The chance of exceeding the 1.5 degree benchmark of limiting global warming stands at 70%, the UN’s weather agency says.
The chance that average warming from 2025 to 2029 is to exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) benchmark stands at 70%, the United Nations (UN) said.
As a result, the Earth is expected to remain at historic levels of warming.
This comes after the planet experienced the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024, according to a report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN’s climate agency.
We know. It’s not like big oil or most (if any) governments are actually trying to hide it.
70% is still much lower than what I would have expected.
Let’s face it, I would be happy if we prevent WWIII. Global warming is an afterthought for most of us now.
We have the power to fight back! Contact politicians in your country and demand a faster transition to renewable energy. The economic harms caused by climate change are far greater than the cost of switching to renewable energy.
One possible idea I had is to take advantage of global anti-Trump sentiment and urge countries especially those hit hard by Trump’s tariffs to fight back by buying less fossil fuels especially less fossil fuels from the U.S. I’m not sure if people from other countries understand just how influential the U.S. fossil fuel industry is in electing Trump and Republicans. It’s similar to how people are (unfortunately too slowly it seems) moving away from buying Russian fossil fuels.
So when you boycott fossil fuels you’re stopping authoritarian regimes and saving the planet.
OP’s username checks out!
We’re frying ourselves. And again I met a person today who doubted if it’s human made and not maybe just some natural cyclic thing. Some people just don’t want to see a truth when it’s bleak. Shiny happy people.
We’re not going to reach 2 degrees? That’s great.
Great Show. Haven’t watched season 3 yet, so thanks for the reminder.
Obviously humane are not as self determined as we like to think. Maybe our paths are predetermined through our evolutionary development.
Decision making motivated by emotions. Quick success, own advantage or the closest pressing issue is always more important than sustainability and the common good. Bad emotions are suppressed and messengers of bad news are chased out of the village.
And then there are the ones who believe that all is lost and nothing can save us. Like me. Not helpful, I know.
I believe we’re seeing a universal law in action: any technologically advanced civilization will end up destroying itself. Whether it’s the warming due to extracted fossil fuels, or a nuclear war, or AI, …, there is, and must be, a seed of destruction in every advanced civilization. I purposefully say ‘must be’ because of the Fermi paradox, which should indicate to us all how any sci-fi future is forever beyond our grasp.
I disagree that the lack of a hard answer to the Fermi Paradox necessarily indicates that any technologically advanced civilization must invariably end up destroying itself. There are a variety of potential explanations that could explain our apparent solitude, of which a technological great filter is but one. For example, our universe is quite young, both in terms of how long a universe lives before its heat death and in terms of how long a universe continues producing stars capable of sustaining life. With this in mind, it’s entirely possible that we are simply the first to achieve sentience in our galaxy (as intergalactic travel is an unlikely prospect), especially if there is some particularly difficult evolutionary hurdle that we have already passed. Alternatively, it may be that communication methods detectable by us (such as radio emissions) are methods used only by technologically primitive spacefaring species, and so it could be that there is only a short window of time during which a species is visible to observers outside the system. And those are just two of a myriad of potential solutions to the paradox.
Space is vast, and the fact that we haven’t found anyone else yet should not be taken as proof nobody is out there. That’s like scooping a cup of water out of the ocean and declaring there are no fish in the ocean on the basis of that cupful of water alone. Looking more toward earth, I also want to note that humanity is a tenacious bunch. We have survived ice ages and super volcano eruptions in our past, climate extremes that mimic what could be produced by nuclear war. Undoubtedly, many of the outlined scenarios would be unpleasant and lead to an unacceptable loss of both human and non human life, but I find it unlikely that humanity wouldn’t cling on. Even if 99.99% of humanity died, that still leaves 800,000 people alive, and I doubt it would take more than 1000 years before we were back on our feet.
There might indeed be ways around the filter, e.g. a stable, non-exploitative society but they would never reach space. The filter might indeed not even exist, space could indeed still be young but I’m not very convinced. If space were young, and if it were to expand as it currently does, civilizations would have fewer opportunities as there would be fewer visible stars to explore. As time grows, chances get smaller still.
Let’s say humans do cling on. I believe they will face challenges that are too steep to make long-term survival probable. Not only the heavily pollution and the unlivable climate, but the depletion of basic minerals will probably prove too great an obstacle. That band of humans must have held on and maintained all current technology, and have sufficient power sources, to be able to do some deep underground mining, as all easy-to-reach minerals have already gone. Without technology or those minerals, I’m not sure how we’ll be growing food or cleaning the air to breathe.
I think you misunderstand how the expansion of the universe works. While the universe is expanding, it does not do so at a uniform rate on a local scale, as that expansion can be countered by various forces, most notably gravity. It’s expected that while space will continue to expand, stars within galaxies and groups/clusters of galaxies will all remain bound to each other for as long as that gravitational effect persists. Within the Local group (of which the Milky Way is part), for example, there are at least 80 galaxies, and those will stay bound indefinitely (according to our current limited understanding). Galaxies outside of our supercluster are, however, already moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so exploration outside of a supercluster without FTL tech would be impossible.
As for the accessible resource issue, that’s a fair point, and one I hadn’t considered. I imagine we would be able to repurpose already collected and refined materials from our old civilizations as a way to somewhat offset that, but it would definitely be a major hurtle to get past, especially if radioactive dust is a hazard we need to deal with on an atmospheric level. I still think humanity would find a way, as our ingenuity shouldn’t be underestimated, but I don’t think it’s a guaranteed thing at all, and I acknowledge my only reason for believing that is just a gut feeling and a, frankly, selfish desire to believe we aren’t as vulnerable as we appear to be.
Nonetheless, a humanity that barely clings on isn’t much of a win in either case, so even that is a cold comfort.
In our case at least, climate change is the answer to the Fermi paradox. Human civilization will collapse in the near future and billions are going to die. Don’t have kids.
Yep. It’s a big part of why my partner and I opted not to have kids. Not only is not having kids one of the best ways to limit one’s own carbon footprint but I also am deeply worried about the quality of life for us and for all generations after us.
It’s a bit sad. It feels like fighting windmills, too big of a task, general mistrust that my fellow humans would work towards the same future. And maybe I mentioned it, there are always more pressing tasks and a limited personal energy budget.
The 1.5C pledge is dead. Guess what else is. :(
Humans!
Winner! Well, not really. When you think about it …
The world is run like a cooperation, more immidiate profits and no regards for who it may hurt in the long run, so they sell of the company. Protecting the planet for humans is not profitable at the moment until we start dying out and the rich own everything, then finally realizing there’s nothing to own after they enslave us. We gotta make more babies for them.
All the lines go up!
we are exceeding our goals
