Professor Kevin Anderson From iniquity to integrity … there’s no hiding from carbon budgets

Talk Abstract:

As climate change increasingly exacerbates extreme weather events around the globe, so government leaders are increasingly using the language of a “climate emergency”. But look beyond the fine words, and it is quickly evident that behind the relatively recent framing of ‘net zero’, many governments, companies and institutions are planning for little more than incremental adjustments to business-as-usual. But “nature will not be fooled” by empty rhetoric, subterfuge and unsubstantiated optimism – and nor should we. The challenges we face in delivering on our Paris climate commitments beg fundamental questions of almost every facet of modern society. This presentation will seek to lay bare the sheer scale, scope and urgency of emission cuts now required to meet our Paris climate commitments. It will conclude by offering an outline of the key characteristics delivering on such commitments needs to entail. Please note, for those with a more sensitive disposition, this is very much a “red pill” presentation.

Short Bio:

Kevin is professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester and visiting professor at the Universities of Uppsala (Sweden) and Bergen (Norway). Formerly he held the position of Zennström professor (in Uppsala) and was director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (UK). Kevin engages widely with governments, industry and civil society, and remains research active with publications in Climate policy, Nature and Science. He has a decade’s industrial experience in the petrochemical industry, is a chartered engineer and fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Twitter: @KevinClimate

[radman]

When I began following you Kevin you were still pulling your punches. Now you've become unapologetic about speaking the truth. That's enough. There is true nobility in that. If you're ever in need of a Sancho Panza I would be honored.

[rapauli]

Anderson combines the latest climate science with clear moral view. Important words. Thank you for posting

[marinangeli]

Six years ago I was compelled to write the following poem. It was inspired by the utter lack of public attention on the very dire topic of anthropogenic climate change... and pointed at the predator class who intentionally keep the masses distracted from the details and depth of our dilemma. That was six years we did not have to waste... how much more time will be wasted before we act? It is already too late to return to the world we knew just a decade ago. If we hope to have a survivable future, at all, the whole of humanity must come together, immediately and willingly, to change the paradigm.

Standing Alone

Standing alone, on the shores of iniquity
I prepare for the wave…
The wave of deceit
The wave of greed
The wave of immorality
The wave of dishonor

Standing alone, on the shores of despair
I wave goodbye…
Goodbye to truth
Goodbye to honor
Goodbye to nature
Goodbye to future

Standing alone, on the shores of integrity
I salute the brave hearts…
Hearts that cherish
Hearts that commit
Hearts that compel
Hearts that travail

Standing alone, on the shores of infinity
I cling to the Spirit…
The Spirit of Love
The Spirit of Life
The Spirit of Wisdom
The Spirit…

Laura Marinangeli, June, 2017

[martiansoon]

Don't forget that most politicians sits on that top 1% or at least top 10% income group. This means they have no intentions to lessen their own emissions.

[tomhall]

One month, five comments. The most momentous chapter in the human story doesn't seem
able to hold the public's attention. Not looking good my friends.

[AKrn]

This guy always leaves in me stitches. It's a coping mechanism.

[martiansoon]

Well, arguing about 1, 5C is pretty pointless. It is pretty much lost cause already. We have to discuss more about staying under 2C and avoiding 3C or over.

Without rapid emission cuts (that are nowhere to be seen) we are going well above 3C temperature rise and that is too high change rate for multitude of species. We will lose nature and in the same time we will be losing food crop that we rely on.

[cameronwhitford]

1.4K… should be 1.4 mil… insane, terrifying stuff

[martiansoon]

Remember also that most of the pledges are failing already...

[martiansoon]

Add military emissions and all the rest that are not included and you'll end up adding emissions...

[marklevine]

this is really important and impactful. If you have a written version of this or a way to share the slides or PowerPoint so that we can share this with others in our own classes (for those of us who teach) it would be great if those could be public

[paulsholar]

Why hasn't Australia already begun to cover its central 75% of territory with solar farms?

[harveytheparaglidingchaser]

Well presented, excellent content, easy to understand. The problem is at least clearly framed. That's a good starting point

[havenmist]

Ask yourself, how many people would ask this person to come in and speak, praise him and keep him in a job, if his message was NOT that the world is going to burn?

[martiansoon]

In current drying climate likelihood that tree that is planted today will survive to 2070 is not that high. It'll burn or it is clearcutted for industrial uses. Also in overall picture forest floor and forest are becoming a carbon source, not a sink that they were before. So you cannot calculate ANY CO2 capture on planting trees today.

[Nhoj]

No ‘BAU’?
‘Most’ ‘economic thinking’ is ‘short run’ and ‘redundant’? ‘It’ ignores the ‘supply side’? ‘Growth’ {and ‘civilisation’} depends upon ‘cheap’ F.F. – those so called ‘halcyon days’ are ‘over’. ?
“The crisis now unfolding, however, is entirely different to the 1970s in one crucial respect… The 1970s crisis was largely artificial. When all is said and done, the oil shock was nothing more than the emerging OPEC cartel asserting its newfound leverage following the peak of continental US oil production. There was no shortage of oil any more than the three-day-week had been caused by coal shortages. What they did, perhaps, give us a glimpse of was what might happen in the event that our economies depleted our fossil fuel reserves before we had found a more versatile and energy-dense alternative. . . . That system has been on the life-support of quantitative easing and near zero interest rates ever since. Indeed, so perilous a state has the system been in since 2008, it was essential that the people who claim to be our leaders avoid doing anything so foolish as to lockdown the economy or launch an undeclared economic war on one of the world’s biggest commodity exporters . . . And this is why the crisis we are beginning to experience will make the 1970s look like a golden age of peace and tranquility. . . . The sad reality though, is that our leaders – at least within the western empire – have bought into a vision of the future which cannot work without some new and yet-to-be-discovered high-density energy source (which rules out all of the so-called green technologies whose main purpose is to concentrate relatively weak and diffuse energy sources). . . . Even as we struggle to reimagine the 1970s in an attempt to understand the current situation, the only people on Earth today who can even begin to imagine the economic and social horrors that await western populations are the survivors of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia, the hyperinflation in 1990s Zimbabwe, or, ironically, the Russians who survived the collapse of the Soviet Union.” ?

It's a 'race'?
Between an increase in CO2 leading to a 'mass extinction'
{“ . . . it is these ocean state changes that are
1:02:28 correlated with the great disasters of the past impact can cause extinction but
1:02:35 it did so in our past only wants[once] that we can tell whereas this has happened over
1:02:40 and over and over again we have fifteen evidences times of mass extinction in the past 500 million years
1:02:48 so the implications for the implications the implications of the carbon dioxide is really dangerous if you heat your
1:02:55 planet sufficiently to cause your Arctic to melt if you cause the temperature
1:03:01 gradient between your tropics and your Arctic to be reduced you risk going back
1:03:07 to a state that produces these hydrogen sulfide pulses . . . “
and a collapse in civilisation brought about by the lack of fossil fuels which will lead to the collapse of CO2 production?

[daviribeiro]

Higg, gere is Aba Marua fron Brasil, in Rio, at Teresopolus

[paulallen]

Thank god for freedom of speech! We get to know how dangerous these climate zealots are, fortunately they will never get their way....

[timfallon]

It is really important to remember that no one ever died from climate prior to the industrial revolution.
Bad mankind, naughty mankind.

[guiart]

Start these talks by asking how many people in the audience have automobiles. Then say out of 100 of you 95 have to stop driving forever tomorrow morning. Then apply that to the entire planet and see how many of the people are still there at the end of the talk. It’s all a big joke!