

The elephant in the room being ignored in the IPCC reports is that the country with the biggest economy and military, as well as technological prowess, has a political party whose members deny climate change and have stymied all efforts to address it at the national level. This party controls most of the local government entities, and is almost certain to completely control two of the three branches of the federal government after November. Part of the platform of this party is to actually aggressively expand the extraction and use of fossil fuels. With this being the case, I simply cannot see the rationale for all the condemnation that is being rained down on doomers.

[flipwinks]

"My recognition is pessimistic, my will and hope optimistic." Albert Schweitzer

Since we are hardly willing to reduce our standard of living and many others seek to increase theirs to ours, we would be lucky to reach <3 degrees, but only if we could be able to recognize this contradiction in time.

Thank you for your effort, as always great report! 😚

[CherylHillier]

Changing agriculture to regenerative has to be the MOST cost effective thing you can do to sequester carbon - farmers are going broke trying to keep up with soaring costs of highly energy & fossil fuel intensive artificial ferts - Regen Ag restores the natural fertility of the soil, it doesn’t rely on extractive inputs AND sequesters carbon, restoring health to the planet & everyone on it - how is the IPCC missing this?

[ximono]

So the solution to the problem of exploitation and overconsumption is alternative ways of driving even more exploitation and overconsumption?

That is only treating a symptom (climate gasses), not the root cause (our way of life), which has other devastating effects as well (environmental, social, mental, etc).

We really need to think more deeply about the issues we are facing. And consider more closely how we choose to live our lives on this pale blue dot.

[andycordy]

Inspirational. How you keep a cheerful demeanor delivering this kind of statistical analysis, when all the evidence from the big players in thi game points to catastrophe, I just don't know but thank you for it.

[AlanBolshevik]

It is very clear that ending the current social system where considerations of profitability are king has to end if we are to have any chance to succeed in avoiding the catastrophe that is otherwise comming

[philflip]

Yet another highly informative, topical and even prescient presentation, well done and best wishes for continued success into the future.

[tumbao]

Something we never hear is the effect of changing the demands of human consumption and destructive/invasive behavior.

[ramblerandy]

Back in 1990, when I first knew that I had to make a noise to friends and anyone else I could influence, there was a great chance to make a difference before the problems really escalated, even though they were visible back then to anyone who looked properly. But nothing happened. People didn't really listen. These things need to have their right time. I became newly married, went to Uni as a mature student to study all of this, and tried to concentrate on our sustainability at home, which was bloody difficult when almost nobody else was batting for our side. The answer from people being that "nobody will be willing to wear a hair-shirt, " even if it was to save our habitat, which people were in no way convinced was going to happen anyway. Why would they? Climate change happens so slowly, and it's natural to do so. Except when we humans became involved on an industrial scale. Fast-forward to now and we've run out of time. The climate has revealed our results of doing virtually nothing in the meantime.
So how do we survive? We will have to change. Scientists are a cautious bunch on the whole, with climate scientists being even more so. So if they say we're in major trouble, you'd better believe it. Do what you can. Reduce your environmental impact. Honestly, what are you consuming now that you don't have to? It all adds up.

[zatar]

While I'm all for continuing to do all we can to keep global warming to a minimum We really need to admit that we're not going to hit our target on most fronts and start making plans for damage control for those places that are going to take the worst pounding as global temperatures keep going up.

[pipertripp]

On ray of hope here is that human populations are unlikely to hit the levels that the UN is projecting for mid-century. See the work by Bricker & Ibbetson (The Empty Planet). You can find Bricker discussing demographics here on Youtube. While it doesn't solve our problems by any means, it will make our task a lot easier than one might otherwise think.

[ProjectDarkWolf]

As optimistic as I'd like to be, I can't help but imagine showing my grown grandkids this video one day and insisting that yes, back when I was young, the world really was that beautiful.

[dragovian]

It's exactly as you said... "technicallly feasible, but realistically it seems unlikely". And since we all agree on this, why the heck aren't we enforcing things like:
- Given that we are always resist to that change(as a whole society), we should consider that a % of this will not be done, so it should be taken INTO the calculations
- We should calculate for all these years, the physical catastrophes and the amount of money this costs, for a yearly "increasing metric", that we should allocate each year to try to prevent this. (i.e 100 billions lost in the economy due to fires, so next year atleast 100 billions should be allocated to prevent the next fire and so on)
- Immediately tax all Co2 emmisions, with increasing cost/co2 kg, for some levels. Essentially we, small consumers will pay small, but do our part, but the bigger a company and the total amount of Co2 emmited, the higher the price each ton.

[djbrettell]

Hi Dave, I am surprised you didn’t show the chart with the emission reduction models necessary to stay under various temperatures. This is the chart that shows every model not even starting with the correct real emissions data for 2015 and 2020, all start below the real emission values. Just taking the purple trace, a limit to 2C, we see a sharp change in direction (I don’t think nature will concur) at 2030. All reduction models exceed the requirements that policy implement. In other words, pie in the sky models. Your first chart in the video shows emissions continuing to rise, anyone who believes emissions will peak, or humanity (and governments) can or will implement global policy to create such monumental change is delusional.

[daviddunn]

The problem with the IPPC report is it uses all current values of money, it does not take into account all the collateral Eco damage done by all this new technology, like destruction of good land by solar glass deserts, destroying nature and good farmland?
Money is the killer by enabling growth at almost any cost to the environment.
Money is the problem and solution, but as being the elephant in the room, nobody has the discussion of limiting and regulating it use by changing the tax system that could radically transform the crisis we face by addressing the base issues at the beginning of everything we do!
All Natural resources and ecosystems must be at the core of everything we all do every moment of our lives through our decisions we make on all consumption and use of all resources!

[nunofoo]

50% of the comments are:

"We'll easily solve this by using technology X or Y"

So.. they have no idea whats going on.

[UCCLdIkRECGtaGmoqO-TQ]

Realistically there's no possibility of effective reductions ever occurring. The situation is going to get progressively worse and worse until such time that the forces against human nature exceed its ability to survive (in this way, and in these numbers).

[SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

As someone who lives in the US, the cumulative emissions graph is why I’m a huge supporter of paying climate reparations to smaller countries.

We have a strong enough economy to rebuild our infrastructure for low emissions (if we can ever make it politically viable), but most smaller countries don’t. So they need our support in order to build carbon free electrical grids, robust public transit, green cities/towns, etc.

Not only do they need this support but we OWE it to them because we’ve contributed the most to the rotten situation that the whole planet is in right now.

[pipertripp]

Dave, have you looked into Precision Fermentation? That could be an enormous game changer, especially with the agriculture section of your IPCC chart.

[EddieS]

I have had roof top PV providing 85+% of my electric needs for over 12 years now. The meter on it states the CO2 save... 131, 000 lbs, or about 11, 000 lbs a year. This is just a small part by one household. If many would do the same, it would have a measurable impact on CO2 emissions. This is something that a lot of people in this country could and should do, especially in drier southern states. As a grid tied system and by having many small units spread around, the overall effect of clouds/weather would be minimized, potentially reducing needed for storage. Big box stores and the like with huge flat roofs, could also be included in this thinking. Not saying this would replace solar farms, but just to point out small-ish efforts that individuals and the like can do that would play measurably into all of this.